Dumps Like a Truck, Truck, Truck

Apparently it's been a month or so since I've posted here - where does the time go? In attempt to answer that question, here is a photo/post dump, snapshots of what we've been doing since the end of August. My apologies for any blurry photos or for being brief on things that could probably have their own post. We have been crazy busy so it's sort of a feat to get this much done.  So, let's see what we've been up to (in some sense of chronological order):

 

Every Friday we went to the library for the summer reading program they had:

This could probably go without being said, but there was MUCH Lego'ing:

 

There was also much gardening of the tomato variety (still hoping my peppers won't let me down):

There was as 2nd mud run with more family and friends participating:

The first day of school (2nd grade for Ezekiel, 1st grade for Deacon):

 

My women's Bible study group (of which I am president this year) started meeting Wednesday mornings and Tuesday evenings:

Soccer started for the older two:

And Josh got a new "toy" for hunting season, which opens Saturday. Venison anyone?:

There have also been quite a few trips to the water park until it closed, some play dates, a trip to West Point, a trip to camp, as well a day here and there with no where to go and nothing to do. Now we're into the swing of things with school and Bible studies and soccer, and Josh started his new job and maybe we'll get to slow down again around Thanksgiving?

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Sad But Not Surprising

As some of you may know I tweeted this picture the other day and said how we were going to follow the "recipe" and see what happened:

Here we are, following the recipe, having a great time doing so:

Now, here is the final result:

We wound up with 2 dozen "sinkers". I call them that because they were heavy and thick and felt like they would have sunk if I were to put them in water. They also had holes in the middle and were nigh impossible to remove from the paper. I'm wondering if I should have used self-rising flour instead? I don't know.  I do know that if you throw some blue frosting on them they don't look as bad:

It's not that they tasted bad or anything.  In fact, I think they tasted better without the frosting - they were more like muffins than cake. But we all enjoyed one and then I threw the rest away.

I guess next time I'll leave the baking to Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper.

 



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

So, Back in April...Part the Second

Do y'all remember a little over a year ago when THIS happened? Well, back in April, it happened again.  Wow. Almost one year to the day. Anyhoo.

 

Tuesday, April 23rd, was a not-so-great day.  Josh was off, traipsing across the globe, and I was having a bit of a rough day with the boys.  I lost my cool more than once, if I remember correctly. So, here we are, I finally get the boys in bed, I have about 10 minutes before my Bible study group shows up to get the house set up and ready, when my toilet overflows.  Oh yeah. It just kept coming out too so I had to stand on the toilet seat and turn the water to the toilet off, just to get it to stop so I could freak out clean up properly before the ladies started coming in.

 

I didn't really have time for that then, so I threw down a whole bunch of towels, turned on the fan (in my mind that helped somehow), then closed the door and put up a sign saying that that bathroom was out of commission for a bit. The ladies came, we got it all set up and we started study.

 

But then...I heard it.  I heard what sounded like a stream of water flowing coming from somewhere inside the house! Having a bad feeling about what was going on I rushed downstairs (excuse me for as second ladies) and saw water, water, everywhere.

 

Much like last time there were pouches of toilet water forming behind the paint on the wall (which is just plain gross, if you ask me), and, AND unlike last time, there was a pretty steady stream pouring out from from the center of the ceiling. I put a bucket under the stream and went back upstairs and finished leading Bible study.

As soon as the ladies left I called housing. They said they'd send someone right out (it's about 9pm now). While I waited for housing to show up I got to cleaning up the bathroom floor - wringing out the towels and "mopping" a little bit.  While I cleaned the floors I called Ryan. After I called Ryan I called Linda. I needed to vent I guess. Actually, I needed some prayer.  While I was talking to Linda, Matt (Ryan's husband) showed up with more towels. He then came up and turned the water back on and plunged the toilet for me and pretty much got it working again.  Isn't he the sweetest? Now it's like 9:30.

 

Having done all I could do at this point, I sat and waited until a little before 10, when one of the guys from housing showed up. He took a look at the toilet, plunged it again, shoved huge wads of toilet paper down it, and declared it "perfectly fine". Then he and I went downstairs and he was all, "Oh wow.  This isn't good." No, no it isn't. Now, I'm pretty much convinced that there is something like a crack or something in one of the pipes in the wall, because there was A LOT of water in our ground floor.  He said it was just coming down from the bathroom above, but 1) the water from the bathroom stayed in the bathroom and I know this because I had to clean it all up, and 2) the water coming from the center of the ceiling doesn't line up with the bathroom at all. It's probably a good 3 feet outside of where the bathroom lines up. But what do I know? So the housing guy spent the next half hour or so cutting away some of the wet stuff to make sure there weren't any more leaks.

 

The next day, Wednesday, he came back and made all of the holes bigger so that they could dry out over the weekend.

 

He told me to call Monday or Tuesday to make an appointment for them to come back and start the spackling process (2 or 3 coats of spackle, each a few days apart, then a few days later sanding and painting to finish).  So I called Monday the 29th and got an appointment for Wednesday, May 1st - two days away. which they never showed up to. Nor did they call to say they weren't coming. Yup. After running into the "boss man" on Thursday and ratting them out, one of the ladies from the housing office called to apologize, explaining that she had put our work order in for the wrong day and would Friday work since that's when they were planning on coming anyway.  Fine. May 3rd, the housing guy came back and did the first round of spackling.  This was also his last day working for housing, which meant from here on out a different guy would be taking care of this situation.

So I call again on Monday to set up the next round of spackling, get an appointment for Thursday, May 9th, which, once again, they didn't show up to and didn't call to say they weren't showing up. Now, I'm getting angry. I called the office and rather politely let them know they were supposed to be there that day and no one showed up or called. A few hours later the other lady from the housing office came to my house to apologize in person and explained how she was the one who messed up and didn't put it in their books and blah, blah, blah, let me take you out to lunch to make it up to you, blah, blah, blah and would tomorrow work? I did not take her up on her offer of going out to lunch, but to make her feel a little better I accepted her offer to bring us some pizza for lunch the next day.

 

Friday, May 10th, she showed up with pizza, but the guy did not show up because he had an emergency repair.  At least this time he called and explained and rescheduled for the following week. And that was fine - I totally understand about emergency repairs. It was hot that week and someone else's airconditioning takes precedence over my ceiling.

 

Eventually he made it back for the second round of spackling, and probably about a solid month after this all started, my laundry room ceiling was all patched up and painted.

 

Awesome. (You might have to squint a little to see the slap dash paint job - in the wrong color.)

So, Back in April...Part 1

So, back in April, Josh and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary.  I know! I can hardly believe it's been 10 years - feels more like 30 or so.  Just kidding! I love you, babe.

 

To celebrate our anniversary, Josh took me into New York City.  He hired a car to drive us in (because I get terrible motion sickness on anything other than a car, and I'm only good in cars if I'm driving or in the passenger seat) to our hotel, The New York Marriott Marquis (swanky!).

 

 

After we checked in and what's it, we walked around the city for a bit. We did some shopping, stopping at the Lego store (of course), got some lunch and enjoyed the afternoon.

 

For dinner we ate at the hotel's rooftop rotating restaurant, and that was pretty cool. After dinner Josh had tickets for us to see The Lion King. It was pretty cool as well.  The play was essentially the Disney movie almost word for word, with some extra bits and songs thrown in for length I guess, but the way they did some of the bigger animals was really neat. I'm also very interesting in backdrops and scene changes on stages, and that was probably the best part of the whole thing.  Whoever figured it all out for this play is a genius.  It was really fun to watch.

 

Then it was off to bed, then up at gone in the morning. A wonderful weekend spent with my wonderful husband (my mom and stepdad came and stayed with the boys). I love you, Josh, and I am looking forward to the next 10 years, and then the 10 after that, and the 10 after that, and so forth and so on.