Just a Normal Week

This week hasn't been too exciting, yet around here, our every day life could be considered exciting to some!

Last Friday when I was traveling home from the Homeschool Camp, I ran over some sort of metal object in the road (going 70MPH down the highway!). I tried to avoid hitting it with my tires, but I still somehow managed to snag it, and it pierced a large hole in my fuel tank! I was unaware of this at the time, and I continued to travel 30+ more miles home. While we were unloading the van, Julie came upstairs and said that she smelled a very strong "gas smell". I ran down to the garage to investigate, and I found gasoline pouring from underneath my van all over the garage floor. It was running like a water faucet! I immediately called my friend and mechanic Scott. Unfortunately he was off work that day, but I explained what was happening to his coworker who promptly called Scott at home and sent him over to my house. Scott graciously pushed the van out of the garage, cleaned up the gasoline from the floor, and called a tow truck! By this time my whole house smelled like gasoline! I opened several doors and ran a few fans for a couple of hours. The temperature was dropping, however, and I finally had to close up the house. I went to turn on our heat, and guess what? It wouldn't come on! I knew it would be Monday before I could call our appliance repairman. Thankfully, even though it remained cold throughout the weekend, our house never got too cold. The other heating units still worked, so they kept the house warm.

This week I have had to be very creative in transporting the children to various locations. We have an extra vehicle (Jimmy's truck), but it will only hold 5 people. On Sunday, we took two vehicles to church services. Monday we just stayed home from piano lessons, and a friend picked up the older three children for xc practice. Tuesday, Jimmy was off work, so he was able to take the children to practice. Yesterday, Scott (our kind family friend and mechanic) came out to my house and gave Clay a ride to church. This allowed me to take the rest of the children. Jimmy met us there and we all came home in our two vehicles. Today we had yearbook picture appointments and Olivia had an orthodontics appointment (she gets her braces off next Tuesday!), so I took 3 children with me for the first trip into town. Next I dropped them off and picked up the other 2 children and took them to town for their yearbook pictures. That took all morning!
The van is supposed to be ready sometime this afternoon! Just in time to take the children and my niece to xc practice!

We have been working in the yard a little this week. Jimmy and Sam worked on clearing a little more of our running trail, I began preparing the pool for winter, and we all worked together in getting the porches and yard tidied up. We are hosting a Spartan Family cookout this Saturday! Tomorrow we will finish up by weeding and cleaning the grill.

Other excitement this week included mountains of laundry, schoolwork, housework, and two birthday parties.