WHAT A WEEKEND!!!

Oh my word!!

This has been a wonderful, long, and surprising weekend.

Yesterday was a dear friend of mines wedding. She is the only friend that I can say that I have been friends with for more than 25 years. She is a wonderful person and deserves all the happiness in the world! It was a flawless day! She is such a perfectionist and had everything planned from beginning to end. There was never a lull in the day, but there was plenty of time and no rushing. We had a blast and enjoyed every moment.

Between the wedding and reception we had about 2 hours to kill and Mike and honestly didn't know what to do with ourselves. We ended up going the ENCORE Cafe in Columbiana. Oh yum! I had a hot Mocha and Mike had a cold Mocha, both were AWESOME! I'm not just saying that for those readers who are related to the lovely lady that runs the ENCORE. The young gentleman who took our order overheard us talking about the changes to the theater. He came over to us and asked if we had seen it since all the changes had taken place. We have not and he offered to show us. Wow! A private tour! We got to see just a glimpse, but I am so very impressed with the changes. An amazing transformation has taken place in that building and I am so glad the theater is in great hands.

Here is just a little slideshow of wedding pics that I took...

While at the wedding the kids went to Auntie and Uncle Frank's. I hear they were wonderful and well behaved. I am so very glad to hear that. This was the first all day "get away" for Merci. I guess she really got attached to Uncle Frank as you can see here. I am so proud of my little monkeys!

OK...so on to the BIG news.
After a long day yesterday, we decided that we were going to take today to work on packing for our move at the end of the month. I was pretty tired still, late this morning, so Mike let me go back to bed for awhile. He first hopped in the shower and when he came down for showering he mentioned that the roof was leaking a little. He felt the drips and noticed it coming in right about the center part of our bathroom. I could hear the dripping all the way downstairs on the opposite side of the living room from where our steps are leading up to the bathroom (which is at the top of the steps). I went up a little while after Mike had first told me and saw that the ceiling was bowing. I came down and called Mike up from the basement and told him I had a feeling it was going to collapse. About a half hour or so later we checked it again and saw where the bowing was now a huge crack and we could tell it was going to give way. We called the management office at our townhouse and they gave us a 911 pager number of the maintenance staff. They informed us that someone would be here ASAP. Within the time of the call and the arrival of the staff member the ceiling gave way. We heard the crash and Mike went to see what all had come down. This is what we found...















When the maintenance guy showed up and saw the damage he kept apologizing and said that it was worse than what he was expecting. I guess they were sending someone out to work on the roof this week. I was pretty agitated that they knew the roof need done and have put it off. Grr. So, the young maintenance guy said that they would not be able to do anything until tomorrow! And even then he said the best they could do until they fixed the roof would be to throw a tarp over the roof itself and put up some drywall in our bathroom to cover the hole. HA! That is ridiculous if you ask me. I began to sneeze and my eyes felt ichy through all of this and it could just be my allergies but it could be from all the nasty stuff that fell out of the ceiling. The young guy "cleaned" up some of them mess, but there were still tons of that stuff laying around my bathroom. All of my towels that were hanging in there were covered, our toothbrushes that were in their holder on the counter were covered, all of our clothes in the dirty clothes hamper were still covered. We made a decision that was not too hard to make. We called a local hotel and we left. It's kind of funny because we've been wanting to go away for a night or two, but not under these circumstances. We feel fortunate that we had money to do it, but we are keeping a tally of what we have to spend to be away. Our bathroom in NO condition to be used. Not to mention that stuff may have been making me feel the way I was feeling. So, here we are...Fairfield Inn . Mike and I have stayed here a few times in the past and it is a nice hotel. We have already went to dinner at our favorite restaurant and went swimming. Now we are about to wrangle the kids down for the night and I am going to watch LOST (maybe after we watch a movie, if Mike can stay awake).

Well, my daughter is in need of some help falling asleep. I will be sure to post more soon. I'm sure I'll have a good update for ya'll!! Until next time...TTFN.