Life's Little Insanities...

Well, for those of you didn't know, we've already begun our vacation trip for this summer. We left our house the afternoon of the 13th and arrived at Aunt LaNita's house in time for dinner. Kellen has been attending a day camp Mon-Thurs of this week at the school that Madeline and Rose go to, because Allison was going, too. They got to learn all kinds of really cool things about weather this week. Kellen did feel a little funny about the whole thing on the premise that he and Allison were the only ones not in Kindergarten or first grade. Oh, well. You can't win them all! Both kids have been having a blast playing with the cousins and going swimming almost every day, though.

Monday afternoon/evening I had a bit of an upset since a child that LaNita was watching took my cell phone home with her (thinking it was a toy) and I couldn't find it anywhere. On a chance, I drove to the family's home and they were able to give it to me! Oh, relief!!

On Wednesday evening, we went to a small circus that was in town. You can see just how small, since the picture I took shows everything there was to see. There were a total of six performers, each doing a couple of things. Not a grand circus, but certainly enough to entertain the kids!
After the circus, we were headed back towards town with intentions of getting ice for making snow cones. We were derailed. The traffic leaving the circus made things quite slow and at one point the truck driving behind me didn't slow down. It turns out that either his brakes failed or the truck didn't have any (I'm not sure which, since there was a slight language barrier) and he ended up slamming into the rear of my car. Thank goodness for seat belts and car seats, because no one was injured in the accident. Mark had some upper back pain the next day, but everyone else is perfectly okay. The guys in the truck didn't have insurance or money (they're living in a tent in a nearby cherry orchard) so we'll see what my insurance company is able to get out of them. In the meantime, it's almost certain that my car is a total loss. We're fairly certain that there is frame damage, which will cost more to fix than the car is worth, considering it's 10 yrs old with 130,000 miles on it. For the time being, it was drivable enough for Steve to trade vehicles with me in Yakima (so that I can continue our trip) while he drove the Malibu back to his parents' house and borrowed their Mercedes (19 yrs old, 180,000 miles) for the foreseeable future. At least Madison gets a new car seat out of the deal...
In the course of the accident, since I was following Mark and LaNita, my car got shoved into the rear of their van, as well. The damage to theirs will require replacement of that particular panel, but at least it doesn't render the car undriveable.
And this is the little Nissan pick-up that caused all the hullaballoo. Needless to say, he received a citation for driving without insurance, but I'm not sure he'll get more than that. I have to say, it makes me really angry that this accident deprives me of a vehicle, endangered my family, and will require me to still pay a deductible (only $100 thanks to Steve's forethought), but we'll be lucky just to be able to contact this guy again (let alone get anything out of him for it) because he's a migrant worker in the fields here!!
But on to more pleasant things... Today we drove out to Summer Falls for a picnic lunch, a glorious view, and much time spent trying to teach 3-4 children (depending on waxing and waning interest levels) how to skip rocks across the water. Truly a wonderful afternoon! The picture below is the view of the falls and the water, with Spencer standing in the foreground.
I think that about catches up the last week. I know, I haven't written anything about day camp, but I'll be sure to devote some time to that when we get home again after the reunion. And this will quite likely be my last post until we reach that point.