Visitor updates, cutting our losses

Brittany and the girls got to Decatur about 11 am. It was quite the interruption at the office – albeit a pleasant one. Brittany needed a good place to change the babies and I had a few minutes of fun showing them off. It did not take long for the girls to warm up to me, but Zoe was pretty standoffish with some my coworkers. The ladies at work loved the interruption. We followed that up by meeting Mama for lunch. Mama was in town for her physical therapy appointment. We all met up at an Italian restaurant. One of those local hole-in-the-wall operations that has really good food at really good prices. The twins loved the rolls but were less than enthusiastic about the ravioli Brittany ordered for them. They did however, get excited about the spinach calzone Mama ordered. I think the two of them ate about a third of that. They love their vegetables and fruits.

While we were still in town, Krystal and the boys were at the house cleaning. Krystal is amazing when it comes to cleaning a house. She had everything sparkling but the time Mama and Brittany got to the house. Mama was thrilled! They were all still there when I got home. Neither Krystal nor the boys were in any hurry to get back to their house. The boys watched some of our movies and Krystal enjoyed the company of Mama and Brittany. She has not been able to get out much lately because their vehicle is still in need of a transmission repair. Mama took her and the boys home a little after 5 pm. I was outside working with the animals when they left. Brittany was cooking and watching over the girls as they ate a little after-nap snack. She lets them feed themselves mostly. They do fairly well at that activity. Brittany has special bibs for them that have a pouch that meets up closely with the tray of the highchair. Most of the food that does not make it into their mouth is caught by that pouch. That way they get a second chance at it. It is a bit disgusting to scoop the droppings out of the pouch and deposit it back on the tray, but it seems to work, and it limits the mess on the floor.

We took some time and set the house up for Joshua’s arrival. None of us were planning on staying up to welcome then into the house. We had not heard any changes to their expected arrival time – sometime after midnight. So, we made sure all the airbeds were inflated and the spare bedroom was outfitted for use as a bedroom. Lately it has become a collection point for sundry items unrelated to its use as sleeping quarters. However, when I got up this morning, all the beds were empty. I am not sure what happened, but they had not arrived overnight. I began to wonder if they could not find us in the wee hours of the morning. Or, if they did find us and were not totally certain they had the right house. We will find out sometime this morning. I just hope they are okay. Mama had big plans for this morning, breakfast-wise.

I took a few minutes last night to pull up vegetable plants in the garden. With the forecast temperatures for the next ten days I decided it would be better to conserve water than to try to keep the struggling vegetable plants alive through the heat wave. It was probably more of an emotional decision than a practical one. I have too many items demanding my time and taking that one duty away from each evening reduces the load a little. It will be enough of an effort to keep the trees and bushes alive through the remainder of the summer. We might reach 110° F by the weekend. It seemed like a good time to cut our losses and focus on battles we could win. Mama was disappointed by my decision, but I needed the respite.

We are planning on traveling this weekend, so I was not sure what we would have come back to after missing two evenings of watering. Oh, well.