Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Running Late As Usual

I haven't had this blog very long and my posts are already late.  Oh well!  I hope I don't repeat myself.  So many new things are happening and I don't want to leave anything out.

Chris got settled into his new apartment and we all got to go check it out.  It was very nice and your typical corporate housing.  He gets to live somewhere that everything is neat and clean and there is no clutter.  That sounds a little like Heaven to me.  Just sayin'.

Here are a few of the things that Mason thought were important enough to document.  An 8 year old's perspective.



Here are couple of things that are important for me to document ;)  Tucker is under the Longhorn blanket, he does not want to be "documented."





Tucker's cast came off and his hand looks horrible.  I am not happy about the doctor and have heard some bad things about him since this all happened.  His knuckle is not where a knuckle should be!  The doctor said it is just cosmetic (who wants to look like they have the Elephant Man's hand?) and the only way to correct it is surgery.  When we get up to Huntsville we are going to try to find someone who knows what they're doing and see what they say.  Does this look normal to you?



Easter 2011.  Mason wanted a pillow pet so bad!  Chris kept telling me that he was a boy and was too old for a stuffed animal.  As you can see I listened.  Mason is very happy!



We all got dressed up, went to church, and then had lunch at Outback.  We hadn't been there in so long and was so yummy!









Chris' company paid to fly us all up to Huntsville to check out the area.  The day before we were supposed to fly out the tornadoes hit.  Chris had been stuck inside a conference room with many of the people he worked with all day long.  One warning would be over and then another would begin.  Because I already had the boys absences excused from school and Shane had gotten off work (not easy), we decided to go anyway.  Yes, I thought it would be a bright idea to take the boys to an area where there was no electricity.  Genius.  Fortunately, Chris' company said they would pay for us to stay near Nashville which is a little over an hour from Huntsville.  We went ahead with our plans.

I flew a lot as a child, but I am usually a little nervous about flying.  I don't like small spaces or turbulence(who does?).  When Shane was about 2 we flew to NY for my cousin Ken's wedding.  I flew with Mason to Houston to see my dad right before he passed away.  But they didn't remember it and Tucker had never flown before.  Tucker is a bit of a chicken...believe it or not....and did not want to fly.  The first plane was late and we spent a lot of time hanging out in the Pensacola airport and barely made it to Charlotte in time for our connecting flight but it was fun.  Mason was really excited and loved it.  You would never have known it to look at him but Tucker said he hated it and is never flying again.  Shane didn't think it was a big deal at all.  He isn't afraid of too much.

Flying into Charlotte everything was lit up and so pretty from the plane.  But flying into Huntsville was a different story all together.  There were almost no lights visible from the plane.  The county and probably most of North Alabama was under a dusk to dawn curfew.  We arrived around 11 pm and were a little worried that we might have some trouble getting to Chris' apt.  We made it fine after a very dark drive.
We did see quite a bit of damage driving to Nashville.  I could just see a big path that tore through everything in it's way.  One hundred year old trees ripped completely out of the ground.

 My child...the Unabomber.
 Mason enjoyed being waited on but wanted to know why all the boys who brought drinks around sounded like girls.
 You would have thought that Shane flew all the time....he was so relaxed.
 Chris' casa.
 Chris' new office.  They had a generator to run the electricity there.  We had to go in to charge our phones.

 The boys were impressed by the nameplate on the door.
 Tucker and Mason have a lot of energy.  You would think we pumped Red Bull into their veins!  So, before we went into the hotel for the night I made them run sprints in the parking lot.  It didn't work...they are hyper no matter what I do.  And a hotel room is SO exciting when your a kid.
Me kissing Jack Daniels.  He was a little short for my tastes :-)
 That is Jack's actual height.....5 ft. 2 in.

This is the Jack Daniels Distillery in Lynchburg, Tennessee.  We went because it was free....that's how we roll.  I am proud to report that my children now know how to make whiskey.  Mason's teacher told us that was the first thing he mentioned when he got back to school.
The tour guide told us he had been walking that morning with his son and they found pictures and papers from the tornadoes.  He told us that the day the tornadoes went through that the sky was raining trash...photos, paper and stuff.

 This is a cave with the spring water they use for the whiskey.  It was very pretty on the grounds.
 The water the ducks were in was the spring water.....so when you are drinking whiskey next time think about all of the duck poop that is in it.

 Isn't that beautiful?
This was a little hometown ice cream shop in "downtown" Lynchburg.  They sold Blue Bell, so I was happy!



We were fortunate to have talked a realtor into showing us a house before we left on a plane.  I am sure he had nothing better to do since he didn't have any electricity, food, water, or gas.  In other words, he thinks we're nuts.  We liked the house but it was a little far from "town" and more than we wanted to spend.  After talking to a few people, some who had been through similar natural disasters, we decided we needed to make a quick decision.  There were only about 5 houses to choose from that fit what we were looking for (area, schools, number of bedrooms).  We were afraid that insurance companies would start putting people who were waiting for their houses to be fixed in all of the rental homes.  I have also heard about rent on rental properties being raised in these situations.  Obviously, we didn't want that to happen.  We picked the house we looked at before leaving.  It has 4 bedrooms and I am very happy to report that it does not have wallpaper from 1993...which was one of my requirements.
We move over Memorial Day weekend and we are very excited.  Keep me in your prayers.  There is so much to do getting ready to move again....and once more I am doing it by myself.  I should be used to it by now :0)
I hope everyone had a Happy Mother's Day!  I did...the boys made it very special.

1 comment:

  1. I love the pics. I didn't even know Tucker broke his hand!! What happened?

    ReplyDelete