If we hadn't gone, we might not be here...

(she assured me they didn't need to wear their vests)


(her class was the largest with 19 regular attendees)

Last night was Sarah's AWANA award ceremony. She completed her first book, got extra credit work, a friendship award, and an award for good manners. YAY!!! The funny thing about this AWANA stuff is that sometimes when I dropped her off the teacher would show me stuff to do "with" Sarah. When she got home, however, she squirreled her book off to her bedroom to do it "herself". I NEVER even opened the book, never even saw it. She said it took her a while to learn how to read it by herself but she did it! YAY!!!

Anyway, after the ceremony they had a pinewood derby which lasted forfreakingever. Sarah won the third heat so we got to go home earlier than many....

Which was a good thing. When Mark raised our garage door we noticed a strong, burning, acrid smell. He thought it might be his boat batteries which he'd put in the store room to charge(they weren't on the chargers though). It wasn't. We finally located the source of the smell, a fluorescent light fixture that had quit working late last week. Mark and Ryan got in the attic to see if the wires were messed up and they were fine. Mark turned off the garage breaker, just in case, and removed the bulb which was glowing red at one end! We left the door up and opened a window to get the smell out. About 20 minutes later I went out to check and the smell was still there! I climbed up the step ladder to see if I could spot something going on with the light fixture and as I put my hand on the ceiling to steady myself, found the ceiling was HOT!! Again Mark went into the attic but the other side was only warm. We decided to check the spot periodically to make sure it was cooling off and not heating up. It finally was cool when we went to bed, the power to the garage remains off.

This was truly a God thing. If we had not been gone it is possible that we would never have smelled the smell which alerted us to the problem. We would have been inside the house while it got worse and worse. Maybe someone would have gone into the garage but probably not. We are SO very blessed to still have our home and our lives!! Thank God!!!!

In other news...

Karen asked if we'd get Mr. Tibert a playmate and the answer is NO! He has bonded with Tallulah, Jasper and Gyspy very well, Jasper especially. They all romp through the house like crazy cats but he always manages to snuggle up with Jasper to take his naps.