Snakes alive!

Over the weekend, we had a close encounter with the reptillian kind. That's right...a SNAKE! On Thursday night, the babies and I left for the lake ahead of Z. (We were spending my 30th b-day there (Friday) and I wanted to wake up at the lake on my big day.) Anyway, when we arrived and unloaded, the kiddos wanted to go swim in the pool. Since I was by myself with them, and I really didn't want to get in the water I had them wear their life jackets.

C swam for a few minutes and was ready to get out. So, she was wrapped in a towel and waiting for me to move a chair over to where my chair by the pool steps (within arms' reach from them in the pool). While I'm moving the chair, L started screaming about a snake on him and frantically swimming toward the steps. I dropped the chair I was holding rushed over, still thinking it was one of the zillion bugs that were flying in toward the lights in the pool. Then, his voice escalates into a panicked sound as I grab him by the shoulders of the life jacket and start kind of shaking him as I see THE SNAKE ON HIS LIFE JACKET slithering toward the arm hole! As I'm grabbing him and shaking him to loose the snake, I'm leaning over all three steps as he was just beyond the steps when I reached the pool's edge. The snake fell off, and I'm asking L the whole time, "Did it bite you? Did the snake touch your skin? Do you hurt anywhere?" I get him out of the life jacket as fast a lightening checking him over and looking in the pool to see the snake. I noticed what I thought was a pattern on the snake, so I'm really revving up the questions and search of L's body for any marks of signs of a bite. The snake itself was no more than a foot long, and had swam/slithered into the skimmer. While we watched the snake swim to the skimmer, L kept telling me, "Slap his neck, Mommy. That's what Daddy says to do. We've gotta slap his neck." I almost started laughing at this point, for two reasons...A) What his Daddy tells him about killing snakes is how he "Snap the neck" usually with a shovel-not bare hands and B) I was not going looking for the snake again...No WAY!

(My girl C was safe at this point, too ...I kept my eye on her too. In the midsts of the extraction of L from the pool, I barked for her to stand still, which she thankfully did.) Needless to say, our swim was over, and I went to alert the only other person at the complex of the snake. He went to check the skimmer and I went to check L again. He was fine, and I began bragging on him for not panicking and doing the right thing. I'm so glad he didn't try to grab it, especially since we didn't ever find it to see what kind it was. I'm also thankful that I didn't fall head first into the pool while grabbing and shaking L. I could have hurt us both if I had. Thanks to God for watching over us.

In other news, my birthday was fabulous. My wonderful hubby arranged a great dinner in a nearby town. My mom made it up, along with the rest of hubby's immediate family plus Holly and Allie Grace. Then, Saturday was fun outside; the weather was great...HOT, but great.

Sunday morning I got up and drove back to meet up with my girlfriends (MM lives out of state, EA and CM live locally, but we rarely get together except for these special events... we all taught together for 2 years). MM came in from Louisiana and EA and CM and I all joined her at her favorite singer's downtown concert. John Mayer provided a lovely reason to all be together for my 30th. More fun! Everyone stayed at our house. EA and CM who had to work today slept in L's room, MM slept in our guest room, and L slept with us. After the concert (and HUGE blisters from my adorable new shoes from my mom), we had cake and then chatted until 1:30 am. Michelle and my babies and I spent the morning together, lunched at CFA, ran into our old parapros, which was great, then she headed back to Tallahassee (where her kiddos await her at their grandparents and her hubby will join her for their big trip to Disney for her son's fifth b-day). It was a great visit, but a short one. We did get to host the whole family last weekend, so that was fun. And they will be back in October for the guys to hopefully attend a Nascar event for Michelle's very enthusiastic NASCAR fan. And, we're trying to plan a good girls getaway sometime early next year.

In other news, L pretended to be a postman today. We had to make a mail bag out of construction paper with a kitestring handle. He had the best time. Note to self...make more projects with him because he loves it. C has done SOOO well with out a pull-up, and no longer likes pull-ups.


L prayed for David, the widower from our home group, tonight. I had no idea he picked up on what his dad and I we were praying about last week. He did...and he remembered him on his own. He prayed that God would help David be brave. Wow!

That's all for now...