Why Skylights are a Bad Idea

On June 13, 2012, a freak hail storm hit Dallas, especially East Dallas. Unfortunately, our neighborhood was one of the hardest hit areas. We were not at home, we were on our way home from dinner when it started to rain. Shortly after, the hail began and we quickly realized we needed to pull over. We pulled under a tree and listened to the hail hit the car. Neither Brandon nor I have ever seen hail that big (confirmed softball and baseball size) and I don’t know if we ever will again. Luckily, my car wasn’t damaged too much thanks to the tree we were under, but I did have to get a new windshield and I am still on the wait list at Caliber Collision for the other damage. We made it home finally and found three busted skylights upstairs and hail and glass all over our house.  I'm glad we were not home because I think the girls would have been really freaked out by the skylights breaking in our house. 

Results:

Farmers Insurance has been great – we have already gotten a new roof, we will get new carpet upstairs, paint and drywall repairs, deck and fence repairs, new gutters, windows and paint outside, etc.  The only hiccup is trying to pry our insurance money from Wells Fargo.  They have our mortgage, therefore want to be involved in all repairs which adds several layers of complication.  We can’t get repairs completed without an inspector, 20 notarized forms and all kinds of bureaucracy.  Wish us luck, hopefully we can get all of the work done by Christmas!    

Ellis

As much as Finley is my rule follower, Ellis is not!  She is my laid back kid, so sweet, but could care less about most things.  She is my cuddle bug and she is the class clown.  Her favorite thing to say when she is getting into trouble is "I funny"!  She has gotten so big, but she still loves to be the baby.  I still have not cut her hair, although I think it is time.  Her hair was so dark when she was born and now it is so blonde, lighter than Finley's hair.  She is talking so much more, but I still have to ask Finley to translate sometimes when I can't understand what she is saying.  Finley usually knows.  Ellis has really come out of her shell over the past six months.  Overall, she is a mess, but its so hard to get mad at her when she grins at you and looks at you with her big sweet eyes!

Finley

Finley has grown so much this past year.  We call her our little police officer because she is such a rule follower (which I secretly love, because I am too).  She had a great year at the CDC and graduated from the Star's class in May.  She is attending a summer creative arts camp at school that she absolutely loves, making new friends and learning so many things.  The creative arts camp is at the same school where she will attend Pre-K in September so we thought is would be a great transition for her since she has been at the CDC since she was 6 months old.  We can't believe she will start Pre-K in a couple months, but she is so ready.  She reminds Ellis every day that she is too big to go to the CDC, she is in Summer Camp and Pre-K!

In addition to the great experience at creative arts camp, Finley goes to swim lessons every day at school.  We had a rough start, she wouldn't even get in the water and cried every day.  I would ask her if she wanted to go back and she said yes so I kept taking her.  Finally, by the end of the first week, she would get in the water and play by the ladder.  Then, before I knew it, she put her head under water, then all of the sudden after two weeks, she actually started swimming.  It has been four weeks and she is jumping off the diving board and was moved up to the intermediate swim group.  We are so proud of her!

Give me back my bunny!

We have a DVD player in our car and usually let the girls watch something on the way to and from school.  It's not a terribly far drive, but sometimes we can get stuck in traffic, its nice to have them entertained so I can listen to the radio.  Unfortuately, our DVD player hasn't been working very well so Finley usually asks to listen to her songs, which means the kid's music CD I keep in my car. This may make me a terrible mom, but I dread when she asks to listen to her music because it means 25 minutes of kid music - you know, the usual, "I've been working on the Railroad", "Row, Row, Row your Boat", etc.  A while back we were listening to her CD and she told me she wanted to hear "Give me back my bunny".  I didn't know what song she was referring to so we went through the entire CD until we came to the song she was talking about. 

This was the song:

My Bonnie lies over the ocean
My Bonnie lies over the sea
My Bonnie lies over the ocean
Oh, bring back my Bonnie to me

REFRAIN:
Bring back, bring back
Bring back my Bonnie to me, to me
Bring back, bring back
Bring back my Bonnie to me

From this, she got "Give me back my bunny"!  She makes me laugh!