Rise of the Phoenix

Seeing as I had no daycare today I decided to make myself useful. First off, a call to Harvey's studio. The girls had yearbooks from this year and miraculously, the masters are still on file and are being reprinted for them. Second, a trip around to a couple of stores to make a 'pick me up' basket. We managed to find some really good sales and picked up a Bratz doll, a Polly Pocket and a Littlest Pet Shop Digi pet for the girls (oh and a book), a book for Tracy's husband, some scrapbooking basics and yarn for crocheting for Tracy and a Kong-like thingie and a rawhide for the dog. It was one of those miracle trips where everything was on sale, oh and we found a nice wicker basket to put it in. We then headed down to the house and it was a media circus, sigh... Alot of the early groups were focussing on the lack of hydrants and not the needs of the family and by the time an outlet showed up trying to help everyone was burnt out. I had to choke back tears when we were looking at the damage from the outside. This was somewhere my son practically grew up, I think he may even have more hours logged in that house than here (we only moved into Casa Cote 3 years ago so yes...our child doesn't live in daycare). Seeing the house decimated in the back and all boarded up was just horrible. Although somehow the pug flag that was mounted on the corner of the house was surprisingly untouched. There were alot of donations and it was just amazing to hear of the generosity of the community especially where there's no official organized outlet for donations. Stories like that warm my heart.

Alex has been wanting a playdate forever so it was the perfect time to have one of the girls over. We tried out a little diner near here for a quick lunch and then the kids moved through both levels of the house...what we bought the house in the first place for. The point of having a playroom was to actually have enough room for kids to play :) After that the kids hit the back yard and bounced back and forth between the swings and the pool...yay for mowing the lawn with a bagless mower. There was lots of skimming involved after but my goodness the sounds and squeals of delight made it all worth it. I was parked in my observant but not interfering spot on the deck making up an organized book to help sort everything out for insurance. I think I'll definitely be taking notes from this and video taping the contents of the house, taking inventory and backing up our important information offsite.

Tomorrow it's back to work for the day, I wonder if they missed me? ;)