Pink Flamingo Invasion and a Midnight Intruder

Recently Joseph and I had a wonderful getaway to Clifty Falls State Park. We came home a few hours early to a sick son. Tate was on the mend from a stomach bug and when we arrived home, we were greeted by a flock of flamingos. At first we thought it must be a cancer fundraiser that we know is going on in Speedway and that we would have to make a donation to have them removed. But, we found our dishes replaced with flamingo plates and Tate found an inflatable flamingo in his crib. We realized the cancer society would not break into our house, but some of our church members would :-) Good job Malorie, Riane and John!

We had a good laugh over being pranked, but were exhausted and put Tate to bed early and watched a movie. After going to bed and falling asleep, I woke up to the sound of someone entering our bathroom. In some scattered, half asleep thinking I assumed Joseph had gone in. Nope. He was right next to me, asleep in bed. Then I thought, it must be Tate. Nope. He's not potty trained and doesn't get out of his crib. I began to be creative thinking that maybe my mom was staying with us, or that the flamingo culprit moved into our basement, or that Joseph's brother, Taylor decided to crash at our house in the middle of the night. I soon realized none of these made sense and told myself I was hearing things. 

Then the water turned on. I sat up and saw light coming through our bedroom door. Someone was most definitely in our bathroom. I shook Joseph and whispered aggressively "Someone's in our bathroom!!! Are you awake?! Someone's in our bathroom!!!"  I think he grunted and I shook him some more. (My husband slept through an earthquake a few years ago) As proof I said, "See! The light is on!!"  So, Joseph sat on the edge of our bed silently for a couple of seconds. Then yelled "HELLO!?" 

We heard a woman's voice reply, "Um . . . it's just Bethany." Joseph assented "Oh" and with no further explanation, we laid back down. We had, in fact, known we would have a house guest arriving around 12:30 a.m. In the chaos of being gone, coming home to a sick boy and a flock of flamingos, we completely spaced it. We laid there and laughed and laughed, realizing that Bethany had arrived to a dark house and the flock of flamingos and probably had doubts she was in the right place. We also started coming up with alternate ways the incident could have played out and were, overall, very thankful Joseph had not left our bedroom. 

The flamingos have been quite fun. I saw one passerby pull out her camera to take pictures. One of our neighbors was convinced our adoption was done and it must be girl. Most of the flamingos now reside in various garden beds around our house.

I am also thankful that this false alarm wasn't quite as violent or scary as the one in Ethiopia a few years ago, nor as dramatic as my junior high experience my mother refers to as "Shadow Man."