One of those days or was it a week

Today was the climax of an outstanding week.  It started out pretty nice.  My two sons and their families were at the house for the labor day weekend and they put in the labor in Labor Day.  On Saturday I picked up 15 new trees for around the house and rather than planting them, Justin, Jason and I went to the base and played an hours worth of racquetball.

On Monday, I was up at 6:45 so I could help the scouts get the flags out.  Two boys showed up right on time and we got them planted (the flags, not the boys) in 24:44.  And we only missed one house.  I guess I need to learn how to read though trailer court maps a bit better.  After getting home, from the flags we cut down two old trees that Susie and I didn't like and replaced them with the 15 new trees and fixed a flower bed and sprinklers.  We topped the day off with a BBQ.  Everybody helped out and it was an enjoyable time.

Thursday morning Pam called and said that the carpet downstairs was all wet.  Fortunately, I had the van at my office, so I went home to assess the problem.  Yep, it was wet.  Where did the water come from?  Somebody turned the sprinkler on last night and forgot to turn it off.  I think somebody made an EyeDeeTenTee error.  Oops, my bad! 

Well I moved the furniture, pulled back carpet,  blocked it up and got fans blowing under it.  Hopefully it will dry out ok and not stink to bad - sorry Pam and Justin.  (I did sneak another game of racquetball Thursday afternoon while the carpets were drying).  Friday I didn't do much except watch carpet dry and sneak in another game of racquetball.

However I was so tired that I went to sleep early Friday evening and woke up Saturday a.m. when Bailee came running into our bedroom and said something was broken.  We couldn't figure out what she was talking about so we followed her down stairs.  There we found our beautiful 3 year old granddaughter, Sydney, with one of the little brass couch wheels and a glass window that had a hole in the middle and millions of fractures throughout the glass.  The whole thing was just waiting to collapse.  We just had the door put in a few months ago and are now second guessing the wisdom of putting in a door with glass windows.

But all is well that ends well.  All of Sydney's body parts are present and accounted for.  I believe Joel got a short lecture about not hiding behind glass doors when the sis is mad and wants to throw things at you.  It makes life very interesting when there are a bunch of energetic young people mixed in with us older dudes.

However I  can't help but smile when I think of our kids getting some of the same treatment that they gave us.  If you want to know about the earlier generation just ask Stacey about the toilet, Melissa about Shovels, Justin about bricks, and Jason about dancing (to avoid the bricks) or his vocabulary.  However, I can't leave Jennifer and Amber out (I have to be a little cautious about telling stories on Jennifer and Amber - they aren't married yet and I don't want to ruin their opportunities. j/k).  There are some other really great stories that may be posted in the future.  Some of these tales (with perhaps a little elaboration) will absolutely knock your socks off.

Is that all? Nope! Jennifer came home from work early Saturday morning and left a note on the kitchen counter telling us that Justin's car had been egged. Finally, Saturday evening just after writing and posting the original draft of this post, the hard drive on my computer failed.

However, I get to count my blessings because on Monday morning I received the following e-mail from a friend.

"There I was sitting at the bar staring at my drink when a large,trouble-making biker steps up next to me, grabs my drink and gulps it down in one swig.

"Well, whatcha gonna do about it?" he says, menacingly, as I burst into tears.

"Come on, man," the biker says, "I didn't think you'd CRY. I can`t stand to see a man crying."

"This is the worst day of my life," I say. "I'm a complete failure. I was late to a meeting and my boss fired me. When I went to the parking lot, I found my car had been stolen and I don't have any insurance. I left my wallet in the cab I took home. I found my old lady ran off with the gardener and then my dog bit me."

"So I came to this bar to work up the courage to put an end to it all, I buy a drink, I drop a capsule in and sit here watching the poison dissolve; then you, you butt-head, show up and drink the whole thing!

"But enough about me, how's your day going?"