Bye Bye Banshee

Adios, Senor Banshee...  some of us will miss you...

 Poor Stephen, saying good-bye

Oddly enough, I was not nearly so sad...

Wahoo!!!

Ouch

So we're at a stop sign, just minding our own business, on the way home from the Atlanta Botantical Gardens, when out of nowhere...

First off, we are all okay. Stephen was driving, and Gramma was in the passenger seat in the front. I was in the back with the boys. We're all a bit sore and shaken up, but we are safe and well and I am humbly grateful to God, and the mechanical engineers at Toyota who designed my Toyota Sienna.

Here's what happened. Another minivan was waiting to turn left across a major road in front of us while we were stopped. It was late rush hour in Atlanta. A sedan going the opposite direction was just driving along at a good speed when the minivan decided to go for it and turn across the oncoming traffic. He didn't even see her. Anyways, the sedan hit the minivan, which spun and slammed into us about 5-10 feet away. Both airbags deployed and the whole car was knocked back a few feet. It was a physics exercise in kinetic energy - like pool balls hitting eachother and transferring all their energy until the last ball is hit. That last ball was us. You can see where he hit us is totally flat:

Well, after the accident, we all got out of the car because there was smoke in the car (probably from the airbags). The kids were really scared, of course. You can see here that Nathan has his "flat face" on, and Ryan is clutching his "purple blanket" and sucking on his fingers like there's no tomorrow. Ben looks okay, but is trying to distract himself with a maze game - this is what he does when he wants to avoid what's happening.

Gramma was complaning of chest pains, and hoping they were from from the seatbelt. She got checked out on the side of the road. Stephen got a huge gash on his arm from the airbag exploding, but he was totally fine other than that. (He's taking the pictures here, so you don't see that)

The firefighters were AWESOME. They showed the kids Gramma's EKG and her heart rate, and they were so kind to all three boys. And, I must say, they were very patient with me.

Gramma had to get transported to the hospital because of the chest pains, where they checked her out and determined that it was a bruised sternum. Thankfully, no cracked ribs, and no heart issues. Thank God for that!

Stephen went to the emergency room with his mom in the ambulance. The car was clearly undriveable and so the firefighters drove me and the boys to the fire station to await a ride. Again the firefighters earned my undying gratefulness with the kindness they showed the boys while I was on the phone trying to find a ride for us home. They showed the kids around the fire station, and even showed them how the fire poles worked (not as simple as you would think). They even changed the channel from the baseball game over to Phineas and Ferb so that the boys could watch TV. Now, THAT is dedication to my kids! Our neighbor, Marc, was able to come get me and the boys and bring us home, and then again came over to watch the boys so I could go pick up Stephen and Gramma at the hospital later that night. Thank yo uso much, Marc - and Roger, too, for lending us Marc and certainly impacting your evening!

In the aftermath, I now feel nothing but immensely grateful: for the safety of my children, the relative lack of hurt to our whole family, the amazing kindness of our neighbors, the performance beyond the call of duty of the firefighters, who made my kids feel safe after such a scary accident. And even more than anything else, I am grateful that my husband, who was in the path of an oncoming minivan with nowhere to go, was saved by a safe car with good airbags.

I think we'll be buying another Toyota Sienna soon. :-)

P.S. The driver of the sedan is also totally fine. Unfortunately, the driver of the minivan that caused the accident was not so lucky. I think he will be okay in the end, but he hit his head pretty hard and had to also be transported to the hospital. He was very disoriented after the accident, and we will keep his health in our prayers.

Hunger Walk 2010

We did some community service with our karate dojo this past weekend. We walked in the Hunger Walk 2010. It was a 5K walk, which we walked VERY VERY slowly. It was a huge group of people walking and we just stayed with the crowd.

Okay - Ryan and I just stayed with the crowd. Stephen, Ben and Nathan kept running ahead and then back to us. I think they probably doubled the distance with all their running back and forth. And I think that next time, they'll do the run. :-)

Anyways, it was a fun family day, and we raised some money for Atlanta Community Food Bank!

Here we are at the finish line


Here are the kids from The Dojo of Dunwoody, fighting hunger:

And, it's not a Lathrop outing if we're not running around like loons at some point - this is Nathan and Ryan, right before we went to the start line. They were crazy!

It was a great day!

My boys

Just some pics I took the other day of my 4 boys...

Lounging on the couch - Ben and Ryan posing...

My three sons - Crazy, Wacko, and Looney. :-)

And just because, here's a video of the boys saying hi to Gramma and Poppy while we were at bagels. It's not perfect, but neither are we. :-)

Lathrops in LegoLand!

Welcome to Legoland! It was a gloomy day, but so much fun. The boys had a blast. Here we all are, out in front:Ben wanted a picture next to the "B", of course -

Here's all the fun lego stuff we saw:

R2D2Thomas the Tank Engine

Bob the builder

How big is Ryan? So big!

Ryan loved MiniLand

The rides were great too - Raylene and Nathan, rolling along - Mommy and BenGrammy and PapawWhee!

Ryan's many happy faces

Ben, mugging for the camera

And Nathan, with the best pose of the day:

It's the Lathrops!

The Zoo Crew

Well, now that it's been almost two months since the trip, I figured I should probably get around to wrapping up our California vacation for you all. Hopefully you all know me well enough to know that Procrastination and I travel hand in hand, and yet you still love me. :-)


We'll continue with the San Diego Zoo, which totally reminded me of what an amazing zoo is. By comparison, Atlanta's Zoo is... well... cute. This was just awesome and the kids loved it too.

Here's the whole Crew:

This is us on the big double decker bus:


Lunchtime!

The boys love to climb on the various statues, so here they are..
Astride a hippo: On a silver polar bear:
One guess who can climb to the top of the tall polar bear:
Of course it's Ben!
Nathan makes his attempt...Here we all are!
Hangin' with a mammoth:Making froggie music:

Loving his Papaw:

What's that you say? Oh, yes, we were at the zoo! Here are some of our favorite animals:

And the craziest animal of them all -

More to come!