A Next Chapter in Life

Sorry I have been MIA the past few days. I have been busy with kindergarten orientation, preschool graduation and farewell picnic, an urgent care visit and, well, umm joining an online David Cook fan club.

Tuesday night we had kindergarten orientation. The first hour was supposed to be a pizza supper and then the next hour was a visit to the classrooms for the kids and a meeting for the parents. Everything was going well for the first 15 minutes until a tornado decided to come our way and we got to spend 20 minutes in the kitchen storage room. Imagine a group of soon to be kindy kids, stuffed into a dark storage room, in a strange school. Ummm yeah. But at the end of the evening all was well as we made our way home with a cool homemade hat, a nifty bag filled with goodies and a Lincoln Heights Elementary school t-shirt.
Sami before we left for orientation posing for the camera. (Why is she so adamant on putting her hands like that in every picture?)
My girls posing together.
All our goodies.

Wednesday night was preschool graduation. I had told myself this was my 3rd child to graduate preschool and come on it was only preschool. But when they put that little cap and gown on Sami my eyes started to water. And when she sang Jesus Loves Me I couldn't hold back the tears. And she even got a cute little diploma.

My graduate!
Sami getting her diploma.

Thursday morning was the farewell preschool picnic. It was so much fun watching Sami spend some last moments with her friends and with her teachers. It was for the whole preschool so the park was packed with little ones playing, jumping in the bounce houses, blowing bubbles and of course eating.

Sami and Miss Becky and Miss Sandi.
Sami on the playground. Isn't she so modest? Now if I could only get her in pants.

Our time at the picnic was cute short because we had to go pick up Chris from school. He just just finished his EOG (end of grade ) test and I had to take him to the urgent care for an x-ray. That morning he had tripped over a lego box in his room that I had many times told him to pick up. He fell into the foot board and broke his fall with his arm. His arm was all swollen and bruised. The Xray didn't show any big break, but the doctor couldn't rule out a hairline fracture. It was sprained and he had a muscle contusion, so we got this nifty sling. He can try using his arm on Monday and see how it feels. (Can I run off to a vegas hotels now?)

Chris refused to let me take his picture, so this camera phone picture will have to do.

It was such a bittersweet week. You can see more pictures here.

Okay Don't Pray For Rain

Tonight Matt and I dropped Emily off at practice and went to look at projection televisions. We had to goto the Sam's Club in North Raleigh to get the television Matt wanted. We were cutting close on time to pick Emily up so after we bought the tv I dropped Matt off at the house and went to pick Emily up.

Hallelujah! While we were at Sam's Club it started to rain. It wasn't raining when I left the house and drove to pick Emily up 15 minutes away. Since I was late in picking her up I didn't notice that I left my cell phone in the truck. Practice ran 15 minutes over so when we went out to the truck I heard my phone ringing. I answered to hear Matt screaming at me that there were tornadoes all around and he was scared to death because I didn't answer. At that point the weather was still fine where we were.

Emily and I started out for home. The sky was dark and the rain was just starting to fall. Everything then happened so quickly. We heard this horrible sound and the sky looked like I have never seen it. The rain was blinding and the power had gone out all around us. Practically the next street over was a funnel cloud in the sky. It looked something like this. (These are actual shots from where I live)


Emily was screaming, I was crying and trying to call Matt. We pulled into someone's drive and didn't know whether to stay put or goto the door. (Both could be dangerous, who knows who lives in the middle of nowhere) Matt said to stay put and if the sound got louder to get into the ditch. He then talked to Emily to try to calm her down. As luck would have it the phone cut out just about then so Emily was screaming "Daddy! Daddy!" I got Matt back on the phone and I think he may have been trying to make me not think about what was going on all around us because he then launched into telling me that our brand new flat screen tv was broken and we needed to return it. (At least I am hoping he was trying to do just that and not really worried about the dumb tv).

It took us almost an hour, but we made it back. Emily is tucked into bed (I guess all that screaming tired her out) and I am drinking a beer and getting ready to tag garage sale items for tomorrow. There are still storms headed our direction so I doubt I will be able to sleep. Who would have known that a hurricane that hit Texas would have such an impact all the way in North Carolina. But I guess on the bright side, I heard we got two inches of rain.

So the moral of the story is this –– Someone told me once to never pray for patience because God would give you something to be patient about. Never pray for rain either because who knows what form God will give it to you in. It may just be in a funnel cloud on the side of the road where two Jacobs' gals are scared to death.