July is an exhausting month for me. There's Independence Day, Tommy's birthday, a birthday party (and this year a baptism) to plan and execute, and usually some travel that involves my family. I enjoy the first part of the month, but then always feel like I have to push myself to finish the month and then somehow, August brings sudden relief. So here's my "push through" period of the month.
Thora's plush Sofia doll was coming apart and losing stuffing in several places, so one night after getting the kids ready for bed and she told me it was her stuffy making messes all over the floor, I invited her to my room where I played Doc McStuffins and fixed up Sofia. Sofia needed surgery on her dress, right shoulder nearly all the way around, and crown, but she came through. Thora was brave and watched the whole time. Then we finished by discussing that I fix her toys because I love her.
I learned something new about Dancy: not only is she really great at hanging up shirts and dresses on hangers and organizing everyone's clothes in designated sections on my bed, she also prefers to have the hangers pre-sorted by color! Someone is a little organizer/OCDer!
Tommy finished the last project in the hydraulics kit: a rake! We might have to get into circuitry next!
The Sky Sox minor league baseball stadium is just down the road from our house and they do $5 Tuesdays...which turns out to be about one game a month that they're actually home for. So we hit that up for the last week in July because we were expecting Shad not to be home for the August game.
The whole game I kept Sam entertained by telling him to find the fox. Then we saw him walking through the concession area right behind us, so we made a run for it to grab a picture and high fives. Thora didn't want to be in the picture.
The next night was Tommy's birthday party. So after dropping Katie and Dancy off at art class, the other three and I went to Walmart to buy cake supplies and a Minecraft figure. I kept the whole day open so that I could just make sure we got the house cleaned up and the cake made. I got so excited about using my Bake-Even strips again that I forgot to prep the cake pan properly. Normally I would smear on shortening, dust with flour, then pour the batter, but I got distracted by the strips and forgot the flour. I was so worried the cake wouldn't come out of the pan, but when I pulled the cake out of the oven and saw the gap between the cake and the pan I nearly cried for joy! Cake tip: you know your cake is done baking when the sides of the cake have shrunk in just a bit from the pan.
And there's the cake!
It felt so good to create again! I do miss this art.
When friends arrived, we did Just Dance videos on youtube for a bit, then broke out the Perler beads when they lost interest with the dancing. I figured that when they got bored with the beads, I'd get out the foam swords and we'd head to the field across the street, but they never got tired of the beads! I had to give them a 5 minute warning to clean up for cake time.
The day after Tommy's birthday, we got an afternoon hailstorm that destroyed my garden. Marble-sized hail for 15 minutes.
Well that was Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, so that brings us to Friday. The library was having a party to celebrate the end of the summer reading program and they had a helicopter coming! That was the only reason I was going--to get my two-year-old to see and sit in a helicopter! Anything else would be a bonus.
Bonus #1: Getting to check out the inside of a police car without getting caught TP-ing.
Bonus #2: Meeting Belle!
Bonus #3: Star Wars!
Bonus #4: 50-cent book sale! I spent $12. And they didn't get unloaded from the van, so they got soaked in the hailstorm at the zoo yesterday. I still need to assess that damage.
Helicopter time!
Each of the kids got to sit in the helicopter and ask questions. Pretty sure they all loved it! They neeeever want to ask questions and be the center of attention...
I'm interrupting my normal chronological writing to just write about what happened yesterday.
Eating breakfast Monday morning, I realized I didn't need to do any shopping or laundry...so we could go on a field trip! I asked the kids if they wanted to go to Garden of the Gods or the Zoo or find something new, but the screaming that ensued at the Zoo suggestion spoke for itself. We got all ready, did chores, chalked our hair, packed lunch and snacks, grabbed the new FM transmitter I bought for listening to audiobooks in the van, and hit the road.
Chalked hair! Can't see some of it well, but we need to get leave-in conditioner.
{Thora, Sam, Tommy, Katie, Dancy}
The kids loved that I chalked my hair, too.
We prioritized the monkey houses because we missed those the last time we were at the zoo. The gibbons put on a great show!
At the big monkey house, the kids enjoyed up close experiences with the gorillas while I talked with a lady who teaches Mandarin Chinese at a high school here. Then we went inside and watched the momma and baby orangutan play. Dancy was concerned about the baby climbing a strap all the way up to the ceiling, but he got down safely. Then the momma went and wrapped up in a blanket on the floor and the baby tried to get her out.
Tommy enjoyed watching the construction on the orangutans' outdoor habitat. The rest of the zoo-goers and I smirked that we were watching humans where apes usually are.
Samson decided he was ready to push the stroller instead of riding, so Dancy was happy to jump in!
Katie brought Lindsey and Tommy took pictures. It's fun to see eye-level pictures of the kids instead of a higher camera angle.
"K, now a crazy face!"
"Now a silly face."
I watched a thunderstorm roll in for about an hour, thinking nothing of it. In fact, I told the kids that even if it rained, we could just walk around until rain started and then head in to a building. So we just went with that and stayed outside as long as we could.
They had so much fun playing in "My Big Backyard!"
We found this new part we'd never seen before.
And then thunder started, so we made our way to The Loft, where they have a bunch of terrarium animals. Part way there, it started to rain, so we ran the rest of the way...pushing a double stroller uphill. I was going to leave the stroller outside like we're supposed to, but another lady suggested bringing it in so it didn't get soaked. We got inside and not even 5 minutes later, the hail started, ranging from golf-ball size to softball size, and lasting for 10 minutes.
Water gushed down the street.
Katie noticed that water was dripping from the ceiling, which was traced back to a severely cracked sky light.
Peacock walking down the road after the hail stopped. Still raining steadily.
Of four sky lights in the building, two were destroyed. Turns out we were lucky because other sky lights throughout the zoo were completely shattered out.
Trying to manage the leaking sky light.
When the rain let up, the kids and I left The Loft to head to the van, thinking we'd be able to go home. This is not the only felled tree I saw.
This is not the biggest hail stone, either.
Tree debris everywhere.
All of the above came from this one tree.
And then we made it to the parking lot and I realized before we even got to our van that we weren't getting home so easily. Every car looked like this.
When we got to our van, Tom and Katie broke out in sobs.
Rearview mirror knocked down.
Glass fibers EVERYWHERE!
So, after first comforting my kids in their trauma, I called my friend Aly. Then called Shad. Then called State Farm, who didn't answer. I figured I'd walk back to the gift shop since there was nothing I could do at the van and at least we'd get inside. But the gift shop was roped off for EMS to use as a staging area for people who got injured by the hail. We crowded in with all the other people under the roof outside, just seeking refuge. There was glass on the ground from broken sky lights. We saw people in stretchers wheeled out with blankets covering them, probably so the crowd wouldn't react to seeing the injuries. A lady limped in barefoot (how the heck are you barefoot?) with cuts on her feet. After getting confirmation that Aly's husband, Hiram, was on his way, the kids and I decided to go out to the van and get what we needed out of it. I had the silly thought that we'd at least be able to sit inside and turn the heat on. That's when we saw all the damage pictured above. I couldn't let the kids in the van because of all the glass. Not just chunks, but tiny fibers. I turned on the engine and plugged my phone in to charge because it was on 2% battery. Then I got the snow brush, brushed the glass fibers off with my shirt, and set to work brushing the kids' seats off so we could remove them from the van when Hiram arrived. I found my reusable grocery bags (most of which I would not use anymore due to all the glass) and started filling one with all the important stuff we wouldn't want left behind--cleared out the glove box, DVDs and CDs (yes, we still use those), books, Shad's frisbees, my volleyball. Then I figured we'd just wait until Hiram got to us.
But then that's when someone walked by and told me the road was closed coming into the zoo and that the zoo made arrangements for city buses to come shuttle us to Cheyenne Mountain High School where we could be picked up. So that meant that now I had 5 kids, 4 car seats, a double stroller, and all our stuff to haul on my own. And then rain was back. And the elastic on Thora's shorts was shot, so they kept falling down and she kept crying. Dancy was worried about if Shad was dead, so I had him send me a picture for proof of life. A couple EMS workers came by and helped me in with the kids and car seats. They got us in to the gift shop which still was not open to everyone, but just a few people with kids who needed to warm up. Two different people gave us blankets and then disappeared, so we still have those blankets. We warmed up a bit in the gift shop, then when the rain stopped again around 4:30, I took the kids back out to the front because we couldn't get on a bus if we weren't out there. At this point, my phone was drained completely, so I had no more contact with Shad or Hiram. I got out to the front and we watched a batch of 3 buses drive away. Turnaround time was an estimated 20 minutes. Sam fell asleep. The rest of us just stood huddled together and waited. The people around me noticed that I was on my own with all those kids and all that gear. One lady called a firefighter's attention to me to see if we could hurry and get me out of there when the buses came back. He said yes, but then when the buses came back he told me no one gets priority, we're all miserable. Yes, but some are having more difficulty than others! We found another firefighter who got me on a bus. Thora perked up and was laughing and singing and 'wee-ing' the whole ride to the school. We left the zoo at 5:20.
Thankfully, I didn't have to worry about finding Hiram without the use of my phone because when we arrived, he was standing at the top of the school stairs waiting for us. Some of these kids are funny...Dancy said he looked familiar like she knew him. I guess she still doesn't know Hiram and Aly by name, only by Hailey's dad and mom! When I told her that suddenly it all made sense to her that we weren't just getting picked up by some random Mexican for hire. We were able to fit all the kids, car seats, and gear in the SUV and strapped the collapsed stroller on top. We arrived home at 6:15 and Shad had Thai green curry and Pad Thai ready for us, along with the hot chocolate I promised the kids we'd soothe ourselves with. We ended the night with a cuddle movie night watching Alice in Wonderland under loads of fleece blankets. I fell asleep around 8:30 and woke up a little after 10 to find Shad and Tommy asleep on the couch and everyone else in bed. I tried to go back to sleep in bed, but it started to rain and instead of being a relaxing sound to fall asleep to, it was anxiety-inducing for me. I went back to retrieve Shad who would not be woken when I tried before.
We all slept in this morning and after breakfast I finally got in touch with State Farm. I've been in and out of phone calls all day. Shad took the day off work so he could be the parent while I deal with all the business. He took Tommy to speech therapy. We're still waiting on a rental car because Hertz, who State Farm partners with for rentals, is sold out and will call me later today when they get more cars. Our van should be towed to us tonight...7 pm was the soonest time available. And that was after I called State Farm back and told them the van couldn't just sit in the zoo parking lot for days until the weather catastrophe inspection team arrived. So it's all been fun, it's been a bit shocking and draining, but I've felt really calm and laidback about everything. I'm just feeling very "go with the flow" about the whole situation, like Master Oogway in Kung Fu Panda said, there is no good or bad, just news and we need to let go of the illusion of control. I'm definitely not always there in my life, but I am right now. We're alive and unharmed. We were protected in the building and none of the sky lights were fully smashed in. Had we just walked to the car at the point we were deciding to leave or wait it out, we'd have been caught out in the street and pelted with hail. Had we made it to the van...well, you saw the pictures. We have insurance and savings, and friends who rescued us. We have a second car to still get us places.
