Guess what’s coming for dinner

I love the irony that we drove from Florida to Alabama so that the kids could go swimming indoors! Pete took the kids to the pool while I enjoyed a quiet hour by myself with nothing more to do that listen to the washing machine run and lay in bed with a book…it was heavenly. He promptly lured Peyton into a nap, which the two of them took with full snoring glory.

Yesterday we were invited to dinner at Mike and Stacy’s house. Mike works with Peter, Stacy is his wife and they have two children, Ally and Carter. We were joined by another of Peter’s coworkers, Pat, his wife Caroline and their teenage son Sean. Mike and Stacy live in a beautiful home, and Mike hit the grill to cook up dinner for all of us. Our three kids met their two kids and shot off for directions unknown. Carter is a year younger than Nathaniel, and has a room that was perfection as far as he was concerned “He had guns and an Xbox, a laptop and all kinds of stuff!” Carter could have been bunking down in a moldy sleeping bag wedged into a tub filled with acid and it wouldn’t have changed Nathaniel’s opinion that Carter has the ultimate GUY room. Ally is 5, perfectly between Rachael and Peyton. She and Rachael ran all night, including Peyton at times, but the two older girls seemed to hit it off better.

There was the most surreal happening. I’m facing the house, away from the swingset and I see the men all stand up and start pointing beyond me. I turned to see what they’re looking at, and around the corner of the shed in the back yard comes a raccoon….it’s headed at a meandering pace towards the swingset where the three girls are happily playing, completely ignorant of their impending roles in “When good raccoons go bad”.

Stacy yells, “The kids!”

Mike and Pat take off towards the raccoon and chase it away from where the girls are still totally unaware of how close they are to rabies shots. The raccoon shoots around the shed and heads straight the other way….that would be towards the picnic table….where I’m sitting.

I yell, “Forget the kids, protect the moms!”, and take off around the table to the porch, where I’m trying to decide how fast I can run and get into the truck and shut out all the crazy wildlife.

So now the raccoon is boogying its way around the house, I’m thinking “out of sight, out of mind”…but apparently that’s not how we roll GA-style. I see Mike come out of his house with a .22 with a scope on it! Oh, IT IS ON.

Now at the front of the house, Peter and myself, Stacy and Caroline are standing in the yard, watching Mike, Pat and Sean take off for the wooded area they last saw the raccoon.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang, again!

Stacy says, “Maybe Mike should give Pat the gun.”

Bang some more!

I say, “If Pat and Sean don’t come back with Mike, we’re all in big trouble.”

Bang!

Pete starts to take off to see what’s going on. I’m wondering if now is the time to head out to check out what’s the deal with the banging of the gun. I’m also wondering why 5 shots have gone off and there hasn’t been a single window opened, door cracked or person screaming, “I’m calling the cops!”

This was my first ever shoot-your-own-entrée dinner.

f.r.o.G…fully relying on God
–Anissa