Weekend Update

We had another hectic weekend. I took Friday off (from the bank) and spent the morning and evening with the kids. We spent Friday night at Lowes and Home Depot, trying desperately to fix the house up before Dad and Cathy come in town for the weekend. Lowes didn't have what I needed, so I called Home Depot to have them check. I decided to go ahead and drive there (20 min away) while I was on oscillating between please hold and let me transfer you. Just as I was pulling up to the parking lot, they told me that the guy I needed was on lunch. Great.

Saturday we went back out to Nebraska furniture mart. We had to pick up the radio we had purchased the weekend prior. It went smooth enough, and Brice and Jodi met us for lunch. On the way home we drove through a couple of neighborhoods and found Currie's Dream house. If anyone wins the lottery YOU BETTER CALL ME.

Currie went to a production of Steel Magnolias with her mother. You know the bullets that one redneck is shooting into the magnolia tree: they are the steel magnolias. I'm not sure exactly what the analogy is, but somehow I missed the whole thing in the Julia Roberts version. Of course, I was twelve, so, you know..Julia, Dolly, Daryl Hannah.

Sunday we went to church and resumed working on the house. That night we had dinner with our new neighbors, the Smiths. Rylie cut out early to spend the night with her grandmother. About 9:00, one of my friends called me because his car was broken down. I rounded up a tow strap and made my way over. Luckily for me, they were in the middle of a poker game when I got there. After we got the car back, I went ahead and took all of their chips for my effort. Of course, it wasn't a cash game. Great.

Today it's back to the grindstone. My boss is out of town for the week, but he left me a nice deadline to remember him by. I think Currie and the kids went to the pool. The real pool not the foul bucket of warm stagnate water that's destroying an eight foot plot of my back lawn. Dinner with the In-Laws tonight, company this weekend.

Life Saver

We went to the pool over the weekend with the kids. Parker is a dare devil, jumping into the deep end, wading in water up to his chin. He keeps asking me if he can go down the adult slide; it's Waterworld style with spins and a big pool at the bottom. He gets so disappointed when I tell him that he's not old enough yet.

We were walking back from that slide to the kiddy pool through a crowd of 10-15 year old kids. Rylie and Parker are always mesmerized by kids that age. It's like they can recognize they're similar species, but a slightly improved version. It's thus no real surprise that Rylie was watching those kids, not where she was going. She walked right off the edge into the 9ft deep pool. She just took another step, like the sidewalk was right there, and walked right in.

Currie saw the whole thing, and was only a couple of steps behind. She jumped in, hair fixed and all. I was two steps behind Currie, and by the time I got there she was emerging with Rylie and I pulled them out one at a time.

Everyone was pretty shaken up, Currie held it together so as not to freak Rylie out even more. A small crowd of on lookers and concerned parents were mulling around, though Curries heroics impressed the lifeguard so much that totally forgot to GET OUT OF HIS CHAIR (WTF!?!).

Immediately after, Rylie kept pleading with us not to make her go back into the big pool. We repeatedly explained that she fell in, we didn't push her. Now she tells the story of how her mom saved her life, how she fell in the pool and there were bubbles all around.

So, Currie earned the mother-of-the-year award over the weekend. The strange trend in my life of saving a loved one from drowning continues (I'll write more about that some other time).

Parker

With all the beauty and genius that is Rylie, Parker tends to take a back seat. Not only in his word count, but in the time he demands in the spotlight. I think he prefers not to be as front-and-center as his sister. He's more introspective, more thoughtful, more gentle.

But he also has a mischievous side. So here are a couple of pictures that show both his adorableness and his piss-and-vinegar-ness.

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