First up, before we left for our trip, Gabby was invited to play drums for the all-ladies worship night at church. When Caelan took her to rehearsal after work, Caelan got recruited to play keys. But the night before event, Caelan threw up for the second time in her life (first time was when she was about eight years old, so it's been awhile). Not sure what was bugging her, but we decided to cancel all her Friday commitments, including choir and the music night. After I dropped Gabby off at church, I was busy at home, trying to get some last minute things ready for our trip. But, Gabby sent me the schedule of events and I was able to sneak in the back in the middle of the evening.
Wow, it was packed! Gabby did an excellent job on the cajon. There was a time of sharing at the end and ladies opened up about everything from depression to getting clean from meth and even how they had skipped out on dates to come to women's night, even though they were scared to be in church. It was pretty amazing! Praying God uses that experience to draw all those beloved ladies closer to Him. Super cool that Gabby provided the "heart beat" of the songs for Jesus.
Okay . . . skipping forward in time . . . we arrived home from our trip, had a day to recoup, and then bounced back into two days of school with another foot appointment/procedure for Gabby and a retrieval of the service pup for Caelan and me--Monday was quite a morning! To our delight, our NGFs cookie-bombed us in the middle of the afternoon, by total surprise. I think it was the first time M and I had been in the same place at the same time the entire month--which is crazy when some weeks we saw each other every single day! It was a super sweet Thanksgiving treat, as they were heading out on their fall vacation (which they are still on as I write :)That afternoon, the boys were asked to come do some lawn work for a couple in our church who are in the process of selling their home. Their jaws dropped a little when they saw how many leaves they had to rake, lol! Mrs. M bought 30 lawn and garden bags. The boys worked for three solid hours as the temps dropped, the sun set, and the winds picked up. They found a snake (ew!) and filled 21 bags with fall debris --five of them made it to the curb before the lawn waste truck came by. Now that their arms and backs have stopped aching, they are looking forward to their promised treat of homemade cookies and "lots of money." Ha!
We kind of got into the momentum of getting things done. I'll take it when it comes, because that is not always my mood or energy level. On Wednesday, Buck and the girls and I set out for the passport office. We were the first to arrive, with only one of the usual three ladies in the office that day. A rush of people came in behind us (15, I think she said, in one hour!).
The girls were all set with their paperwork, but we decided I'd need to come back because I needed to get my star license and that required basically all the documents they were going to seal up and send away with my passport application for six to eight weeks--which wasn't going to work with my license expiring within the week :)
So, we decided to wait on mine . . . but then the lady explained she needed separate checks for each of the girls' applications and another for their own office fees. Of course, despite the stacks of carefully person-specific, manila-enveloped information I'd brought with us--I didn't know about the checks. I only had one. So . . . Buck drove home, grabbed both checkbooks (just in case) and got back to the office while the next set of passport applicants were still filling out their paperwork (whew!). The girls took the oath, Buck and I both signed their paperwork (since Gabby is young enough that I need his permission to take her out of the country), and then we headed home. Two out of three applications submitted!
Buck needed to get ready for work, so I collected the paperwork I needed to get my license fixed up and headed to the DMV. There were 10 people in front of me, and it took about 45 minutes. From the conversations I overheard--there are some really poor drivers in the community. Eek! I'm always so nervous in official situations like passport offices and DMVs. I try so hard to get everything together that I need, and then watch as others (who thought they've done the same) get turned away, ha! Finally, it was my turn (I'd watched DMV ladies come and go, answer phones, help teens taking tests, head out for driving tests, help each other with angry people--I think the longest part of the wait was actually when my number was to be called next :) All-in-all it went well (although she misread the marriage license incorrectly and thought I'd been married three times . . . I was like 1. maiden name 2. married name 3. middle name--just married once. Same guy :) My picture is just as awful as it should be, and I left the office with my paper license in my wallet.
I headed back to the records office, put the last of my coins into the meter and re-greeted the team at security. Five minutes later I was heading back out the door because the passport lady was at lunch and wouldn't be back before my meter ran out. Sigh. Instead I went to the grocery store, saw the kids' friend and band mate (who is trying to talk me into letting Brennen play football for his team next year), and then headed home to drop off the food.
Third try for me, back to the records office, found my parking space had more than an hour left over from whomever else left much quicker than they expected to (yay, no coins to pay!), said hello to my new friends at security for the third time, and (with two more checks in hand) finally got my passport application dropped off. Yay!! One step closer to our spring mission trip to Africa!
Back at home we had just enough time to take Caelan and the puppy to the dog-friendly hardware store near our home for his public access test. All his litter-mates already have passed theirs, but we've not been able to attend all the outings to get Mr. N his permission to wear his vest in public. Thankfully, they said we could send in video evidence of his skillz. He heeled very nicely and had a successful stranger interaction--both on 'film.' He behaved himself in the toy aisle, and stuck with Caelan when I tried to distract him with a squeaky toy as they walked away. Graysen came with us and felt better about restocking his hamster food, which was down to its last teaspoon.
When we got back to the house (for like the 10th time that day?), I texted the trainer the videos and she immediately said he was officially public access ready! That means this pup can go anywhere we go. He also passed his hip test while we were away, so he is two huge steps farther in the process than Caelan's first pup, Linus, made it.
Believe it or not, we still had just enough time to get the kids to karate (we could go on a Wednesday because youth activities were cancelled for the evening before Thanksgiving, and we'd missed classes the previous week while we were on vacation, so we needed to do some make up classes). Talk about a jam-packed day!
Gabby got to sport her new Leadership program uniform, with her name on the back :) Now she's helping teach the Tiny Tiger classes, which is super cool!
Okay. I need a nap ;)
1 comment:
I love how resourceful your kiddos are....they certainly find ways to earn money....glad you all got your passports!
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