Case in Point

Just a little demonstration:



After maybe the 4th unbalanced load in two days, I wasn't laughing anymore.

He Loves Me!

I got something WAAAAYYYYYY better than flowers!

Whirlpool Duet
Cranberry Red

ETA: March 9th

Can't wait to toss the old washer.
I think Mom knows the nightmare of tightening the bolt every time.
And for the last year or two, practically every load is
off balance and the washer bangs across the laundry room.

Thank the Lord for an awesome bonus. Mike works hard ... and I deserve it!

Blue and Gold Banquet

Last Wednesday night we had our Cub Scout Blue and Gold Banquet. It was so much fun to plan! It was like one big birthday party!I had the poster up for a few weeks, and the boys made invitations the week before the dinner:

My biggest regret is not taking more pictures. Why didn't I ask Collin to come and take pictures?? So dumb. One of the moms took a million pictures, but she just had a baby on Friday.

It was amazing how many people came. Each family told me how many people were coming, which added up to 51 people. I figured maybe 45 would actually show up. Well, we had way more than that! I set up 5 tables with 9 chairs at each table. It wasn't enough. The Webelos and a few others ended up standing. What can you do? I didn't worry about it. We were all cozy and everyone had a good time.

So, we had Walking Tacos for dinner. Such a great idea from my friend Sue. It's basically a taco salad in a bag. You crunch up the chips in your bag, slice the bag open, put your meat and toppings in the bag, and eat it right out of the bag. It was so cute to see the boys walking around eating their walking tacos. (Of course I took the picture after they were all walking around) I also made wolf shaped blue and gold jello jigglers. You can kind of see them in the first picture on the left side. Why did I not take more pictures??

Mike is our Cubmaster and did a very good job. He recognized and thanked our recently released, current and new leaders. After that we did a song called This Young Cub, sung to the tune of This Old Man, He played One . . . The boys stood at the front of the room and each of them held up a number (11 in all) when it was their turn. The chorus was: "With a knick knack paddy whack, Give a cub a chore. This he'll do and ask for more!" Very cute. (and no picture)

After the boys got their awards and advancements, we passed out dessert. A woman in our ward does the most awesome cookies and cakes. She made the CUTEST COOKIES EVER. And they were yummy too! You can see people eating their cookies in the second picture from the top.

It worked out perfectly. Everyone stayed in their seats while we brought a tray of cookies to each table. They also got a couple of bowls of blue and gold candy (nestle crunch & reese's pb cups) on each table. And then we did Justin's Arrow of Light and Crossing Over while everyone munched. Perfect!

It was SO wonderful when it was all over and everyone helped clean up. Don't you just love people who step up to help? I was so pleased with the whole event.

A Whole Lotta Love

Happy Valentine's Day!

Mike and I have been married almost 20 years now, and we've come a long way. We know what our priorities are . . .

Of late, we have had major problems with our furnace in the basement. The vent coming out of it was way overactive and constantly making a loud BOOM sound. It got so bad that it was shaking the entire downstairs. The first guy that came out said that the oil going into the furnace was too cold. It had been bitterly cold for weeks, so this kind of made sense. He recommended putting a little heater next to the little holding tank attached to the furnace. We ran it during the day, and it seemed to help. But then the BOOMing started up again. And then the furnace stopped working all together. Ugh. I called at 3pm for service and the guy didn't come until after 11pm. By that time it was 58 degrees in the house! This guy said the first guy was completely wrong. He was convinced there was an air leak in the line. It took him 2 hours of fiddling around (changing valves and such) to determine that the air leak must be underground. It's kind of hard to get to the line underground with 4 feet of snow and rock hard soil.

Our best solution was to buy a new tank to put in the garage that would have a new line going to the furnace. We've needed to do that ever since we moved in, so we decided to do it. The BOOMing was constant and loud. As it was, the furnace wasn't getting enough oil. What oil it did get was in spurts, so it was throwing it in there instead of misting it and the flame was constantly going out.

The bright side is that prices have gone down. Still a lotta dough though. The new tank cost $2,200! The installation ended up being on the morning of Valentine's Day, so we joked that it would be our gift to each other.

I did a little decorating once it was installed.

That's a whole lotta love!

This was partly for fun, but also to throw Mike off. His REAL present was up in our bedroom. You see, Mike has been wanting an iMac to replace the pc in our bedroom. I have been hanging on to the pc by the tip of my fingernails for years now. Don't take away my pc!!! We all know Mike very well by now. If there is something he wants, there is no stopping him. He will do it regardless of what I think or how insanely expensive it is.. And he usually makes these purchases while I am out of town. Even when I say, "DO NOT buy a computer while I am gone. DO NOT buy a tv when I am gone." He even had the nerve to wrap a bow on the tv and say it was for me! True story.

So, wouldn't you know it - Mike's bonus money is coming on the weekend when I will be in Arizona. I would bet my life that he will buy a new computer while I am away. I hate being angry with him, so I thought I should try to mentally prepare myself for the inevitable. And then I thought I should just shock him and buy it for him! I called Carrie to ask what size their monitor is, and explained my plan. She knows Mike even better than me! So funny. She said, "Yeah, if you don't get it for him, you will come home to a 50" mac that covers the whole wall. And he'll be like Tom Cruise on Minority Report moving things with his hands." She is so right!!!

I always say Mike reminds me of Tom Cruise anyway :)

I still can't believe I did it. And I almost didn't do it because I was so dang busy that day and didn't want to go over to the mall at 4:30pm. Collin talked me into going, and he even came along to carry the box. I set it up in our room and told the kids not to say a word. Oh my gosh, we thought he would never go upstairs! He finally went up at about 8:30pm, and was completely speechless when he saw this:

He said that he couldn't believe I made a big purchase like that. He said, "I am usually the one who buys the big stuff!" I said, "Well, I beat you to it this time!"

I was completely worn out and just wanted to go to bed when he walked over to the desk and quietly said, "I feel really dumb now. This is all I got you for Valentine's Day." And he set two little caramel candies next to me:

I was too tired to be mad. I didn't even say anything at first. What I wanted to say was: "YOU SHOULD FEEL DUMB!!!" He didn't even get me flowers. Next year I'm buyin' my own dang flowers.

p.s. i am secretly loving the new computer. i don't think i'll tell mike.

Snow, Ice & Leaking

The month of January was absolutely insane. We got somewhere around 50 inches of snow. It seemed like the kids barely went to school with all the snow days and delays. And it was hard to keep up with! We were always outside shoveling. We have never seen this much snow!

It has been especially dangerous driving. At every intersection in our neighborhood, you have to inch out to be able to see left or right.

With the continuous snow and no thawing in between storms,
snow just kept building and building on everyone's roofs. Major problem.

All of the roofs look the same: A major ice dam in the gutters with a foot of snow piled on the roof. When there was melting, the water would go down inside the walls of the house and leak through the windows.

We had water leaking in the dining room, living room, Matthew's bedroom and our bedroom. There was even water running down the front door. Our front door is so warped now that we can hardly close it. So, as January went on we were hearing more and more that other people were having the same leaking. Mike heard at work that people were paying around $1200 to get the snow removed from their roof. Crazy! And then one of the guys at work said his roof actually caved in! We were really getting nervous with the leaking we already had, the sad state of our old roof and the coming ice storm. The storm was supposed to arrive on Tuesday when we saw some guys up on our neighbor's roof. I drove across the street (because you can't just walk over where we live, and I would have frozen anyway) and asked the guys how much they were charging. Their number was less than half of what we were hearing! Still a lot of money, but we felt strongly that we needed to have it done. So the came the next day! And we found out later that a bunch of people in our area were all paying twice what we paid. What a blessing for us!

I was so glad Mike didn't want to get up on the roof like the guy on the left.

The picture on the right shows the roof all cleaned off (except for the ice dams).

Another problem we had with the snow was uncovering the mailbox. The snowplow left all the snow about 4 feet out from the mailbox. Mike and Collin were already working hard on the driveway, so I took it upon myself to figure it out. Shoveling all that snow was crazy, so I unintentionally ended up with stairs. The mailman didn't seem to mind!

That worked for about a week until we got the snow and ice. We didn't go out in the evening and shovel the new snow, so then it was cover by ice the next day. Ugh.

I tried putting some "Pellets of Fire" ice melt all over to loosen everything up. It actually helped!



Man, what a nightmare.


I tried chiseling away at it with the side of the metal snow pusher. It did work, but it was kind of lame. I finally saw my stairs coming back to life and thought I had maybe done a good enough job.

Our mail was not delivered :(

Later in the day (after the non-delivery), I saw the mailman in our neighborhood. I stopped him and asked if he delivered on Allan Way. He said, "Are you number 7?!" So funny. He said that we had to get our mailbox cleared like #5's mailbox. I came home feeling defeated and told Collin all about it. He perked right up and said he could get the job done! He went out there with a pick ax and a shovel, and got the job done!

I don't have a picture of #5's mailbox, but ours is pretty darn close. Collin did such a great job! I


So, the ice storm was absolutely crazy. We had the thickest layer of ice on our driveway. Poor Mike and Collin went out and chipped away at enough of it so that we could get up and down the driveway. (i don't know why mike didn't use the pellets of fire fir that. i think he was too frustrated.)

You can barely see in the picture to the left one of our trees with branches
totally sagging down with the weight of the ice. The whole tree was leaning over.

58 degrees . . . Nice temp for the house to be at in the winter, right? That's from the night the heat stopped working. I don't even have the energy to tell that story. I'll save it for next time.

I forgot to say that when the guys removed the snow from our roof, they tossed it down wherever. Well, a lot of it went on to our nicely shoveled walkways. We were too lazy to take care of it, so it's all iced over and hard.

We can't even open the back screen door anymore!

It is supposed to be 46 degrees on Monday. I sure hope so. We are SO ready for the snow
to start melting! And we're getting the most romantic Valentine's Day present on Monday.

Stay tuned . . .

Basketball

Michael started playing basketball just a couple of months ago. He is a very level headed player, ready to make the shot when the ball comes his way. His coach, on the other hand, barely keeps his head on his shoulders . What a hot head! He is always yelling and placing his head in his hands, trying to keep his cool. Right from the get go I thought this guy reminded me of the bug guy in Men in Black.













He's about the same size with the huge chest and funny walk with his arm swinging. The boys mostly ignore him though, so I guess it's ok that he's always yelling.

He shoots . . . and he scores!

Go, Michael!