Today, while we were at church, what was left of Hurricane Ike came through town quickly. I was at meetings in the morning, and it was windy when I left, and then when J.J. and the girls got there at 10:00, they said that the tip of one of our trees broke and was lying in front lawn. (That morning, it had knocked over our porch swing, so I went out and tried to put the pieces of the swing against the house so they woudn't blow away. I was getting a bit nervous that morning with the wind blowing so hard.) The wind died down by noon. We had ward conference and thus had some things after church was over, and then I did the tithing, so when I came home at 3:00, I was surprised to see not only the tip of that one tree, but one tree completely blown over, and half of another tree snapped off. The two additional trees are Bradford pear trees, which are somewhat notorious for being weak. The tree that completely blew over had started turning brownish red during the summer, so I was a little concerned that it had suffered a lot from last year's drought. But the leaves hadn't started to fall yet, so I was hoping it would hold on. Well, it must have been weak enough to blow over -- most of its stump came out as well. So now we have to borrow a chain saw from someone this week and figure out where to take all the cut wood. There were quite a few downed limbs around town, but ours were the only victims on our street. We were glad that none of them were near the house. We'll put pictures up on the blog this week. (Boy was I surprised when I came home. After cleaning up the lunch for Ward Conference and taking a girl who helped babysit home - she lived way out- Paul ended up home before me and the girls. I was so sad we lost two of our trees. I loved them out front. Claire and Katey have sure enjoyed the one that completely came down because they have been climbing through it to the "top" and playing in the branches. She started crying when Paul told her they were going to cut it up and take it away.)
Otherwise, it was a busy week. J.J. had busy work days on Monday and Wednesday, plus she had things after work on those evenings(I don't even remember what I had to do, I guess that is why I should get on writing these letters sooner, huh?), and then I had an extra meeting on Tuesday evening before coming home. I had a lot of things to work on this week: a couple of articles that I'm trying to finish and submit to journals soon, and beginning the process of revising our freshman composition program. I was able to get my bike tuned up by the campus cycling club, which was great, because we don't have a bike shop in town. They were doing it for free but I gave them a donation.
Friday I played tennis in the morning and then worked until 2:00 when I met J.J. and the girls at her doctor's office for her 20-week ultrasound, and that went well. (It was sure fun to see the little one. It actually looked more like a baby this time instead of a gopher. But it was wiggly and we had a hard time getting a good portrait picture of the baby. Still don't know if it is a boy or a girl, and that was our last chance to find out, so sorry everyone, we'll just have to wait. Rachel was taking after the baby and got too wiggly, so about 2/3 of the way through, Paul had to take her out to the waiting room, but Claire stayed the whole time and loved it) I took the girls home and then J.J. came a little later and took Claire to dance class and I did some reading that I need to do for my classes. When J.J. and Claire got home, I mowed the lawn, which needed it badly, and then a babysitter came over and J.J. and I went to the community production of "Chicago." Our friend Lainey was the lead -- Roxey Hart -- and it was fun to watch. Claire stayed the night with her friend, Katey.
Saturday morning I got up at 5:30 and ran 9.5 miles. I can't believe I'm actually running that far, and it's weird that I actually enjoy it and look forward to the long runs. It wasn't hard until about 7 miles, but at that point it's almost done. I had just chosen some roads to run on and finished in 1 hour, 20 minutes, but I didn't really know how far I had run, though I thought it was around 8 or 9 miles. But I had an idea and looked at Google maps and was able to use the Get Directions feature to map out my route and measure it exactly. The great thing about that was I also identified some points of different distances so that I can change up my shorter runs as well.
At 8:45, J.J. left for Paducah for Relief Society leadership meeting and conference, and I stayed home. Claire stayed at Katy's house for awhile, and so while Rachel was napping I read over one of the articles I am working on and did some more reading of a textbook I am using for next week's classes. Then at 3:00, I took Claire and Rachel to the ice cream festival, where they have free ice cream at the park. Claire did a little horse ride while she was there (she loves the pony and horse rides and is sure we have room for some in our back yard.), and also very exciting for her was people dressed up like Star Wars characters -- the costumes were pretty close to the real things. Earlier in the week, before Claire went to bed one night we were flipping through the channels and "The Empire Strikes Back" was on and we watched a little of it. When Darth Vader appeared with the music, Claire huddled up to me. But at the park, she wanted to say hello to all of the people, including Darth Vader and two storm troopers, Princess Leia, and two little kids dressed as the sand creatures. She told me that the pretend "black guy" -- Vader -- on TV was mean, but the real "black guy" at the park was nice. (She was on the verge of tears though when she told me that Princess Leia didn't say hello to her and she was saying hello to other kids. She is still talking about it. ) Rachel and I enjoyed the ice cream, but Claire wasn't that interested.
We stayed a little bit long and I didn't know what time it was, so after picking up some tacos at Taco John's to feed the missionaries at 5:00, we got home a little late and they were waiting for me to call them because I had spoken with them earlier and said that we would probably run into them at the park. But we didn't, so they didn't know where to go. J.J. had just arrived back from Paducah, and we had a quick meal and visit with the Elders. On our way home, though, Claire and Rachel had fallen asleep, and so we put them to bed and then we had the babysitter come again so that we could see the movie "Atonement" at the college. J.J. read the book for her book club to coincide with this movie. (The movie was pretty good and went along with the book well, but while reading the book, I had a hard time getting through the first half and in fact almost didn't finish it. The second half of the book was moved along much quicker and was much easier to read. Paul loved all of it - I guess that is why he is the English Professor and I'm not ) When we left, both girls were in bed, but when we came home, Rachel had woken up and was playing with the babysitter. Luckily, Claire stayed asleep all night -- it is hard for her to go to sleep if she naps, but Rachel will go back to sleep easily after playing for awhile.
I stayed up watching the USC-Ohio State game that I had recorded, and also saw a few highlights from the BYU game, which made me happy to see them play well when they needed to.
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