Wild Weekend

We had a wild weekend, something out of a blockbuster movie.  It had all the elements...adventure, excitement, tragedy, mystery.

It started on Friday when Mike came home from work.  He decided to take Maelie to the local mall to drop off a photo of Maelie at the nail place...run by Vietnamese who are smitten with Maelie.  They brought them a Tet photo.  So, they weren't going to be long, and it gave me a chance for a bubble bath.  But, they didn't come home right away, and just as I was starting to worry, and texting Daddy to see where they were, they got home. In walks Mike with a little stuffed tiger, and a computer disc.  I asked what this was all about, and he said I had to look at the disc, he wouldn't tell me.  Okaaaay.....  Here's what I found:

Yes.  That is Mike, Maelie and a baby tiger.  Apparently, at the mall, they had baby wild animals to have your photo taken or play with.  She could have had it taken with a baby kangaroo or some other animals, but Daddy figured since it was the Year of the Tiger, this had to be done.  :)

Saturday dawned a beautiful day, and I was feeling a bit put-out.  I always seem to miss the adventures!!!  So, I decreed that we were going to go for a family drive.  Where?  Well, let's drive to a small town about 20 miles away.  What shall we do when we get there?  Oh, let's just go have lunch at the McDonald's they have there.  And, so we did.  We neither of us knew is that their McDonald's happens to have a McPlayPlace!  So, Mommy got to have a spontaneous adventure, too.  Maelie thought it was GREAT.  And, a little boy there thought MAELIE was great!!!!  She kept running from him...he kept wanting to hug her.  I told her to make sure to keep doing that when she's 16!!!  

So, right before we went into the McDonald's, Mike thought he had heard my brother's address being paged out for the fire department. (Mike always has his emergency band radio and pager with him since he helps out the local fire departments.) Since this small town is kind of in a radio and cell hole, we weren't sure, and just thought....NAH.  Well, on our way back home when we were able to get cell reception again, Mike had a text from my sister in law...yep, my brother had *luckily* looked out their window and saw flames....he tells his wife, "My truck's on fire.  Cal 911."  So, on our way to his house we went to see the damage.  Oy.

While we were there, my mom drove over and my sister and her husband.  We had an impromptu family get-together, and if we would have had marshmallows, we could have had s'mores!  (Just teasing, Al.)  His poor truck is a loss.  But, no one was hurt, the house or garage weren't damaged.  So, that's saying something.

Now, you would think that the weekend's adventures and tragedies would be done now, and, for the most part, they were.  At least nothing else affected us personally.  However, Saturday night, there was a shooting at a bar in another neighboring town.  A guy walks in and starts shooting.  Ambulances from neighboring towns were called.  It was unclear at first how many casualties there were.  One person was shot in the face and did die.  The shooter was knocked out with a bar stool.  I mean, really??  Not to make light of the tragedy, but, it makes us sound like we're living in the last frontier!

It was a fun, odd, sad, fortunate, unfortunate weekend for us.  I'm not even sure there was a full moon!!!!!!