Father’s Day 2019

Father's Day this year was an exciting one. One for the books.BOOM! BAH-BOOM!! BOOM!! There is no way to possibly write how loud it was. It was like a bomb hit my house.At 3 am, we were ripped from deep slumber by several deafening noises, ones that made the house shake and shudder, followed by the fire alarms going off for a few moments.Wide awake, Brian and I got dressed and went to check things out. We had been hit by lightning, we were sure of it.Kids were awake and scared. Dogs were nervously pacing back and forth. The lightning continued to brighten the night sky, and the rain pounded down. Satisfied with our walk-through, we went back to bed.Sunday morning came, and we quickly got ready for church. Walking out to the kitchen, I could smell gas. I said something."I smell gas. Can you guys smell that?"I didn't get much response. We were going to be late, so I dropped the subject and got in the car.We got home a few hours later, and the smell of natural gas was overwhelming. Gah! We grabbed some granola bars and went outside while I called the gas company.So much for the omelets I had planned for brunch.We waited. And waited. And waited.In the meantime, my son walked by a bush next to our porch and felt a snake brush his arm. A snake in a bush! Boy, this thing was hidden so well. I couldn't believe how big it was, that it was up high in the bush, or how well it was camouflaged. This day just kept getting better and better. Despite my own desires to get rid of the snake, we left it there.Finally, a nice man from the gas company showed up. He got his tools and went inside. A few minutes later, he came back out. He could smell the gas, but his meter wasn't detecting a leak.He performed a pressure test on the gas line, and sure enough...something was leaking. Unfortunately, that meant we needed a plumber to come find and repair the leak. That would have to happen on Monday. The man turned off the gas so we could safely stay in our house. He told us to call back when the leak was repaired, and they would turn the gas back on. OK!We returned to the inside of our house and took inventory of all the things that were not working.No gas=no stovetop, no hot water. My ovens wouldn't turn on. Televisions, the Wii, the internet...everything was broken. To top it all off, the air conditioners wouldn't work (with the exception of the one cooling our own bedroom). In the summer. In TEXAS. Help.The much-anticipated thoughts of a blue-cheese crusted steak dinner with roasted potatoes and bacon-wrapped green beans were suddenly replaced with panic. What will we eat?Well...we simplified. A LOT. Toast with hard-boiled eggs (Instant-pot to the rescue) tomatoes, guacamole and cheese. We did make Orange Julius, so it was still kind of fancy. Haha. That's a lie. It wasn't fancy at all, but it was dinner.After dessert (which I had made the night before, thank goodness!), we got the kids to bed. Not really. It was about 1000 degrees upstairs. For real. Back downstairs came the kids, their mattresses, pillows, and blankets. Our bedroom turned into the Snow Family Campout, 2019.Truthfully, with no air conditioning and no oven and no stovetop...isn't that camping? Add to that 7 people sleeping in one room? That's camping.So there you have it. Happy Father's Day, y'all!