The Whirlwind

Last Wednesday (July 2), it rained. And then it poured.

We've just been getting into many of our summer activities - tutoring for Lisa, swimming lessons for the girls, and then this past week or so started. Apparently a lightning strike hit a telephone pole carrying a key transformer for the electric service to our house and burned it to the ground, so we were without power for a day and a half, starting around 4:30am on Thursday morning. Some bedswapping occurred when the kids freaked out a little. Later that day, I did some work at Mom and Dad's, swimming lessons were canceled (the pool is outdoors) and Lisa took the kids to the zoo with Lizzy. We had to move the contents of our fridge and freezers, too, but we were a bit too late on the freezer and lost some food. The girls spent a night at Lisa's parents', which was conveniently planned before the storm, while we spent the night at Mom and Dad's. That night, while Lisa and I were watching Knocked Up, of all movies, Nick called and made us an aunt and uncle for the first time (so Mom and Dad weren't home). On the 4th, power came back and we had dinner with friends but bailed on seeing the fireworks, since the next day Dan and Rebecca were in town for a baby shower (the kids were crabby anyway)! Lisa and the girls attended that while I had an all-around excellent lunch with Dan and some of his buddies at Founders. The next day was Abby's 4th birthday, so we went to church, had a party and threw some Aerobies around the park behind our house. On Monday Lisa started one of her two weeks of teaching summer school at Millbrook, for which she's been preparing mightily, since one of her topics for the week is "Fun with Gases". She's been practicing experiments at home, with has been an interesting and smoky experience. Monday night the power went out again but came back the next morning, but not before I carted the freezer contents to Mom and Dad's again. And we had more swimming lessons. And Lisa and another teacher practiced an experiment today that went a wee bit wrong and resulted in so many flames that Annika, who saw it all, was left weeping.

Somehow, we're nearly as busy as we are during the school year, but it's much more irregular, which can be harder to deal with. Fortunately, I'm not working, so that's a big help. The future holds a trip to Chicago for Lisa and the girls, a week and more for all of us down to Columbus and Lexington, a 4-day excursion to Madison for a math conference for me, and a trip to San Antonio with friends to see friends for Lisa. It's busy, but it's all good stuff. And now I should go to bed.