I picked her up from the airport on Wednesday afternoon.

We spent the rest of the day getting mom settled in, running errands and relaxing.
Thursday we slept in a little and went to lunch with Krissy (my other sister) and Mary (her partner). After lunch, Krissy gave mom & Tyson henna tattoos. It's a skill she refined while studying abroad in India a few years ago, and she's really good at it.
Here is my mom's (before the henna paste was removed):
And here is Tyson's:
We hung out for a while afterward, and then ate an early dinner. We discussed plans for Riley's baptism and the party afterward. (Remember, this was Thursday, and the baptism was Saturday). Tyson asked for a scoop of ice cream after dinner, and since he ate all of his healthy foods, I said okay. I went to the freezer and quickly realized that everything in the freezer was in a goopy state of half-frozen-ness. We thought perhaps the freezer door had been left ajar, but just to be on the safe side, we moved most of the contents to our chest freezer in the basement. Then we closed the door tight and put a thermometer in the refrigerator, which felt suspiciously tropical inside.
An hour later, the verdict was in: our seven year old refrigerator had kicked the bucket. Two days before the party. I think it's safe to say that I started to um... ahem... well, I may have stated to panic a bit.
Matt & I quickly ran up to Lowe's and picked out a replacement just ten minutes before they closed. After that we had to pack everything from the fridge into a cooler and take it to my dad's house. We got home from this chore just after midnight.
The new fridge was delivered on Friday, and by Friday night we had all the food put back inside, but on Saturday morning, just hours before 20 people were coming over for the party, our kitchen & dining room still looked awful. It was chaos.
This was just a portion of the disaster. I had no idea how much crap I had stored on top of and around the fridge!!! And we discovered that I own more magnets than anyone else on the planet!
Here's our new fridge (this picture was obviously taken before I had a chance to plaster it with my many magnets!).Overall, it was a completely insane couple of days. And not at all how I wanted to spend the bulk of my mom's visit. Of all the crap-ass times for our fridge to up and die... I should mention that my mom was amazing during this whole ordeal. She helped me move all the food around, clean the new fridge and restock it. She also helped out by cleaning my house for the party on Saturday morning. Isn't she great?
So, now that you've stuck through to the end of this very long (and possibly very boring) post, you're rewarded with a contest!
Leave a comment and tell me your best household crisis story (your oven went out on Thanksgiving Day? Your garage door froze shut during a snow storm?). Be sure you leave your email address in the comment (spell out "at" and "dot") and I'll randomly pick the winner. That winner will receive a set of handmade Knitting Buddha greeting cards and something else (that is yet to be determined). ETA: I'll leave this open until this Friday, July 25!
Oh, and I do have pictures from Riley's baptism and the party afterward, but Matt loaded them onto the Mac instead of our server. Now those photos are stuck in the Mac & I don't know how to get them out. (I'm still learning my way around the Mac.) So, check back in a couple of days for those photos!