take down

So, I haven't been feeling great lately and I'm maybe behind on a few things.

Last week our landlords hired a crew of 14 Virginia country boys to take down two huge, dead trees in our backyard. We had two guys in the tree tops with chainsaws dangling from their belts, cutting branches that were lowered to the ground by ropes held by four or five other guys charged with keeping the branches from crashing into our house. It was awesome. I thought it would be fun to let the girls sit on our bed upstairs and eat popcorn while they watched the spectacle.

When we picked Ella and Lauren up from school I asked, "Guess who's at our house?" I must have seemed pretty excited because Ella immediately yelled, "The Poulsens!" (They're our good friends who moved away last summer.)
"No. Guess again."
"Grandma and Grandpa!"
"No." I was beginning to realize I'd oversold this a bit.
Lauren beamed, "You got us a puppy!"
"Wow. No."
With pure excitement, Ella announced her next guess: "Someone is doing our laundry!"