Josiah has made his final week in Texas count. On Monday, he went to lunch with the junior high pastor. They headed back to Chili's and had good food (chicken tenders, of course) and even better conversation. Chris has been an incredible mentor to Josiah for the past four years. We are going to miss him a lot! From there, I dropped Josiah off at a friend's house to go fishing. Josiah and Ethan would fish every morning at Kamp as well as the Fall Retreat. Ethan loves to fish and keeps the location of his favorite lake mum so no one else can score the big catfish that he catches. He took Josiah knowing he was on his way out of town and could not give up the secret. They stayed out for three hours and caught one catfish. Josiah thought it was a big one. Ethan said it was a small one. They had a good time together. I asked Josiah if he had any pictures of them fishing. He texted me a machete-wielding picture of himself. Yes, it's real.
The following day, Josiah headed to Bobby's house for a sleepover with several friends. They headed to Typhoon Texas the following day with Bobby's church. I thought their day might get cut short due to a storm moving in mid-afternoon. However, things went a little differently. Josiah said he was in line for the drop slides when they had to shut the water off because someone got stuck on a slide. They went to the lazy river instead and not too long into that, the whole park shut down because their filters were not working. A thunderstorm moved in just 20 minutes after that anyway, so it wouldn't have mattered much, but Josiah did come home and hopped right in the shower. Filtering the water seems like a big deal at a water park.
Henry, Caroline, and I got some pool time in as well. Our friends invited us to their pool for one last get-together. Their neighborhood has a very nice pool. The slides were damaged during Hurricane Beryl, so Caroline never got to try them. The last time we were at this pool, she was slightly too short to ride them. This time, when she was plenty tall enough, they were not working. They did have a leap pad obstacle that they spent most of their time on. It was good to hang out.
Mid-week, Henry was able to go to a friend's house for the better part of a day. He also had one last Bible study up at church. After his Bible study was over, we stopped by the children's minister's office because she had made cookies for us. She said she made good ones (soft and chewy) and bad ones (golden brown and delicious). We got goodbye hugs. The kids were 2, 4, and 6 when we started going to this church, so they've all had Ms. Leslee as their children's minister for the elementary years.
We went from cookies and hugs to Chick-fil-a with Bobby and Melissa. One final meal with really good friends. Josiah has been in school with Bobby since kindergarten, so it'll be so weird not to see Bobby all the time. Every get-together right now is happy hugs and sharing fun memories followed by sad hugs and held-back tears.
Caroline also helped me change out the front door knob. It has been falling off for the better part of a year now. As we were transitioning out the old knob, it became clear I had packed all our Phillips head screwdrivers. The box of tools I had saved had four flatheads.... Fortunately we have a newish neighbor across from us who is always working in his garage - he keeps the door open, so I knew he had a ton of tools. He was incredibly nice and let me borrow two which made all the difference in the world. It was still tricky and frustrating to get it on, but Caroline was a big help with that, too.
When we weren't packing, we were playing cards. Henry learned a new card game on his mission trip, Egyptian Rummy, and it's been a hit here. It is not a quiet game. There is a lot of slapping of the cards and loud exclamations.
On Sunday, the movers were scheduled to come. The time I was given was between 1 a.m. and 3 p.m. We stayed home from church with the hope that they would come in the morning. The morning passed. I took the kids outside for a last picture in front of the house. We hung around for the afternoon. By 3 p.m., no one had come. All the phone numbers I had said the offices were closed or the mailboxes were too full to leave a message. Frustration was high. At 5 p.m. I called again and someone answered the phone. She spoke with the driver who said he was told we were moving on Monday. She said they would compensate for missing our 3-day window. What was the compensation? A whopping $30. The driver did call me and he should be here tomorrow morning. So instead of driving to SC tomorrow, we'll be moving out instead.
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