Jambo, Jocey!

We woke up this morning and had Dad’s special Texas waffles for breakfast (at Autumn’s request).  Then I worked on uploading and ordering pictures on Walmart.com for my Project Life.  Mom went upstairs to sew a skirt for the trip to China and Autumn went up there w/ her.

Dad & I left at 10:30 to go get me a rental car.  The insurance company of the girl that hit me still hasn’t given me an authorization # to get one, but I have to be able to get to and from work so I just had to pay the $250 deposit myself and they’ll reimburse me when the auth # finally comes through!  Such a hassle.  But, the guy at the rental car company was really nice and made sure I got a standard sized car instead of just a little compact one.  I ended up w/ this white car, which is the same make and model as the one I used to drive before the Durango.

I left the rental car place and went to go get gas and was almost rear ended at a stoplight on an overpass b/c the car behind me didn’t see the red light!  Am I just invisible to people or something! YIKES!  I stopped at the collision repair place to get a few things out of the Durango that I forgot to get after the accident such as my garage door opener and Autumn’s car seat.

I got home and went out in the garden w/ Dad & Autumn to pick some veggies.  We got a huge cucumber and a whole entire bag of beet greens.  The one thing I hate about the garden is all the chiggers!  They are so small that you don’t see them or know you’ve been bit until way later and they start itching like crazy.

At 1:00, Bro. Monzingo came over to start cooking the food for a shrimp boil.  Mom & I put a bunch of drinks and ice in the cooler and covered the table in tinfoil.  The rest of the Monzingos showed up at 2:00 to start the party.

They were celebrating Maggie’s birthday and Jocey’s return from 4 months in Uganda.  This was the perfect shrimp boil b/c we had just the right amount of food (no left overs) and the spice was just right (not too spicy and not too mild).

I am glad that Reggie was able to be there, too, b/c I haven’t seen him in a while.

Jocey was so thoughtful and brought Mom a hand carved nativity all the way from Uganda, b/c she knows Mom collects them.  Mom was thrilled, b/c she definitely does not have a nativity in her collection like this one, all the way from Africa.

They had a big Costco cake that said, “Jambo Jocey!”  Jambo is the greeting to say hello.  I kept daring someone to eat all 5 of those icing balloons b/c they were each about 1/2 inch tall.  I love me some frosting, but this was way too much.  We all sat around and talked and heard Jocey tell stories about her time in Uganda while the kids swam in the pool.

I left to go to WalMart to get some groceries and also pick up my Project Life pictures.  I got home and everyone had left except for Bro. Monzingo and he and Dad sat out on the patio and talked until 7:30 pm!  I spent the evening cutting the corners of my pictures and putting them into my Project Life book.  Autumn just played w/ toys and would come over and “help” me every once in a while.  We finally left at 8:30 so I could get her home and give her a bath and do some laundry and get ready for church tomorrow.