Putters, tennis rackets, and (flying) bats

Last night was our adult-only dinner. It was wonderful. Since our parents get along so well, we decided it would be fun to have dinner out with all of them. Since Mom and Dad live in Grand Rapids now, we planned to meet in Lansing. Sarah, Steve's wonderful sister, just got back from Arizona but was willing to babysit Ella and Amelia and Isaac and Julia at our house. Dinner was fun and much less weird than you'd expect a triple date with your parents and in-laws to be. :) Then we found a putt putt golf place and decided to do that too. Since we had thunderstorms earlier in the day, most of the greens were waterlogged and some were partially flooded. That just made it more fun. I lost miserably but we had a lot of laughs and it was nice to have a night with both sets of parents without kids as distractions. Luckily, the girls were pretty good for Sarah too.

We got to bed late, about 12:30. Then it happened. I saw it first, when Steve had fallen asleep and I was doing electronic sudoku. I saw a dark flutter out of the corner of my eye and then saw it again, screamed, and dove under the covers. In the process I smacked myself in the forehead with my sudoku. I have a nice goose egg. Steve woke up and pulled the blankets over his head too, not sure what was going on. But there it was, a bat, circling our bed. Then we tried to decide what to do while it flew and dove over our bed. Finally we peeked and couldn't find it. Looked everywhere. Thing is, we didn't know where it came from either. So finally we both climbed into bed. After I calmed down I fell asleep. Steve kept reading and woke me up a while later to say it was back. This time we watched it in the mirror on our headboard. Thing is, by the time we were brave enough to actually look, it had disappeared again. Again, I went back to sleep while Steve stayed awake reading. That time he had a tennis racket. When it reappeared, he smacked it a few times and stunned it and pinned it on the floor with the racket. He managed to bash his knee with the racket too (apparently we're klutzes). He went downstairs and got a diaper box to slide underneath the bat and racket and carried the entire thing downstairs. Then he wasn't sure what to do so I helped him put a garbage bag over the entire thing and then opened the back door. He walked out onto the patio and whipped the whole mess into the yard. So by the time I finally got to sleep and stayed asleep, it was 3:15. Steve said he was awake until 4:00.

This morning the girls started making noise around 8:00 but we didn't get out of bed until we heard Ella shrieking at Amelia. Not sure what the problem was. But both girls were grumpy, Steve and I are both tired, it's already hot and sticky humid, and I still have a bump and headache from my sudoku puzzle. So we decided it was probably best to stick close to home today. We're enjoying our new church and the small group and will resume that on Wednesday with small group. Luckily the girls seem to be a bit more agreeable and a bit less cranky now. Praying it lasts!