Floods and Broken Power Cords and Holes in Pools, OH MY!!

Yes, so those three events, along with many others, have contributed to my absence from blogland over the last week or so.

First, the "GREAT FLOOD of '08" hit. It was Friday, June 6. Bubber had gotten suspended from school for 2 days because he called one of his teachers "retarded". Well, that wasn't the ONLY reason, more like the straw that broke the camel's back. Anyway, I had to go to his school to pick up his assignments, and had to get into his locker to get a couple of books. In his locker, there were about 8 or 9 sweatshirts (which I hadn't seen in MONTHS, to give you an idea of how long they'd been there). So later that afternoon, I asked Bubber to put the ones that stayed here (about half of them belonged at his dad's house) in the basement so I could wash them. So, being the "obedient" (read with a splash of sarcasm) son, he stood at the top of the basement stairs and tossed the sweatshirts down. They splashed when they hit the floor. Not good. Apparently the power cord for the sump pump had a small cut in it, which was causing it to short out. Which eventually caused the breaker in the circuit box to flip off. Which in turn cut the power to our back-up sump pump (say that ten times fast). The water table is pretty high here, so it doesn't take long for the water to start rising. Fortunately, it was only about 3 inches deep at it's deepest point when we discovered the problem. We got all of the water drained, and spent the next day hauling everything out of the basement to dry. We didn't really lose anything important, as most of the stuff I had down there was packed up in plastic containers. Unfortunately, we (still) have all of that stuff sitting on our front porch, so it looks like we either A) are having a yard sale, or B) got evicted. I want to paint the walls in the basement before we put that stuff back down there, so hopefully in the next couple of days I can get that done.

Our next incident was on Saturday, June 7th. We had a tornado watch (or warning, I can't ever remember which is which), plus severe thunderstorm watches and warnings, so we were in the basement. (Yes, the basement that had flooded the previous day). To help keep track of the weather, I brought the laptop down there. It was running on the battery and we have wireless internet, so I didn't have to worry about being electrocuted or anything... After the watch (or warning) was over, I just put the computer back on it's stand and didn't think much more about it. Then Ande wanted to watch a movie or something, and noticed that it was still unplugged. When he went to plug it in, Ande noticed that the pin inside the connector for the power cord (where it plugs into the computer) was bent. In an attempt to "unbend" it, Ande broke it. (OOPS) So...we had to get a new power cord. (THANKS MOM!! Ande's mom bought it for us. She spoils us...) We didn't get the cord in the mail until yesterday, but it's (obviously) working well for us.

Last Wednesday (the 11th), I finally got to visit with my friends Amanda, Cindy, and Marcy. Amanda was visiting from Oklahoma, Cindy is Amanda's mother-in-law, and Marcy is a mutual friend of all of ours. So we (and a total of 9 kids, including Amanda's cousin(?)) met at a local park for a few hours. I'll be posting some pictures of that later. It was fun to get to visit with other moms and get out of the house for a while!

On Friday (the 13th), Nans came to stay the weekend for Father's Day. On Saturday, I decided to (finally) get our pool up. It's just one of those easy-set ones, but it works nice for the kids to splash and play in. So Nans helped me get it ready to fill, and we turned on the hose. A little while later I went out to check on it, and noticed a puddle next to the pool. There was a hole in it. GREAT. We had to empty out the water that remained in the pool and see if we could patch it. We had promised Nans that we could go to the library, and we were also supposed to take Ande's dad to dinner that night, so we got ready and headed out the door. We made a stop at a local pool/spa place and bought a patch kit, then headed to the library. Ande took The Jib upstairs, while I helped Nans & Puckey find some books. The girls found what they wanted, and we headed upstairs to find Ande and The Jib. I stepped out of the elevator just in time to see Ande frantically trying to get the bathroom door open while The Jib was throwing up all over him. Not good. They got cleaned up and we headed back home. We had to cancel our dinner plans, so we ended up watching a couple of videos and hanging out on the couch for the night.

Father's Day was pretty uneventful - The Jib was feeling better, so we went to church and out to lunch with Ande's dad afterward. When we got home, Ande patched the pool and we started the process of filling it. (The patch seems to be working like a champ - the pool is now full and there seems to be no leaking! YEAH!!) Later in the afternoon, we had to make the first of what will likely be our usual Sunday afternoon trips to meet Nans' mom to drop her off. It was about a 140 mile round trip "adventure". Poor Jib cried a good portion of the trip (the sun was shining on her face, and it was pretty hot in the car because the A/C is broken). I'm definitely going to have to get a window shade for her...

Yesterday, Bubber had his first football practice AND a baseball game. It's going to be a busy summer. Bubber's team won the game by 5 runs, so that was a good thing. I know he likes being on a winning team! (Don't we all)

This morning, I woke up to Puckey crying...and throwing up. Yep, whatever The Jib had, Puckey's got it now. I'm just hoping that the rest of the kids don't get it! So I got her cleaned up, and she went back to sleep. Hopefully she'll be back to normal soon. Right now, The Jib and I are the only ones up (and it's 9:00AM!). We're watching a little "Old School Sesame Street", and I'll be making some breakfast pretty soon. I'm thinking pancakes...YUMMY.

Oh, and two last things...

Ande found out last week that his pay structure is changing. There will be no more commission per car, only an hourly rate. His hourly rate DID go up, but it's not going to make up the difference. He's also been working a shorter number of hours (for example, he only had enough work to last him 3.5 hours last Friday), so our income will be taking a major hit. If you could keep Ande's job situation in your prayers, we'd appreciate it. His company anticipates that business will pick up again soon (only a couple of months ago, Ande could work 12 hours a day and still have plenty to do). On a positive note, we will soon have health insurance!! It's been almost a year since we've had it. Thanks to God for His watchful eye on our health, we've not had any serious illnesses/injuries that required a trip to the hospital!

Also, Tricia Lawrenson has been diagnosed with Post-Transplant Lymphoma. Apparently this is a very treatable form of cancer that occurs in transplant patients. Please keep them in your prayers.

Birthdays, birthdays all around

Well, yesterday was Puckey's 2nd birthday. We celebrated it by going to my brother in law's mother's house to celebrate my niece's birthday (which is really today). While we were there, we realized that within the group of us (which numbered 19), there were 4 birthdays all within 7 days of each other, and each of the birthday girls have names that start with an "A". We had Anne (8/19), Abbey (8/20-something I can't remember the day), Asha (8/25), and Amelia (8/26) How weird/cool is that?

Other current events: A tornado touched down near my mom's house on Friday. Several homes in the area were damaged, but my mom's house escaped without a scratch. She is without power, though. Ande, the babies, and I got to test out the basement as a storm shelter for the first time. I decided we needed to get some chairs and toys down there for future occurances.

We get the occasional tornado here in MI, but it always seems weird to me. Several years ago, a tornado hit the manufacturing plant I was working for at the time. It was so bizarre, because Ande and I were running late for work. So we're cruising down the highway, listening to CD's and trying to get to work on time. I heard a weird sound (like a train whistle) and Ande commented that it was really windy. There was still traffic on the road, and we didn't see anything that unusual, so we just kept going. When we got to work, I first saw the party store located on the corner, and it's roof was GONE. At first, I thought they had had a fire, because there was a fire truck there. Then we pulled into the parking lot of the plant and I noticed that all of the trees between the plant and the party store were laying on the ground. A tornado had hit both our plant and the party store next to it!! Fortunately no one was injured, but there was a lot of damage to the buildings. We realized after the fact that we must have actually driven through the path of the tornado on the way to work, but since we didn't see a funnel cloud it didn't register at the time. WEIRD!!!

Oh, and I almost forgot - my sister was going to have my niece's birthday party at their house on the other side of the state, but they couldn't because there were severe storms in their area on Thursday that knocked out their power. So they came "home" to where our parents all live, and the storm hit and knocked out my mom's power. Fortunately my brother in law's mom still had power, or I might have ended up having all of those people over here!!