Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Jan's Summer

I like to stay busy and by that I mean scheduled where I have to do something. I enjoy summer vacation from school but Jace can attest to the fact that I get restless and clingy accusing him of not spending enough time with me. This spring I planned on preventing this and planned to have a busy summer but I didn't realize how busy I was going to be.
School got out Friday, May 29 at noon. Our flight to Nashville left El Paso at 3:45. May 29 was our first grandson's due date. He hadn't made his arrival yet and Jace and I hadn't heard if there were any signs of him coming any time soon. We were anticipating waiting in the hospital for his arrival.
Jace had planned three days of work in half a day. I just listened to his scheduled and realized that I would not have to rush home after school to meet him at the house and leave for El Paso.
The last day of school in Ruidoso is crazy. The kids just come to school for an hour to get their report cards. The teachers needed to stay a little longer. After the kids were gone Linda Hamilton came to see me and she wanted to go lunch. I called Jace to see if he was ready to go. He wasn't so I went to Farley's with Linda to eat lunch. It was 11:00. I know that we needed to leave Ruidoso at 12:00 in order to get to thevEl Paso airport an hour early. Jace called me at Farley's and told me to pick him up and be ready to go to El Paso. It was 11:40. Thankfully Linda and I were finished with lunch and I rushed home and threw our suitcases in the car. Nanci was there ready to help any way that she could. I asked her to pick up some prescriptions at Walgreen's and get something for Jace to eat from Sonic. She was going to meet us in the Bealls parking lot.
So I was on my way to get Jace. He was working out near Spencer. That was about 20 miles in the opposite direction. It was 12:00. I had to wait for Jace to get the crane put up so he could park it.
12:15 we were on our way to meet Nanci. Jace had called her to get some money from the bank and we needed gas so we had a new meeting place Allsups! As we were driving to town Matthew called and told us that the baby would probably land when we did. They were at the hospital. The race was on. Who would get to Nashville first our grandson or us?
We arrived at Allsups and filled up with gas. While Jace was in the restroom changing clothes Nanci arrived with money, medicine, and food for Jace. I told her that she probably needed to look online for a later flight out of El Paso because it was 1:00 and we needed to be there at 2:45 in order to be an hour early. She didn't see anyway that we would make our flight.
We left the Allsups at 1:00. It takes 2 and a half hours to get to El Paso. I saw no way that we would get to El Paso on time. I drove first so that Jace could eat. I drove faster than I have ever driven before. We used the radar detector. I drove to Alamogordo. Jace took over from there. I had a book on CD to listen to but we were so intense about getting to El Paso on time that we weren't in the listening mood. Nanci called and told us that there was another flight out but it would be early in the morning and she had checked to see how much it would cost us. We were between Alamo and El Paso when she called. Jace told her to wait.
We took the short cut that everyone told us about. We had the Magellon on and followed it's directions. We got to the airport about 3:00. We texted Nanci and told her that we had made it.
We checked our luggage, went through security, and went to the restroom. When we got to the gate they had just finished loading the A group. We were in the A group so we walked in front of the B group and boarded the plane.
We flew to Austin and had to change planes. We ate supper there and of course we called Matthew. Our grandson had been born while we were in the air over Texas.
When we got to Nashville, Brain was at the hospital to pick us up. He took us straight to the hospital. We went through the maze of parking garages and halls and finally walked into the room where Jennifer sat up in the bed looking great, Uncle Michael sat, and daddy Matthew sat holding a big little boy. After seeing little Elsie Ensor in March this little boy looked so big. He weighed 9 pounds and 2 ounces. I think the first thing that I said was, "He is big!" Everyone laughed and told us how much he had weighed. Jace and I took turns holding him and finally we asked what his name was. They joked about his name should be Thad because he was so big but finally they told us that his name was Micah Charles Ensor. I didn't believe them at first but they said yes that is his name. My eyes watered up. The name Micah that we had named Matthew's little brother and Charles after Jennifer's daddy. We had seen our grandson when he was three hours old. We stayed awhile and then Matthew took us to our motel room.
The next morning Vail Neal, Matthew, Vail, and Katy picked us up to go see Baby Micah and Jennifer. It was so fun being there when the little girls met their brother.
The rest of the week was a blur. Micah's first outting was to our motel to the swimming pool. The little girls played in the water and Micah sat with his mama on the side of the pool.
Monday Jace, Matthew, and I took the girls to see UP. I took Vail out to the restroom and then we got popcorn. I wanted to get the best deal so I ordered a family combo. I got so tickled at the size of everything that I almost couldn't carry it into the movie. I did have to have a crate to carry 4 giant popcorns and 4 giant drinks in to the movie. Katy looked at her drink Sprite of course and kept asking if it was hers. She had never had such a big one. Just ask Matthew about the family combo.
Tuesday Jace and I took Vail and Katy to the zoo. They were so good. The girls were so good that we almost stayed too long and the girls almost didn't get a nap. Jammie and Papa had a great time.
Wednesday Vail Neal, Katy, and I took Jace to the airport. He had a flight home. He had to get back to Ruidoso and work. We also picked up Avery for the day.
Friday Matthew, Vail, Katy and I went to a baseball game with Michael and Avery. We didn't stay too long because the girls were more interested in changing seats than watching the game. We did let them play in one of the Jumpy Places. It had a dill that you could climb over and then slide down. It was tall but Katy did it all by herself. It was so cute to see her coming over the top so proud of herself.
Saturday we shopped for Katy a tricycle and found one at ToysrUs. That is one of the highlights of the day, for the girls, is to go outside with their mommy and daddy and ride tricycles. Matthew draws with side walk chalk a track for them to ride around on. Papa drew one too. The girls ride and ride and ride.
Sunday I went and watched Matthew play ice hockey. His game started at 12:30. My flight left at 3:00. Again another tense time trying to make it to the airport on time. I got there just in time to walk on board the plane. I had to change planes in Chicago. I had never changed planes in Chicago by myself before so I was just a little nervous but everything was great. The plane was full so I was squashed between the window and a man who spread out a newspaper and read it most of the way. It was a three hour flight. My arms went to sleep trying not to touch him but I gave up and put my arms on the armrest too.
Lois our schools reading coach picked me up from the airport. I had flown into Albuquerque to attend a reading first conference. We went back to the hotel and checked in. I knew that I would be sharing a room with someone because I always had but not this time. I had a room to myself and it was a nice room. I called Jace and told him to come to Albuquerque because I had a nice room with a king sized bed. We both laughed.
The next day I got a call from Jace. He said that he had slipped off the truck bed and had to get stitches. He was planning to come to Albuquerque the next day because he was supposed to stay off his feet. Well he did come but he went shopping most of the day Wednesday. He stayed Tuesday night and Wednesday night. He came home Thursday morning and I came home that afternoon.
Saturday evening we went to the movies and saw Night at the Museum. Sunday we went to church and I went to Clovis.
So far this has been my summer. This is what is still planned:

June 22-25 Ruidoso Vacation Bible School
July 3-5 Ensor Lake Reunion at Logan NM
July 5-8 Tulsa to see Ken and Krisiti
Sometime in the two weeks in July to take Mama and Daddy to California
July 25- August 1 Gulf Shores
August 3-6 Math Workshop
August 12 School starts for teachers

Tell me when I am going to clean out my closet, and deep clean the house.
I guess I won't be too clingy this summer.