Stress at it's Highest Level but Still Wouldn't Switch Places with Anyone!

Notice I haven't been posting in the last couple weeks? Well, we have had quite a couple weeks in Our House. Let me tell you about them...Spring break started 2:30pm Friday March 22nd. That day was also the first day that the Kelleys Island Ferry Boats started  running on a very limited schedule and the day Neil went up to the island to open up the cottages and start doing some work on the Our House cottage. Anyway, so I thought it would be fun to take the kids and a friend to Southpark Mall to window shop and have dinner. Sophie had been telling me that her tummy hurt but I hear that so much from one kid or another that I just said that maybe she was hungry. Well long story short, poor sweet Sophie threw up in the glass elevator at the mall. All fun ceased at that point and home we went. Some way to start off break. We then had plans to go to the Natural History Museum with my mother-in-law the very next morning on Saturday, that got cancelled. Instead we tried to cheer her up with some egg coloring and candy making but she was just to sick to enjoy any of it.

Sunday rolls around and we are anxiously waiting for the time when Neil would be arriving back home from KI. Sophie is still not feeling well and has a fever so pretty much our weekend consisted of hanging around the house taking care of Soph. About 3:30pm I get a call on my cell from a number I didn't recognize so I let it go, however, I immedietly get the same number call my home phone and I listen to the person leaving the message and realize it's Neil asking me to pick up, that it's an emergency. Uh oh, not what I wanted to hear so I pick up the phone and Neil, in a rush to make the 4:30pm ferry, locks his keys in his truck along with his phone and everything else. At first I was going to have to get someone to watch the kids while I drive out to Marble Head to the ferry dock and pick Neil up but our island neighbor, Chris who lives near the ferry dock, said he would drive him home. Thank goodness for good neighbors! Then the what-if's started running through my head...like what if chris wasn't at the cottage then? Neil would have had to walk from the cottage to the ferry dock and wait for me on the mainland until I got there. Not the end of the world but it was freezing and after a long weekend of working, not what he would have wanted to do. Neil and Chris tried without success, to open the lock and at that point, Neil was fit to be tied!!! He gets home and we figure that we would go first thing in the a.m. to head back up to the island and retrieve his truck. I had my mom lined up to come over at 6:25am to watch the kids while we go on this adventure.

The adventure begins...we wake up to about 5 inches of snow on the ground and it still snowing like crazy but see you can't just call the KI Ferry Dock to see if the boats are running because they don't open until a 1/2 hour before the first ferry is to depart. Well if we waited until then, we'd never make the 8 am ferry and be able to get to the island, retrieve the truck, turn around and get on the 9:30am ferry back to the mainland. Then the next ferry boat wasn't until 4pm. So we make our way out, we get to Sandusky in a snow storm, call the ferry dock and were told that they are not running the boats that day and weren't sure they would run them Tues. either. OMG, seriously?! Ok, families lived with one car, so we can too. I mean I grew up with our family only having 1 car for a lot of years and I never really noticed it being too much of a problem. I guess times have changed because it was a problem! Not only did Neil have to take my car but I had to give him my phone for work, so I was left with nothing or Anna's phone. Wednesday we would try the ferry boat again.

Tues comes around and Neil has to work late so we are stuck at home again, no car and no phone. Sophie gets what I suspect to be a UTI that needs attention and a prescription from a doctor. No problem right? Wrong! How would I get her to the doctor without a car? My mom to the rescue again! I take Sophie in my mom's car to Rocky River Urgent Care, wait 1 hr, go get her prescription and come home. My mom goes home because she will be back over the next morning at 6:25am so we can try the ferry boat again.

It is now Wednesday early morning, no snow on the ground so we think that this might be the day to finally get over to the island. We get to the ferry dock and get on the 8am ferry, hallelujah!!!! The sun was shining, the island looked so pretty. We get to Our House cottage and there in a beam of sunlight, was Neil's truck. All is well in the world at this point. We get back on the 9:30am ferry and home by noon.

NOW, let Spring Break Begin! Sophie is feeling better and all of us needed  to get out and have a little fun the rest of the week. We managed to go to the Cleveland Auquarium, The Childrens Museum, the Rainforest and the Zoo, went to Good Friday service with the family, out to Red Slopster for lunch, fun with friends at the Westlake Rec Center, grandparents sleepover, Easter Sunday with the family and wrapped up break with fun with cousins at the play yard McDonalds and Anna at the IX Indoor Amusement park. Nothing can bring down the Stenger Family, we can be slowed down but not stopped! Even with everything that went on I kept thinking to myself that things could always be worse and I wouldn't trade places with anyone, I was still happy being in that moment of chaos with my family. Builds character, patience and believe it or not, memories!