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Not the day I had planned

So today was the last Friday of summer (Eleanor goes back to school next week). Friday is "adventure day" in my schedule (Thursday is "Laundry day", Tuesday is "Library day" and so on), so I had thought about trying to go to the zoo or something if the weather was good (i.e., not too hot).

That idea vanished yesterday when I got a flat tire. We just barely managed to get Eleanor to her class gathering at the jumping palace, there was no time to get the tire fixed. So this morning Eleanor, Amanda, Luke and I all headed to the car dealership to get the tire fixed, the inspection done, the oil change done, and a piece of the car hooked back in. (I think Luke has managed to take off part of the panel below the sliding door. He's talented that way.) We were there for 2.5 hours, watching the tv, playing with their legos, playing their video games and eating popcorn. I think the kids may have even enjoyed themselves...

The weather was gloriously sunny, and to reward the kids for behaving so well, I planned to take them swimming after Luke's nap. He had a hard time going down, took a medium size nap, I had to make dinner, and so it was 2:30 by the time we were leaving. I did check the weather.gov website, which said "chance of severe thunderstorms", but it was really beautiful out. Besides which, I checked the radar and there was nothing on the horizon (except for perhaps a storm up in Virginia). So we went. I did bring socks for the girls so they could play in the "kid's gym" if a storm blew in, but we even left them in the car, it looked so bright and sunny.

We got into swimsuits and went out to the pool just as break was ending. Perfect timing, I thought. We had been there about 10 minutes when we heard the first thunder.

Since we had to clear the pool deck, we couldn't even get the slushie I had promised the girls. We decided to get back into our clothes (I've tried waiting around for the storms to end: it rarely turns out well). By the time we were dressed, you could hardly see across the parking lot, the rain was coming down so hard. We had a snack to wait for the rain to let up, and went home.

The strangest thing is that even though this was not the blow-out last day of summer I had planned, it wasn't bad. Eleanor and Amanda managed to amuse themselves and not disagree too much, Luke was easy going (except when it came to going down for a nap)... The closest we came to a breakdown was when Eleanor found out we wouldn't be waiting for the rain to go away. She almost cried, but then was able to switch gears and look forward to getting a snack. I don't really want to have many more days like this, but it could have been much worse.

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