Johnson Journal: Time to Update

Please bear with me as I need to catch up with Life!

There are reasons for my absence...

First, I blame it on our power outage from a random freak-of-nature VA storm!
Here is a blog I started about 2 weeks ago.....

"I update this blog from a hotel room about 25 minutes from our house. Mini-vacation, you may ask....yes from the 100 degree weather INSIDE our house! Power left us at exactly 11pm on Friday night. I know the exact time because I was closing up shop for the night and just mentioned to Jesse how excited I was for a normal weekend around home. I have much to get ready for this week and was going to take the opportunity to make a dent before Jesse made his way back to work on Monday. Well, I guess the Big Man upstairs had a different plan for my weekend as a major storm came out of nowhere....really no-where! We quickly rushed the kids out of their beds and Jesse cleared out our storage space under the stairs as fast as possible. Winds were swirling and objects were flying. Our backyard furniture went flying and my beautiful hanging baskets left their homes as fast as the wind could take them. Gavin, Taylor, and Blake stayed in a somewhat state of sleep while Aiden kept chasing Jesse and Charlie around the house. The storm stopped just as quickly as it started and we made our way back to the kids beds....in the dark. With temps in the 100's, it didn't take long for our small house to start heating up. We spent Saturday waiting for the AC to click on...no luck. Another night in the dark without fans...fridge food....cell phone service...and very sweaty children. Poor Blakey and her locks of sweaty hair. I was the genius who took all 4 kids grocery shopping on Friday morning and spent my normal hundreds of dollars. Now I am in pain watching all my food money go down the drain. Talk about frustrating! But, we are all safe, nothing major was damaged."

Second, I blame my parents for flying in early to allow Jesse and I to disappear together without kids! We spent a whole Friday touring DC, visiting offices of important people, eating at 4 different restaurants (sometimes you just want cheesecake after you just ate at one place and before dinner at another), hitting up a movie, and of course, some wonderful window shopping. It was one of the best days, just Jess and me...

Our small on-post house held up well as the Bennett family arrived to join us before we left for VA Beach! (so glad the power was back!)

The other members of the family flew straight into VA Beach after they attended a wonderful concert and with that.....All the Paukert's were in one place..at one time! What a great week we had enjoying the sun, sand, water, and laughs. What an amazing family we have been blessed with!

After all that beach fun, we still had one more important stop to make! Our cousin Kyle was getting married in PA. We all jumped into our cars and made our way to Harrisburg. Our family made a quick stop back to DC to pick up Jesse's parents. You see..they were so kind to fly in and watch our 4, so Jesse and I could enjoy the open bar without kids:-) The drop at the airport was fast and furious! Rod and Bernie jumped into the car with all the kids and made their way back to Belvoir as Jesse and I hit up some fun traffic on the Beltway!