Date night!

Believe it or not, Mike and I actually went out WITHOUT the kids last night :) We had a friend at church offer to watch the kids and we were quick to take her up on it :) She and her sister came at 6 and after deciding that Kristopher would, indeed, be allowed to stay. He'd had quite a difficult afternoon behavior wise and we weren't sure what we were going to do... but in the end our need to go out won so we left him with very specific instructions. He was to sit on the couch with his leapster for a set amount of time, then brush his teeth and go to his bed and read until the sitter came to tuck him in and turn out the light.

Each time he had a little bit of freedom yesterday he was into trouble, so this was a very unusual request we made. We don't generally give him something to "zone out on" for any longer length of time. He gets to play his Leapster first thing in the morning (at the gentle hour of 6am when everyone else in the house wants to be asleep) until it's time to get going for the day, and he can bring it in the car for trips. During playtime we want him to play with something other than a video game, even if it is educational.

So, it sounds like Kristopher was good and went down ok, and that the other kids were all right too. We knew we didn't have to worry about the kids and that they were in good hands too :)

After we left the house we headed to Orlando for dinner and a quick stop at a few shops. We got about 15 minutes into the 40 minute drive and all traffic stopped. We sat there for another hour moving VERY slowly and mostly sitting still. Yes, we were very late in getting anywhere. Yes, it was annoying sitting in the car for an hour in a half. Yes, the other drivers were especially annoying because they refused to merge and people kept driving up in to the front in order to merge, making everyone go slower (except them...). But no, I wouldn't have traded places with the people causing the backup for the world.

A tractor trailer had swerved (probably to avoid a car) and skidded and come in to oncoming traffic then jackknifed. The front end of the cab was REALLY smashed up, and I'm sure that whatever it hit was just torn apart. By the time we passed the accident there were no paramedics on the scene but it had to have happened hours before we got there. Whatever the second vehicle was had already been removed and they were attempting to move the jackknifed trailer. Regardless of the delay to us going out, I hope and pray that whoever was in that collision survived. It was right in front of a speedway where a lot of young people go on Friday nights to watch races.

When we finally did get to Orlando we decided on a quick dinner at Panera then walked across to look at some computer stuff at Best Buy. By that time we needed to head back home just in case there was still traffic. The entire accident scene was cleaned up and traffic was back up to speed though.

Even though we didn't exactly have the evening out that we had envisioned, we are so grateful for our friends offering to watch the kids so we could have this evening away. Even with an hour and a half in the car on the way there, it was still time without the kids that we got to just sit and talk.

THANK YOU ANNA AND BETHANY!!