1980s

On Friday night, we were invited to a friend's surprise 40th birthday party.  He loves the 80s, so his wife requested that we dress accordingly.

John (with a mullet) and I

Travis (Magnum PI) and Trish 

with August and Madison

Rich, the Birthday Boy

Debbie and Stacy

(I love the stirrup pants.  How could I have forgetten about those?)

Hans (sporting a Branch Davidian T from 1993 and the clothes he typically wore in the 80s - jeans and a flannel shirt) and I (wearing rocker chick attire that I never would have worn in the 80s.  Actually, that is a sweater I bought at The Limited in the 80s, but it was not an off-the-shoulder style until I cut it that way just for this party.)

Dave and Karen (who made the trip here from California without the proper attire, but Debbie was able to lend Karen a rugby) and Bridgit (who came straight from work, but did manage to get her hair up in a side ponytail and sport some hoop earrings)

Dale (total preppy, who actually had all of these items of clothing in his closet)

John (looking good in his leather pants and setting up the Karaoke)

Steph (who still managed to look beautiful even dressed in clothes from this tacky decade) and Dale (holding up their lighters as Rich performs "Higher Love" on the Karaoke)

Who?

I got another blurry owl shot tonight.  I was sitting at my computer and could hear him hooting outside, so I grabbed the camera and tripod and headed outside.  It is REALLY dark tonight.  I could barely even see the tree, much less the owl.   It's difficult to focus when I can't even spot my subject.  So I took a picture of what I thought was the whole tree and hoped that's where the owl actually was (even though it sounded like he was on our roof).   I got lucky.  I took about 5 shots, and the owl was only in the first one.  I guess he flew away at some point.  The bottom picture is the original.  This top one is cropped from it. 

Mission Accomplished

(Follow-up from yesterday's post)

It turns out all I needed to do was replace the original copper water supply lines with newer, longer ones.  So, I opted for these 30" flexible ones:

Tobie inspected the new lines for me:

And we have running water again!!

The Woes of a Wanna-Be Do-It-Yourselfer

Our kitchen faucet has been leaking for a while.  I finally got around to calling a plumber.  He said the leak was inside the faucet, but he could install a new one for $$$.  We said, "No thank you.  We'll do it ourselves."  And he didn't even charge us for the service call - go, Mr. Rooter!  So, I bought a new faucet (this time without the pull-out sprayer because I've heard those tend to leak more than the other kind) and decided I could install it all by myself.  

Tobie was a big help.  She sat on the instructions and rubbed against my hands and even crawled under the sink with me.

The kids were actually a bit more helpful than that.  Helene handed me tools and gave me lots of advice.  Campbell took a picture of me at work:
After I'd been under the sink for about 2 hours (still trying to remove the old faucet), I had the kids start making dinner.  They had to haul water from the powder room sink and fill up a pot on the stove, since I didn't have the kitchen water working yet.  You'd have thought from the complaints that I was having them  fetch water from a well in the back yard!  But they were very helpful.

I finally realized why I was having such a hard time.  Where the faucet had leaked, it had rusted, so there was one nut that was extremely difficult to remove.  I had to give up and ask John to finish removing it when he got home (thank you!).

Here's the inside of the corroded, rusty, old faucet:
And all of its parts, once it was eventually removed:
Doesn't the new faucet look nice?
Next problem . . .
The water supply tubes do not reach the water supply lines.  There's an inch gap between the hot ones and about four inches between the cold ones!  Uh oh.
So now I'm having a cookie and doing internet research.  If any of you know how to fix my problem, please respond!  I'm assuming I may have to go back to the hardware store and get some sort of extension.  I'm on my fourth cookie of the afternoon, by the way.  Frustrating plumbing repairs require lots of cookie breaks.

Blankie, well-loved

When Helene was first born, she received a small "blankie" as a gift.  It has been the love of her life ever since.  It was about 1 foot square, flannel on one side, silk on the other, . . . just a small thing to snuggle.  It was light pink.  I can't find a picture of the exact one online, but this is basically what it looked like (except pink instead of blue and with silk ruffles around the edges).

It has been lost and found many times since then, once missing for almost 6 months.  Here is a picture of her with it when she was 3.  (I haven't figured out this Mac yet.  I rotated this picture on iPhoto, but it is not staying rotated when I upload it to Blogger.  Argh.)  It had lost some color by this point, looking more off-white than pink.

And here she is with Blankie now.  The poor thing is totally in shreds and mostly dingy brown, but she loves it more than ever.  Helene will turn 6 in two days.  I wonder if she'll be ready to give up Blankie before Blankie gives up the ghost.  I told her tonight that I was taking a picture so we'd always remember Blankie, even after she (yes, Blankie is a she) was completely in shreds and all worn out.  Helene cried at the thought.

Unseasonably Warm

We have had incredibly warm weather this week - in the 60s and 70s during the day.  Beautiful!  On Sunday, Campbell set up a Frisbee golf course for us (which fulfilled a requirement for Cub Scouts and provided a fun activity for the family).

Helene and I enjoyed wearing our bikinis and soaking up a little Vitamin D.
The boys went shirtless, just because they can.  Guys have it so easy!  ;)

I pulled some dead stuff out of the vegetable garden and added it to the compost.  So nice that the ground's not frozen or covered in snow!
Just for comparison's sake, here's what John's run in the foothills looked like last week:
And snow is in the forecast for tomorrow . . . so I had to write this before then.  I might want to look back at it to remind myself that I wasn't just dreaming.

Happy New Year

This is how I've felt during Christmas Break:











Campbell got a camera for Christmas (from his really cool Uncle Chad and Aunt Courtney). He has been super excited to use it at every opportunity. Today, John went skiing, and the kids and I went for a hike (we all skied together yesterday; two days in a row would overwhelm our children). Campbell took his camera along:

We did the 1.3 mile Lichen Loop at Heil Valley Ranch. It was a beautiful day, about 60 degrees. All the snow has melted, so the hike was pleasant. The kids had good attitudes (it was their idea to hike in the first place, so that helps), and they did lots of bouldering along the way.

See Campbell's blog for more pictures. Most of his pictures are not on the main page, but if you find the "friends" section on the bottom left of his page and click on "pictures" there, it will take you to his photos of the hike.

BIG NEWS: Helene decided to start blogging! I uploaded the pictures for her, but she did all the typing and spelling unassisted. Check it out.

There's a link to both kids' blogs on my page, under "Friends' Blogs."