Happy Sunday to you all! It is a very happy Sunday for me. Mark just got our electricity working. We have had no electricity in our outlets since the 12th, and you never know how much you depend on it until you lose it!

Serenity and Jose left on the evening of the 12th to drive at night in hopes of avoiding the heat. It’s been in the 80s and 90s here for the last couple of weeks, even close to 100 for a couple of days. Serenity sent some pictures of stops they made the first couple of days:

Serenity says that this water in the ice cave under the volcano actually comes from the Arctic Circle. They don’t know how it got here. She also sent a picture of ice in the volcano, but I wasn’t able to download it. Anyway, they’re on their way to Wisconsin and taking in the sights on their way. I told Mark we need to get back to doing that.

This week at work has been slow for me if not for the tax advisors and the receptionists. I am a super caller, but there aren’t too many people to call at this point in the season. My boss has me responding to client surveys after they’ve had their appointment, and I have been calling several days in advance to confirm appointments or reschedule ones that were missed or canceled. Other than that, I’m beginning to work shorter hours.

Mark, on the other hand, has been trying, ever since we realized our electricity wasn’t working, to try to figure out what happened. We had light because that operates on batteries, but all our outlets were dead. That meant we couldn’t operate the microwave, Mark’s CPAP machine, the TV, or charge our hotspot for the internet and our cell phones and our digital watches. It kind of made me long for the days when phones were landlines and watches were windup! Today after church, he was talking with a guy named Mike who is mechanically inclined, and during the course of the conversation, something sparked an idea in Mark’s mind, and by the time I came back from visiting with everyone, Mark had everything working again!

My last day on the job is going to be Tuesday for half a day. Mark and I have been wanting to get out of here on Wednesday. The electrical issue set us back a bit, so we’ll see. It’s our intent to go to Oregon first since we missed going there for the holidays and we want to spend a few days there visiting with family and friends before we head back to Wisconsin.

I am sincerely hoping that Wisconsin will be a little warmer by then. I’ve been watching their temperatures and last week they had a couple of days in the 70s, but tonight and tomorrow, it looks like they’re in for some more snow mixed with rain. That is going to be quite the shock after being in the heat here.

We had a call from one of our Turkish daughters last night, Lara. She said that Kader is going to fly down to visit her in Florida for a few days and then Lara is going to fly back to Wisconsin with her for a few days in May, possibly arriving in Milwaukee on the 8th or 9th. That created a desire in me to see both of them for my birthday on the 9th. I wrote to Kader and she said that she won’t be able to take another day off work to come up to Door County, so I suppose we’ll have to make a trip to Milwaukee when they fly back. Something to look forward to!