Primary Parade & Breakfast (following a mailbox demolition)

Saturday, July 21 started off like any other Saturday!  I woke the kids to get them ready for our annual Primary/Neighborhood Parade & Breakfast.  We had decorated bikes, scooters & strollers the night before with patriotic things. 

The doorbell rang and I was pleasantly surprised to see my sister-in-law, Debbie & brother-in-law Bob.  They had come to take the remaining parts of our old metal swingset.  We had given it to Jon's neice, Ami, for their new house.   The last part was a huge, long piece of metal with a metal ladder down the middle of it.

Bob (with a little help from Debbie & I), loaded this massive thing onto a flatbed trailer.   Unfortunately, the ladder hung off the right side about 3 feet, but there was no other way to load it.   Bob put a couple of red shirts on the ends and secured that pole down so tight.

The trailer was being pulled by their Suburban.  Bob slowly started to pull away, needed to turn towards his left in order to clear a huge light pole at the edge our our front yard.  I stood in the driveway and watched as he slowly & carefully cleared that light pole.  Once he had done this, I gave him a "thumbs up" signal and he hit the gas pedal.  

Then, that darn pole, totally demolished our neighbors brick mailbox.  I stood there in total disbelief.  From where I was standing, I couldn't see the front of that mailbox at all, but that pole hadn't cleared it.   I felt so stupid and embarassed!   I sent Bob & Debbie on their way.  Someone in our ward drove by (on his way to meet Jon to put out scout flags) and helped me pick up all the bricks out of the road.  Then another neighbor came and helped me build it up enough so that mail could still be delivered. 

Jon got home about a minute after I was done.  Poor guy - can you imagine working a night shift, then going to put out flags and then finding out your wife just demolished your neighbor's mailbox?  He was SOOOOO nice about it!

The neighbors, whose mailbox was now in pieces, were out of town, so I sent them a text letting them know what happened.  They came back a couple of days later and were so, so, so nice about it.    They have laughed and laughed about it - somehow I took out their mailbox, but missed the light pole!

Anyway, our neighbors get a new mailbox on us, so hopefully that was a blessing for them!

Needless to say, we were a few minutes late for the primary parade, but it was fun (despite the pit in my stomach from what had just happened).