Quick update

We're here! After a very full vacation, we returned home last Saturday night around 10:30. Popped the kiddos in bed with the idea that if they woke up in time for Sunday School, we'd get them dressed and go. If they didn't, we'd get them up and ready for preaching service. They woke up at 7:45 which didn't really give us very much time but we made it to SS anyway. Had some Wendy's after church and then hurried home to unload the rental van. Imagine enough luggage for 5 people for a week, 2 people for over 3 weeks, all the beach junk for 6 of us (Timothy stayed with Mom and Dad), food, a few souvenirs, etc, etc, etc. We dumped all of it on our kitchen table and floor and dropped into bed around 3 Sunday afternoon hoping to get enough of a nap before we had to take the rental van back before church. You know what happened next....Ike! Our power went out at 5 on Sunday just before we headed out the door. Had to make an emergency dash to the Bauer home at 10:30 to drop off all our cold and frozen foods. We spent most of Monday and Tuesday with the Bauer family -- many thanks to them -- and yesterday with Jonathan's parents. Thankfully, though, we arrived home last night to power that had come on somewhere around 6 p.m. We still have no cable and we just got our food back and the house is still a mess. Oh, and did I mention we were supposed to be doing SCHOOL sometime during all of this?!?! How are you supposed to do an on-line school with no power, no computer, no books (that's another story in and of itself, not related to the storm)? We were just really going to get into it today and that just didn't happen. Nathan did an hour of science (he still has no books) and Caleb did a short history and math lesson. Midway through phonics, I lost it. John and Elizabeth were knock-down-drag-out fighting with each other, John was screaming as if an axe murderer were following him, Nathan wanted this and that, and I slammed the books shut, put John and Elizabeth to bed, and left Nathan and Caleb to watch videos while I then proceeded to bury my head in a pillow. I seriously don't think I can do this....

Feeling very overwhelmed at all I have to do (school and house cleaning being the top of my list as we're supposed to host appetizers for a progressive dinner on Saturday). Will update on vacation later (much later, at the rate I'm going....).