As just about everyone knows, I am a huge party
planner. I love to come up with themes and coordinate the food,
activities and prizes. Just witness my excellent Pi Day Party! So, when
our dear friends, Raymond and Claire Lininger, and their three children,
Drew, Cora and Audra, decided to move home to Oklahoma, I needed no
prompting to dive right in and start planning. I planned three games for
the party yesterday: Pin the Liningers on OK, OK Trivia, and Find as
Many Words in Shawnee, Oklahoma as You Can. The prizes for the games
were to be little baskets of cornbread and bean soup mixes, with a large
gift for the Liningers that also included a bottle of Texas wine. You
know, to remember us by. Plus, I planned on making Feta Salsa and a few
different crackers to share as well.
The
games (except for drawing OK on a posterboard) were all completed
earlier in the week, but I had planned on doing the grocery and gift
shopping/assembly on Saturday. Saturday morning, Christina came over to
hang out. Originally, we had planned on playing tennis, but rain
(blessed rain!) prevented us from doing so. Instead we ended up running
errands together: the craft store to pick up party gift supplies (me)
and the guitar store to drool over guitars (Christina). We ended with a
nice lunch at New York Pizza and Pasta in downtown Beaumont. An
altogether lovely time but now it was time for me to head home and get
started on party preparations . . . (cue the foreboding music).
Christina was driving and as she came up to a blind intersection with
the largest road in town besides the interstate, a truck traveling in
the cross-direction ran the red. She slammed on her brakes, and avoided
the truck . . . but T-boned the two-horse trailer (complete with two
horses!) it was towing. Scariest moment of my life, by far! Thank God
for safety engineering and my parents for instilling a seat-belt wearing
habit. Had we not been wearing our seat-belts, there is no question we
would have been through the windshield and absorbing who knows what sort
of impact with our heads. The airbags deployed (thankfully, no chemical
burns) and the crumple zone worked perfectly. In fact, considering that
it was a head-on collision (for us) at a decent clip (Christina was
going around 45 mph before hitting the brakes) the fact that we walked
away with no more than some nasty whiplash is amazing. Even the horses,
who were lying one on top of the other in the flipped trailer, appeared
to have no more serious injuries than a few bloody lacerations. God’s
hand was definitely over us all.
Of
course, this seriously derailed the plans for the day. There was the
waiting to give statements to the police. There was the unloading of
Christina’s car into Michael’s (he came right away when I called him).
Christina is in the midst of moving houses/offices, so that was a lot of
stuff! There was the ibuprofen popping and snoozing at home. And
finally, the driving up to Christina’s new place in Lumberton and
unloading her items. By the time that was all completed, I had little
more than 2 hours to run to the grocery store, assemble the gifts, make
the food and draw Oklahoma on the posterboard I’d picked up. Needless to
say, some items got scrapped, most notably the crackers. Michael wanted
me to scrap it all, but I just couldn’t not have something for the
Liningers. I think all the standing in the kitchen aggravated my bruised
foot, though, so by the time I got to the party, I couldn’t really
walk. Hence, pictures are slim, although you can see a few more at Steph's
and Claire’s blogs. We all had fun and I know our friends appreciated
the activities we planned. Godspeed to Oklahoma, Liningers! We will miss
you very much!
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| Adley choo-chooing while Michelle looks on |
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| Brian and Moses and a bright green cast |
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| Drew also gets in on the train action |
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