Today was a day that did not end up how I expected it to, but in a good way. I had a gas leak in my car, and when I came home from work this morning, the gas odor was stronger than it had been, so I knew I needed to get to the shop ASAP instead of waiting till Friday, which I was hoping to do. And also hoping I wouldn't have to take my brother's advice, "Oh if it catches on fire, just make sure it has burnt enough to be totaled before calling 911!" (Thanks big bro, not!)

I had planned to meet two of my classmates for lunch to celebrate the end of semester, "We passed Physiology and don't have to take the Final celebration." So I decided to take a nap, have one of them pick me up for lunch, and then deal with my car. Lunch was wonderful and I am so glad that I made friends with these two ladies.

After I got home, I decided to load up my car and call AAA for a tow. I live about 80 miles from my uncle's shop, but that is who I want to work on my car when I have any major problems. Thank goodness for AAA Plus, which covers the tow distance. When the truck showed up, the driver got my car loaded and then asked me, "Did you just move here? Did you used to live in that direction?" Well, he had towed my car about a year ago, and still remembered my car and the trip. I guess he doesn't make that many trips to small town Kansas.

When we arrived to my uncle's shop, his mechanics saw me get out of the tow truck, and that is when the razzing began. Because the guys are like extended family, and when they work on your vehicle as well, they are know too much.

The bad thing about this evening was that on the way to my parents' house, my mom had been texting about everything going on tonight. My niece was playing in a substate softball tonight, my cousin had 8th grade promotion, and when I arrived at my parents' house, my nephew was there messing around. I had gotten back too late to catch a ride to the game, and my mom had offered to pick me up to go to the promotion, but my nephew asked me if I wanted to go fishing. Because of school and work, I was unable to make it back this semester to visit and spend time with my family as much as I would have liked to. So, I decided to go with Luke fishing.

It is so great to see how much my nephew has grown in the past 5 months. He will be 14 in August, and he is growing up to be such a good kid. I still tease him about being a redneck boy, but he is so great. I had asked him to help me take in my laundry, and he did without complaining, and even not letting me carry the heavy load. He has an ATV which his parents allow him to drive between my parents house and his. When he is around, he will just do things without being asked, and is very conscientious about things. Especially since my dad had a stroke a couple of months ago, he has been very instrumental in getting Dad to do things outside.

So I let him drive me down to the ponds on his ATV, and he told me and showed me everything that he had helped Grandpa and his uncles do to fix up the ponds and his deer stand. We spent the a couple hours fishing with no luck, but enjoying the conversation, before Luke decided that we needed to take the boat out on the pond. Granted, it is not that big of a pond, but I decided to let him. Big mistake on my part!

We get out on the water, and the little stinker decides to rock the boat and then show me what they did with the paddles when he had gone canoeing over Spring Break. Well, it involved pushing the paddle down into the water, and then watching it bounce back up. Well, the first time he did it, we thought he had lost it, but it ended up coming back up about 5 minutes later. The second time, the paddle did not come back up, and it was the only paddle we had. Thank goodness it wasn't a big pond, but still, we kind of ended up on the bank not where we wanted to, and the stinker then abandoned me in the boat, pushing it back into the water.

All things said and done, I am so glad that I took the time to spend the evening with him. Luke told me that he was so glad that I was there, especially because I let him mess around and didn't yell at him like Grandpa would, even when I wanted to ring his neck. I have a few more days to spend around my family, and I have a feeling that I may end up back fishing with him, which I cannot wait for.