twist and shout!

Two years ago the kids and I started "family fun day" and had the best summer EVER!!! We had daily and weekly chores that they had to get done every day (their rooms were cleaner than ever!!!!), they would usually get them done first thing in the morning and then I would go to work and after work they could play and invite friends over for a while. On my day off the day was all theirs and we would go do something different each week and we invited all of our friends to go with us. We went to the Children's Museum, Lake Tahoe, Wild Island and a bunch of other places. We had so much fun!!! Last year I had a new baby and was pretty sick for most of the summer and we didn't do it. So this year we have tried restating the family fun day. It hasn't been so successful! The kids are all involved in so much this summer that we don't have much time and the only day that I can do it is on Monday...let's hear the collective moan from the moms about having something on Monday uuuugggghhhhh!!! I'm sure many of you can empathize with my distaste for a "planned" Monday! That's the day to get things back on track for the week (and if you don't...the week doesn't go so great!), and recover from the weekend. We've tried doing a few things and have been semi-successful, and we're still trying.

(Another long intro to a story!) So, Monday I got the kids up and got a plan of action in place for them to get a list of things done and we would go bowling when I got back (my boss is gone and I needed to work for a bit). We called around to everyone and they were either out of town, sick, or couldn't come. We finally found one family who could join us and we met up at the bowling alley here in town. I went and picked up one of Austin's friends on the way. We got in the car and all of a sudden there was the emergency warning blaring over the radio and they announce severe thunderstorm warnings, and just as they are about to say WHERE the storm is headed, Joslyn changes the station (she doesn't get to sit in the front seat very often and was very excited to be in "charge" of the radio). So she starts flipping through the radio stations to try and find it again when my friend Amy (Austin's friend's mom) called to inform me that the severe thunderstorm warnings had just been upgraded to a tornado warning for US!! YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING!!!! What is UP with family fun day?!! So we went to the bowling alley to tell our friends what was going on and we all decided that we were probably safer there than in our houses. So we geared up and started bowling. We got to the 7th frame and the lights dimmed inside the bowling and we didn't like the sudden darkness, but it was only for a second. Then the 8th frame the lights dimmed about 4 more times and we had heard that a tornado touched down in Carson City and the storm was headed in our direction. So we decided that we liked the idea of our less safe homes and abandoned our game (except for Austin who hurried and finished his game and beat Asa's high score which made his day!). We found out later that the tornado-like activity was a little closer than Carson City--like 10 miles away-- and that it wasn't officially a tornado but it had funnel clouds and really high winds. We never saw anything, and I would like to keep it that way!

Maybe NEXT week we can have some family fun!!!