Winter Formal

Sarah attended her first Winter Formal. She and a bunch of her friends met up and hung out together. They had a blast. It was held off-campus, at a place in The Pearl called Urban Scenes - quite posh!

If these pictures are any indication, I'd better watch out when she has a date to one of these things!

Is that a grave in your front yard?

Poor Larry. He hates plumbing repairs, and we have had one plumbing problem after another at our house over the past several months. Just when we thought things had settled down somewhat, we started noticing a wet place in the front yard that quickly morphed into standing water. Just what we needed - a leaky pipe!

The weather dried out a bit, and Larry started digging. Deeper and deeper and deeper he went before he got to the pipe in question. Pretty soon we had what looked like a grave in front of our house. What a mess!



We put up caution tape and tarps to keep children and dogs and Girl Scout cookie sellers from falling in...



Before he could repair it (or even see what it was that needed to be repaired) we had to turn the water off and let it dry out. Larry filled up bathtubs with water and equipped each with a bucket for adding to the toilet for flushing purposes. He filled carafes and pots with water in the kitchen for drinking and cooking. As a back-up we stocked up on bottled water, too.



The first day we fared OK, but didn't think (duh!) about using paper plates. We washed by hand, then realized, too late, that our water was going fast. After that, we saved up the dishes until our kitchen sink was filled with saved dirty dishes. Why did I even continue to cook? It would have been a lot smarter and easier to bring in fast/take-out food and toss the mess!



In the meantime, we also had the pesky issue of bathing. Sponge baths became the way to go, and we utilized our Girl Scout dishwashing bins to help keep our toilette organized.



Three days later, we were relieved that the job was done. Larry accomplished a neat repair...



... and our water was turned back on. Hurray!!!

Now it was time to fill in the hole again. In the meantime, of course, it started to rain. (At least it held off while he was digging and working on the repairs!) As he attempted to refill the trench amid the drizzle, he had to deal with the fact that it was again full of water, this time courtesy of Mother Nature.



Boy, are we lucky Larry is so handy around the house. Imagine what it would have cost for that job if we'd had to hire somebody... And the flower bed would probably have been destroyed. As it was, Larry did a pretty good job of salvaging what was there, and leaving it ready for Spring planting. What a guy!

It's Cookie Season!

"OMG! What did we get ourselves into?" That was the thought that crossed our minds at the beginning of cookie season this year. Larry and I took on the daunting task of being Cookie Managers for our daughters' two troops - one of which is rather large. We came back from the warehouse with 5 carloads of cases of Girl Scout cookies! In preparation for the onslaught, we took the table out of the dining room to make room for the stock. Good thing!



Xeda loved the new decorating scheme. She thought it was her own personal playground.



We hadn't long to admire our own personal warehouse; in two hours girls were coming by to pick up the cookies they pre-sold door to door. We had to fill these orders fast so we'd be ready. Thus, things started to spread out into the living room and family room of our house.



Emily ended up the troop's top seller. (Go, Emily!) Her order alone looked like this:



Four weekends, 37 cookie sellers, and 40 booths(!) later, we were down to this look. Xeda was so disappointed to see her playground disappear... :-(



Anybody want some Lemon Chalet Cremes?



After all the paperwork was complete, even the lemon cookies found a home - at the Oregon Food Bank. We finally have our dining room, as well as the rest of the house back.



Now we just have to move the furniture back into place!