I drove home from our camping trip in NY.  Steve slept, everyone slept because it was a hard night with loud groups of people sleeping in tents next to ours and sea gulls flying around and kids waking up with turf wars.  I had more sleep than Steve so I drove. 

It was raining very hard, I had my hazards on a few times.  Some drivers chose to park on the side of the highway to wait it out.

When we arrived home some hours later, it was still raining, and the floors were not dry.  They were beautiful but we could not walk on them. While we were gone the polyurethane was not drying because of the wet weather and so it put the whole schedule behind.

The only way to get upstairs was to walk around the outside of the house in the rain and go through the sunroom.

In the kitchen we had stored the two sofas and dining room table, so to get to the cupboards and sink/stove you had to walk through a very narrow gap, and only in one direction, almost on your tiptoes so you could fit in.

I took the picture above of the kids eating their dinner in the sunroom, while Steve unpacked in the rain.

I thought of Lucy Swindoll's book, she talks about being a child and going out in a boat with her father and being stuck out there in a terrible storm.  He father said "Oh Lucy imagine the stories we will be able to tell when we get back!"  It was very difficult to not have a normal house when we got back but I knew that it was a great adventure at the same time.  It inspires me how her father's attitude made all the difference for her, she was scared and uncomfortable but now all these years later she looks back on it as a good memory because her father was teaching her how to see.

The next day I decided to spend the day away from the house.  We crashed at Julie's house.

My Dad came and picked up Elvis and Jeff to take them for a hike on the Appalachian trail.  They came home at the end of the day wiped out and singing trail songs they made up.

When I got home I planted beans in the backyard I am training them to climb up the wood teepee Steve made last Summer.  I kept laughing at myself that we had asked John who refinished our floors to water our bean seeds the whole time we were gone! So in our kitchen behind the sofas and table and all the stuff piled on top of the sofas were these bean plants growing all over the kitchen.

Julie's daughter Ally

Coco and Ally, I like how Coco has her toes wrapped around the pedal and Ally's squinty smile!

It was VERY tense having the kids home and not letting them in the house, I had so much to get done I told them they could not come in, the floors were still wet and I was trying to function in the kitchen.  Elvis wanting to still be near me set up the foyer as his VIP lounge and "owned it" for the rest of the day, allowing passes to the other kids and so on. Oh I miss that kid...  He gave me a pass and we sat together in the VIP lounge eating popsicles together.

My very cool friend Sherry who rocks at Basketball spent time with Elvis later in the day.

In the evening we got together with my family at a local park.  Elvis spent most of the time putting a plastic cup behind the bike wheel and riding around with a loud motor sound.  He would return to the table to stuff his pockets full of potato chips and then be off again.

I took the above photo of almost every cousin on my side of the family except precious Mikayla.  Left to right Elvis, Jeff, Eti, Nate, Angelina, Chloe, John, Ally.

His last full day here. Steve took them out to see Wall-e.

I talked to him a lot on this day, I was sad, and he was sad, he missed his mom and knew that he was going to miss us.  He felt torn between these two homes.

Steve said I am looking more beautiful every day it's ridiculous, and that was the very best thing that happened to me all day.  The sofas can stay in the kitchen for months, it can rain every single day..I am married to my best friend and so the sun shines for me.

Elvis is trying to be cool and that is the biggest smile I could get out of him. Jeff is over smiling, Chloe has that look she gives me when I am trying to talk to her seriously and she doesn't want to listen, and Eti WHAT IS UP WITH ETI?!!!!