After a few get-together dinners at our house, between family and friends, we thought we were okay to leave the house in disarray for a second. Nope! Thursday (yesterday) we hosted a play-date that was so ambitious I don't know what I was thinking. Siena had wanted a playdate for a looooong time and when I finally relented and said we could go on a Nature Hike with Paige and Angelina, she ran to them with the news. A few other girls expressed their desires to have a play date and well, Siena just couldn't resist inviting them too. I loved the idea of having more kids over because Siena's never stayed put in one place long enough to make close friends, but I was a little worried I wouldn't be able to handle 7 kids under the age of 6 for a few hours. Luckily one of the mothers offered to come help me and we were set. After feeding the kiddos some lunch we went across the street to a hobby farm of our neighbors and watched Farmer Brown feed the chickens, clean their coop and collect the eggs. The girls loved it! Ezra remained fixated upon the dog and was beaming from ear to ear every time he got to pet it. When we got back we had a scavenger hunt for certain things found in nature and then planted herbs and flowers in empty egg cartons. After that, we read some nature stories while we ate Dirt Cups as a snack and then it was free play time. They loved it, I loved it, and I think I'm off the hook for another playdate for a while. I put in my time.... ;)
Today was just a crazy day to end a crazy week. Nothing too dramatic happened.
Oh wait, yes it did.
Something extremely dramatic happened.
I was leaving the gym with Ezra and driving home when I noticed a driver next to me at the red light. He was yelling and flailing his arm out the window and yelling something like, "Holly, come back to me!" For a moment I thought he was just a rowdy high school kid who had mistaken me for someone else. After the light turned green he started following me. No joke. I was creeped out for a second, until I started to notice that he was driving like a madman. He was swerving in and out of lanes and I just started trying to get away from him. Once we hit University Avenue where the speed limit is 50, it seemed as if he wasn't crazy, but that he was completely inebriated. There was another man in the truck with him, so I thought that the possibility of his friends letting him drive drunken was slim. However, it was soon apparent that he was under the influence of alcohol. I called 911 and told them the most I could about the truck and our approximate location, but there was nothing I could really do besides keep driving since there were no immediate roads to turn off onto. At one point, I was so scared about him running into me that reflexes took over and I closed my eyes tightly. He was speeding up really fast, then slowing down and swerving into the curb, then speeding up again and hanging out within inches of my car. Finally, I pulled off the road at a red light, determined to get away from him, hoping and praying that he wouldn't slam into me. Luckily he didn't since I had gotten out of the way, and as the light turned green and he sped off, I was able to give a better description of his license plate and vehicle to the dispatcher. It was a little nerve-racking. About 10 minutes later, as I went to pick Siena up from school, I noticed a police helicopter surveying the area. I don't know if it was related at all to the guy in the truck, but it was still unnerving. Once I calmed down a bit, I started feeling oddly like a hero, convincing myself that I saved someone from dying today. :) Funny how emotions work. It was a good reminder that when we are behind the wheel, we are driving Death Machines and that we need to devote our attention to the task at hand: driving. I'm so so so grateful that Ezra and I were okay and that as far as I assume, no one else was hurt.
Oh, and the day just got worse. Let's just say that I was pretty desperate to renew my drivers license since Juan brought it to my attention last night that it expired last month. So I packed the kids in the car, started making our way down to South Provo, got half-way, realized that I had left the paperwork on the table, drove back, collected everything, drove back to South Provo, unloaded my kids (Qiana only had one shoe!,) trekked upstairs to the office, filled out the paperwork with three noisy children surrounding me, got to the desk.... and was told that I had to go to the Orem office.
Are. You. Kidding. Me?
So we drove back, the girls were fighting the whole way home, I lost my temper, yelling ensued, I collected myself but was still steaming inside, the girls were crying, Ezra was sitting quietly--observing how our temperamental family works, and we pulled up to the house.
After feeding them and making amends, I decided I had better actually do my hair and makeup for my license picture, which was something I hadn't cared about at all this morning. We loaded everyone back into the car and drove to the Orem office, hoping for a short waiting period. That is when we caught our breath. We walked straight up to the register and took care of business. The only thing I regret was bringing the iPad to entertain the girls while I took my test (I was applying with an out-of-state license and they didn't have my married name on file.) The two locas fought over it in the middle of the testing area. I was: 1) embarrassed, 2) mad, 3) stressed out, 4) distracted or 5) all of the above. On my open-book drivers license test, I only got 20 out of 25 questions right! When I went back to see which ones I got wrong, I realized that I had either read too much into the question, misread the question or interpreted it incorrectly. Puh-leez Stacia. It totally reminded me of the ACT. I am officially the world's WORST test-taker. Oh well, I passed and that's all that mattered.
Now the rest of the day has plenty of positive potential I'm sure, since I have a feeling that it's only going to go up from here.
