Summer Doings

May was such a busy month, as I'm sure you could tell by all the posts. Why nothing since then? June was more relaxed. No more school or traveling. The kids and I spent lazy days going to the YMCA for swimming lessons and playing in the kid zone while I worked out in the gym. Both kids still have Little Gym once a week. Other than that we mostly stayed at home.

Then, with July, came vacation! This year we went to Illinois for a family reunion on the Fourth of July. As always on our trips, we had an unexpected "adventure."

We left my in law's house in Arkansas on Saturday morning and drove towards the reunion. It was raining like crazy in Illinois, so our outdoor, park reunion got moved into some hall, somewhere in some little town. And I mean little. We passed nothing but farms and country getting there. The trip was going along smoothly until we got off the interstate and headed toward our destination, the town of Johnsonville. After driving awhile along the country highway, Brad noticed we needed gas. The gas light on my van comes on without any kind of beep or noise, so it's easy to miss sometimes.

But no worries! We've got GPS! We did a search for gas, and it didn't show any ahead of us. What if we got all the way to the town and found no gas? Could we risk driving all the way back to the interstate afterwards? We didn't even have cell phone reception anymore to call for help. We decided to go find gas.

The GPS told us to take the next left. We assumed it was a road. And it was. The narrowest little country road you could imagine. There were no shoulders or ditches, just trees on either side. No houses. It took us through the woods for a few miles. Finally it ended up at another, bigger road. Finally we got to the gas station. Except, there was not gas station. Brad pulled into a little country store to ask. And it turns out that gas station just closed down. He asked about another one listed on the GPS as being nearby. Oh, yeah, that one burned down a couple of months ago. The lady at the store did feel bad for us and wished she had a can of gasoline to give us. The nearest gas station was 6 miles down the road. We hoped we'd make it.

That's it, really, for our adventure. We got the gas, we made it to the reunion...late and hungry, but all in one piece. Brad didn't have to walk down any country road in the rain to bum gas from any farms.

We did pass a tiny gas station on the way into town. The pumps outside looked really old, and we told ourselves that they probably didn't work anymore.

Anyway, here we are, at the reunion. There was a great turn-out. I got to meet a lot of new family members. Brad got to see a lot of people he hadn't seen in years. And the boys were a great hit!