When Colombo asked me back in April about a dinner cruise in Boston Harbor for a work thing he had, I thought it sounded delightful! Boat, dinner, date, free, June...all the right ingredients. The morning of, I contemplated bringing my winter coat as I looked at the 55 and rainy forecast. Oh well...we still had fun. Got the date part in! He had meetings during the day, so I scooted up to Nick and Katie's for a couple of hours and then we hooked back up for the reception and Harbor cruise.
We got to see the 3-truck "Wicked" convoy headed for their 3-week stay in Boston.
It was definitely "interesting" to observe the pick-up scene. Milo had fallen asleep, so I ended up leaving before I could see him.
Maddy covered for us during the day, and Papa picked up the evening shift.
Oh my goodness. Here's a story- I'll try to make it quick. The night before, C4 had called just before midnight curfew, saying he started down the road from Kelly's house and he heard a loud thump, scraping, and his car sounded like a jet engine. He parked it and my husband ran over to deal with the symptoms of a fallen muffler. Well, come to find out, where the muffler severed and came off up front near the engine, it made the car impossible to drive because it wasn't dragging; it was pushing. They left it for the night.
The next day- my husband swamped with work- I volunteered to go 'investigate'. He and I had differing opinions as to how to handle. He told C4 to take a saw and simply hacksaw it off. I told C4, "Grab a couple coat hangers and a towel." I called and warned the mechanic that we'd be in for a visit. I filled my water, popped a bag of popcorn for lunch and drove my beloved firstborn back to his girlfriend's house.
As luck would have it, a 'service van' of some sort was also in the driveway. Oh, and it was drizzling. I let him get on the towel and attempt to hacksaw the muffler free. I watched and giggled for about 15 minutes, munching my popcorn, as he successfully sawed about 2 flakes of rust free. It was apparent Daddy's idea was a dead end.
Realizing I was needed, I put the popcorn down and joined C4 on the wet ground to see how I could help, he on one side of the car, myself on the other. We looked and chatted about a couple different ideas, each struggling one-armed to team work this muffler into suspension to make the car drivable. Then the rain started to really come down. Then I glanced back to see two boots of the driver of the service van digging around in the back of his van. His view: me. On my belly. In the rain, now LAUGHING so hard I was useless!!!
More wrangling, more failure, more just-about-got-it-until-our-arms-gave-out-or-our-fingers-weren't-long-enough. Finally, I came up with the idea to insert something into the break and wedge it up high enough to get it off the ground. Thanks to C4, we randomly had some tribal stick thing in his trunk (???!!!) and thanks to Daddy, we had a hacksaw to cut it to size. We somehow jerry-rigged it into place and started to the mechanic's with about an inch of clearance from the ground. We each stayed on speaker phone the whole way. Still giggling.
Miraculously, it held. He parked it and we walked into the office, and I said, "We're here!" Pete, grinning from ear to ear, said, "I heard ya coming!!!" I left the keys and on the way out the door laughed, "Oh, by the way...there may be a stick jammed up in there holding things together!"
For the record...the Pete the mechanic later gave me props for my skills!!!
Probably the most expensive picture I've ever taken- 3 at the orthodontist. Trevor is well on his way. Nathanael's next in line for braces, and Maddy's investigating Invisalign for one rogue tooth (plus some general straightening) that bothers her.
We got the kids Six Flags passes for Christmas; a first for our family. I wanted to take them at least once before public schools let out. Somehow May came and went, but we finally made it and it couldn't have been a more perfect day! We had so.much.fun. I hadn't ridden many rides in the last 20 years. I was either pregnant, holding a baby, or standing with the stroller. The weather was PERFECT and we didn't stand in any line for more than 3 minutes. Some rides, no line at all. Rocco is tall enough for everything except two. Renna can do quite a bit as long as I'm with her.
Colombo and I had the privilege of attending Bob and Jules' oldest son, Justin's wedding. Phones and cameras were asked to be put away during the ceremony, but I snapped a couple during the reception. The bride, Joy, had changed into traditional Korean wedding dress as she is half Korean. Strangely enough, EXACTLY one year ago I was at another wedding for a different Justin and Joy!!
Jules looked as classy and stunning as ever!
Well Karen (pictured above) was chatting with Renna. This exact picture was about a 45 minute conversation. As Karen left, she said, "I have to tell you what Renna said. We chatted about this, chatted about that. Heard about Maddy's new car. Heard about her opinion of the color of Bob's new front door. On and on. Then she glanced down at my shoes next to my chair. She said, 'I see your shoes there.' I thought she was going to tell me she liked them but instead she said, 'We have a place for those. They go by the door.'" !!!
Sunday, June 11th
We went to noon service with Ben and Sarah who had slept over. Maddy just "threw her hair up".
