From last week through today

Since my last blog my family has been pretty busy. Dash and I (mostly dash) worked with my dad to replace decking for a roof top. Dash spent almost if not every day except Sunday and Yesterday there. Today the roofers got there to put the shingles on. At one point last week Dash was going to do that too, but the tools he needed would have cost at least 1/2 as much as having someone else put them on so it made more sense to have the other people put do it.

Today's crew is the second crew hired for the job. The first crew were suppose to show up Saturday. They did not. They came on Sunday and left. When they showed up they wanted dad to provide tools and nails and staples (stuff they said on the phone they had.) When he went to get gas for his generator (again his stuff they were using) they packed up and told my mom they were leaving.

Today's crew seem (from Dash's perspective--since he's there overseeing the project) to be a good crew that knows what they are doing. He's off to buy more shingles, we were short a few bundles. Dash worked from 8 am to 6 pm with dad on Saturday, so he went to bed by 11 and I stayed up till about 5. He tried to stay awake because he felt I would stay up later if he were asleep. I sent him to bed anyway. He deserved and needed the rest.

Sunday Nicky sang her first solo in church. My sister had invited her to sing at her church, they have youth specials every month. She sang "mirror" by Barlow Girls. She did a great job, and the sermon fit right in line with the song. The pastor referenced her song a few times and there were a couple other specials as well. We had prayed that her song would be in line with sermon. It was cool for it to be so obvious. He even pointed out that he was using the mirror imaging in his sermon and how the spirit was busy at work! It was a neat experience for her, we missed our own church service for it, so some of the people there are encouraging her to sing at our church some time. We don't really have specials at our church like my sister's does though, so I am not sure if that will ever happen or not. The cool thing is she wasn't as nervous as she expected to be and she's willing to do it again! She LOVES to sing.

Sunday night was more sobering for Nicky. She got an email telling her that a friend has died. I saw the email first (I'm thankful for that, her gmail popped up when I turned on the laptop.) I went ahead and woke her up so we could talk about it and help her deal with the loss of the friend. I knew she had talked about him a lot last year and that he had been in her classes. I didn't realize how much time she spent with him and even his older brother. She went to school yesterday. I told her to call if she needed me. She said it was tough but she made it through. Chan told me this morning that Nicky was having a rough morning and asked if she could still call me if she needed me today! I love that he looks out for his sis like that. I told him of course, so when she came to talk to me he said "I already asked for you, you can call still call mom if you need her!"

This is Nicky's first real experience with death of someone that she had daily interaction with and him dying at the age of 13. He had a disease. Because he could walk and talk I don't think any of the kids knew how serious it was or that it was life threatening. I know Nicky did not. She blogged about Nich (short for Nicholas) on her h2ofall blog. There's a link to the right if you want to read what she posted. She titled it You're joking because he always made everyone laugh. She hasn't called and it's almost noon, so I am expecting that she'll be okay. She said that her friends were all caring and understanding yesterday when they found out the reason she was sad.

I'm glad that she has a good group of friends here. She seems to really be clicking with the kids here and they seem to already understand her. I know that was a concern of hers before, but if you saw how many girls sat with her on Sunday you'd know, she's doing just fine! :)