Life in the Whirlwind!

Last week found me trying to get a post done sometime every day, but circumstances never permitted me to sit still that long.

The Puke Bug stayed until Thursday. Daniel threw up Monday, Tim and me on Tuesday, and Micah did his "round two" with Puke Bug on Thursday. I was sweating it that yet another of the kids would come down with round two, and that we would have to miss Drew and Brooke's wedding (my brother and his new wife!)

To top it all off, as things like this usually go for me, Thursday night, Tim was hit with having to stay at work on an investigation, and he did not get in until the wee wee hours! Meanwhile, I was caring for one sick boy and dealing with two cranky little girls, one of whom has to touch all the items in our home daily. Thursday night was supposed to be packing night for the wedding gear, and I could not even begin til Tim got home to wrestle the girls.

Somehow, I managed to pull it all together and get 7 people's clothes ready for a rehearsal, a wedding and two services of church on Sunday, along with play and night clothes. It really is like moving the army of a small country. Tim helped me immensely by packing the seven bags we were taking in the SUV and driving me to my parents' home, where my lovely sister-in-law Steph met us and carried us the rest of the way to Alabama.

I felt so sorry for Drew and Brooke and Brooke's family, as they had two hard days of work (plus the many, many hours and days and weeks that had gone into preparing for this wedding) ahead of them, and there was little I could do. We had the rehearsal dinner catered right at the building where the wedding was held--a community center in the Florence area. You would not believe how they transformed the place from a somewhat dirty little hall into an elegant wedding chapel. It was gorgeous, and I know they were gratified in the end that all that hard work paid off.

Meanwhile, my wonderful husband was in route back to our fair city with Mr. Micah, the ailing son in tow. Micah was feeling somewhat better, and talked his step-dad into taking him to "Shakes," a frozen custard shoppe along the way home. THEN, he talked step-daddy into going to Krystal and getting a bag of "gut-bombs." Now you might think that a boy who was just puking his guts out a few hours before would not want Krystals. But Micah did, and Tim ended up being the one with a stomach ache. They came home, and Tim ingested multiple Alka Seltzer cocktails to get his intestinal tract straightened out!

So where were Dan and Sam during all of this? Well, they had been spending a week up in Chattanooga with their school competing in all kinds of academic, athletic, and choral events! Here is Daniel's account of convention:

"I'm back from Convention and I couldn't be any more pleased with how it turned out! Here is a list of events that I was involved in and how I/we placed in them:


1st place in:

PACE Bowl (First time ever in school history!)
Male Duet
Male Trio
Mixed Trio
Large Ensemble (5th year in a row!)

2nd place in:

Mixed Quartet
Male Solo
Website Design

5th place in:

Basketball


In Large Ensemble, we even earned a Command Performance, which meant we got to sing in front of the whole 500+ people that came!

Overall, the school placed first in Music, tied for second in Drama and placed second in Academics!
A.C.E. Convention 2005 presented many challenges for everyone involved. The weather was fickle. The computers crashed. Scheduled events were moved and moved again. People even missed lunch or dinner a time or two in order to get to an event. Despite all these trials, most everyone shrugged their shoulders and then took the hardships head on. When the week was done, everyone that held a medal had truly earned it.

At the end of the week, the seniors were asked to come on stage and have a picture taken. As I stood there in front of 500+ people, I thought about everything I had experienced to be able to stand there. I couldn't help but smile my big, goofy, crooked smile as I saw all of those people applauding and taking pictures. It reminded me a little of a verse in my favorite book of the Bible, Hebrews...

Hebrews 12:1- "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us..."

I had about 500 people clapping for me that night. But can you imagine the millions and millions of people that must be looking down from Heaven and cheering us on?! Wow! That being said, I hope that as I endure the trials and hardships of this world, I can take courage from that thought.

The week was not all hard work. One night, everyone on my floor in the dorms got bored and built a couple of wrestling rings out of old mattresses. You should have seen the look on Mr. Warren's face when 20 guys dragged him into the ring and dog-piled him! Sadly, I didn't manage to get a picture of that, (I was busy helping drag Mr. Warren) but I did manage to get a few of the rings.

Also, I placed well enough in all of my events to go on to the International level in Missouri! I may or may not get to go, but I'll keep everyone posted, seeing as I would enter this website into competition again if I did!

I came home early Saturday morning from Convention only to turn around and go to my uncle's wedding in Alabama! It turned out to be a very beautiful wedding filled with Scripture, singing, and plenty of great surprises. My sister and her two cousins were asked to be part of the ceremonies, and they all did a really good job! Congratulations, Drew and Brooke!"

Tim got the boys somewhat after midnight late Thurs. night/Friday morning. They had a few hours to sleep before I gave them a wake up call to get up and get their suits on and make the 3 hour drive down to the wedding.

As Daniel said, the wedding was beautiful! I had a "bird's eye view" from behind a large pillar about 10 feet away from Drew and Brooke, where I was operating the video camera. We decided to video the wedding from the angle which would let us capture her expressions, as we only had one professional camera there and my Sony for the back view. Drew's friend who is in the video business and was one of his groomsmen will mix the tapes and get it back to us.

At any rate, when they got to the middle of the wedding where they play the sentimental song, I couldn't help crying. (My brother Doug got the "fun" job of running the sound system, and he had to time out the songs so that they would start when they were supposed to. He definitely had the worst job there! LOL! I would have hated to have been responsible for messing up a wedding when I cued up the wrong song or couldn't get something to play. But Doug did a flawless job, and it all went off without a hitch!) Then, Drew sang to Brooke, and that just made it worse. I was doing my best not to sob into the microphone, where that would become a permanent part of their wedding tape! :) However, I don't think I was too successful, and so they are just going to have to put up with the little sniffs while they view their tape! I could not see my mother from where I was standing, and it was a good thing, as we would have fed off of each other's crying.

The newly weds took off to Cancun, where they are undoubtedly spending a much-deserved, leisurely week. I suppose they will be back this weekend.

Sunday found us doing our usual drive to church, where we had two excellent services. Daniel led singing on Sunday night, and he always does a great job. In fact, one little lady and her husband at the church have asked him if he could not just lead every service! He and I got tickled at that. He told them that he thinks the others might like a turn every once in a while.

I have not said a lot about Sam. He came back with 7 medals. I don't have his breakdown, but he had a lot of firsts and seconds, too. I was so proud of both of them, because despite the fact that they had all these events to prepare for and a grueling season of basketball going at the same time, they managed to both get wonderful scores on their report cards. Daniel had a 99% overall average, and Sam had a 94%! Sam also completed 18 of the workbooks called PACES that they do in the A.C.E. curriculum. That was more than he did in two quarters combined! Looking back, I don't know how they did what they did this quarter or how their parents held up, either.

Tonight, everyone is gone to church except me and sickly Mr. Micah. This time, he has something bronchial going on, and he had to have a chest x-ray yesterday to see if he had pneumonia. The doctor said he didn't, but Micah is not getting a lot better, so we will see what tomorrow brings. One thing it is going to bring is shots for Sarah and Hannah, so tomorrow night should be fun!

Well, that brings us up to speed for now. Hopefully, I won't be as long getting back to this as I have been. A mom of five and a wife can only do so much, and sometimes, blogging, though preferable to laundry and dishes, has to go on the back burner until the other things are under control. I think I will be putting up clothes from the trip for the next two weeks, and it is closet-cleaning time---in earnest now. I WILL have a yard sale this year if it kills me!

Nighty-night, all, and have some pleasant dreams!