A family left out in the heat...

This weekend was eventful to say the least...

This past Saturday was a night with friends, good food and a trip to the park; sounds like a lot of fun, right? Well, when a slight miscommunication can change the face of the entire experience you can surely bet there will be a blog written about it.

It was Saturday, June 20^th, and we had our friends over for dinner. Brad, Adrienne and their one and half year old boy, Hudson. We hadn’t seen them since our little bundle of joy had joined the family. For dinner we enjoyed mesquite, grilled chicken along with fluffy couscous and green beans. It was a lovely evening until the fatal suggestion, I made, to go to the park located in our subdivision.

We drive to the park...

We arrive, I place Mauldin in our black and red baby bjorn and we all proceed to watch Hudson enjoy his moment in the swing. What is an outing without pictures? We proceed to make a few memorable snap shots before we decide to head back to the house and enjoy some good coffee and intelligent conversation.

Back at the house, excuse me, our drive way we quickly discover there is something wrong when I ask my wife for the key to the front door.

"I don't have it." Laura whispers to me with a look of pure shock on her face.

Of course, you all are probably wondering don't you have a key hidden outside somewhere? No, in fact we don't. (Don't start mom.)

Secondly, the key that should be on my wife's key ring, the key to the house, is hanging on a hook, inside the house, on a Vera Bradley, key chain/license holder combo. With that said, we have a ghetto garage and for this we have only one garage door opener and it is in my car which is not the car we took to the park! That's convienient, huh?

Thirdly, speaking of spare keys, we were smart enough to give our neighbors keys to our home. But, the two spare keys were unattainable, unfortunately, on this night, because neither of the two were at home.

To add insult to injury, neither my wife, nor I, brought our cell phones with us on our fun and sponteneous trip to said park.

"I thought you brought yours," Laura said.

"Well, I didn't bring mine because I figured you brought yours!" I quickly replied.

So, lets take a quick account: No phones, no keys, a 3-month old baby and 90 degree heat equals, well.. it pretty much looked hopeless.

However, our friends, Brad & Adrienne, were still with us and had not headed for the hills after finding our sad perdicament.

"Hey, lets think about this," said Laura. "Lets stay calm and think."

"Okay." I said. "I'm calm, but I'm hot and I need to pee!"

"Me too," added Brad.

With that said, we headed to the backyard. Brad and I took refuge in two seperate bushes on opposite sides of the yard. I felt so stupid to be peeing in the bushes at my own house and I was sober.

"What about Melissa!" Laura said with a bit of urgency in her voice.

"Who's Melissa?" Adrienne said.

"Our Pet Nanny," Laura and I said in unison.

Melissa, the nice lady who watches Logan and Andy, our two playful pups, while we are out-of-town has a key to our house! This was our saving grace! But, is she close by... what if she is out-of-town herself?

We proceeded to call Melissa, with the use of Adrienne's cell phone, and to no avil. She did not answer. I went ahead and called my mom to let her know about our situation, as Hudson went tumbling onto the grass, crying soon followed.

"Mom, you won't believe..." I started.

"Is that my baby crying?" my mom said, interrupting.

"No, that's Hudson. Mom, listen..."

I went on to tell her what our perdicament was and she went on to tell me how it could be avoided. This was not helping my current situation.

I look over at Laura and she has Mauldin bouncing up and down on her knees. He had no idea what situation his crazy parents had put him in. He couldn't of looked happier.

"We already called our pet nanny, can you please keep trying to contact her?" I said.

"Yes."

Not two minutes went by and Adrienne's phone started to ring... was it Melissa? I hoped, I wished, I hoped some more!

"Hello?" I said into the phone.

It had a black rubbery covering. I slide my thumb up and down the side as I awaited to hear a response. It was like an iPhone, but not, I think it was a Blackberry storm, not sure, but it was a life saver whatever it was.

"Eric?" said the voice on the other end.

"Melissa! Thank God!" I quickly replied. "Did you get my message?"

"Yes," she said. "I can be there in 20 minutes, is that okay?"

"Oh yah, that's perfect!" I said.

Yes! Our Pet Nanny was coming... she was coming to our rescue! She arrived shorly after, but it felt like an hour. We sat in our Honda Pilot with the AC on full blast. Mauldin took this chance to test out the driver's seat. He loved the steering wheel.

So, we had quite a memorable experience this Father's Day weekend... one we won't soon forget.

Thank you to my mom, Brad, Adrienne & of course, our Pet Nanny, Melissa!