Emily’s visit

As I mentioned last post, John had covid and Emily and her family were all just getting over colds, and I had a new one starting. Fun times! But the house was ready, the weather was great, and the company was even better.

At first, John and I were wearing masks so we wouldn’t give them covid, but they assured us we needn’t bother. Bryan said, “The water is warm, jump right in.” And so we did!

Here is our house, transformed into playland.

The first day was a bit chaotic in that the electric company suddenly, without warning, decided to do electrical work in the alley behind us. This included us being without power for about 5 hours that afternoon. No air conditioning, no refrigerator (that is, we were trying not to open it and let all the cold air out), no microwave, no TV, no recharging devices, how were we going to survive?

Thank goodness for the pool. Here is a funny picture of our first day, with the electrical workers in the background. It looks like they could jump right into our pool from up there!

The kids didn’t care, they didn’t even notice. And I was just happy to be able to sit outside and talk with Emily.

The workers were quite busy back there, and at first we thought they were moving the electrical lines that are crossing our neighbor’s newly subdivided vacant lot. One of our other neighbors started excitedly texting me. “What’s going on? Are they moving the lines? Will the lot sell now?”

I can’t remember if I told you about all that. There’s a vacant lot on the other side of the alley from our backyard, and we even considered buying the lot. But the neighbors who subdivided the lot, separating it from their property, left the power lines that service their house strung across their newly subdivided lot. Those lines need to be moved before the lot is sold. No one wants to own a lot with someone else’s power lines crossing over it.

But it turns out the power company didn’t move those lines when they were out during Emily’s visit. They replaced a pole, and replaced one of our lines. There are still lines crossing the vacant lot that shouldn’t be there.

On the left in this next picture you can see John putting up a shade structure that I forgot we even owned. He must have found it in the storage unit. Neither of us even know what all is in there.

Ta-da, shade!

The electrical work being done was only on the first day. After that, we had our backyard to ourselves.

One day everyone went to the county fair, except me, I wasn’t feeling well. So John took these photos for me.

They also went to various parks and other fun attractions over the next few days.

I missed all the outings, which was kind of sad, but I still enjoyed having them visit. And I was relieved that John was able to take over as social coordinator – as well as photographer. And of course, favorite uncle.