Tree, bridge and patch

It's a wet day in the neighborhood. We’ve gotten several inches of rain in the last couple of days.
Our weekend in St. Paul was great. John and Steve worked on the nursery Saturday morning installing some outlets and sheetrock.

In the afternoon the four of them went to a Twins game; I was pooped from my morning project of putting together a sitting area on the front porch. That night we went out for Chinese to celebrate both of our anniversaries, (Us-33, they- 4) and Ezra’s 2nd birthday.

Sunday afternoon was Ezra’s birthday party. John and Erika’s small group came.

Steve and I stopped by the bridge site Sunday but weren’t able to get close to see much. The whole area was taped off on both sides of the river.

From Laurie

I'm not sure how many of you have ever noticed the very large maple across the street--the one with three full size trunks. We've always wondered what would happen if it fell down. One of the trunks appears angled nicely to take out most of our dining room. And, Sean often has me move the van out of the east driveway if there is going to be a big storm.

Well, last night we found out just how much damage that tree would do to our house. And, it would not hit our house--just lay at our doorstep:

It would also not crush whatever vehicle was parked in the driveway--just merely brush it:

Pretty incredible, really. Given what it could have been, it really isn't that bad. We're disappointed because it took out our Japanese maple and two of our crab trees. The Japanese maple had about 5 years of good growth and the crab trees had about three. And, I'm sure our lawn will be torn up pretty good. But, hours earlier, Jack was sitting in his car seat in the path of the tree while I got Shannon's car seat out of the Bronco. And, Shannon was running around the front lawn. Or, if had happened around lunchtime, the large trunk would pretty much have destroyed Dad's van, which he often sits in for awhile finishing a phone conversation before coming in for lunch.

Another ironic part of the story is that as we were leaving last night, I thought to myself, "I can just see that tree coming down, and thinking how glad I am that we are not home tonight." Of course, I was imagining it taking out the part of the dining room I'm sitting in right now (and the front porch).

On a positive note, it is already letting more morning sun into my living room. :)

In the end, all I can say is that God is truly good--and a little bit funny. (although, Sean isn't laughing yet.)

Update: We didn't have to pay to have the tree removed!! The city just finished cleaning it up. They were out there with rakes and brooms. Awesome!! And, it looks like both crab trees might survive. The tree pushed one of them over a little, but we can right it. And the other one is standing straight up, just missing about 95% of the branches. The Japanese maple might also be spared. When we first moved in, all but about 10 inches of the tree had been ripped off--but it still grew. Now, two of the three large branches have been torn away, but one of them is still there. So, it might also be saved!!

The tree DROVE the ‘No Parking’ sign on the boulevard all the way INTO the ground. The only thing sticking out was about three inches of gnarled metal. I watched them pull it out of the ground with the great big jaw thing. All the guys were saying, "Wow, I've never seen anything like that! Not in all my years of doing this. That is amazing." I also saw the inside of the tree, which was pretty hollow, so it was only a matter of time.

Here’s an update on the patch
I'm doing a whole patch now and no longer need any anti-nausea meds. Below are the possible side effects listed from the drug package.

My side effect seems to be a compulsion to rearrange stuff, which would fit under the compulsive behavior category. (Steve's been hoping for one of the other side effects. And it's not gambling.)

I rearranged John and Erika’s spare room (to their partial chagrin- but what are ya gonna do with an out-of-control mother/in-law?). We're going back in two weeks so maybe I'll be restricted to....shooting squirrels with the BB gun. John wouldn't mind that since they make a huge mess from eating walnuts.

And then we picked up this chair from Craig’slist.com in Minneapolis.

The price was right, but not the color. I have some fabric here that would be perfect. So I commenced taking the thing apart after going online to read that it isn't that difficult. You just put it back together in the order that you take it apart. Then I took off the back, step 2

Uh-oh.

It seems this will be a much bigger job than I imagined.

Reupholstering a channel back chair is probably taught at the 501 level. But I like the challenge of figuring it out. I’m taking pictures as I go and making notes so I MAY be able to put it back together some day.

In other news, I had Jack and Shannon here yesterday (Tues.)on Laurie's first day back to work. All went well. Jack even took the bottle without a fuss. They'll be back tomorrow (Thursday).

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Steve's in Omaha trying to golf between rain showers.