School programs

Lydia and Jared both did a nice job at their end of the year programs.  Lydia's was a few weeks ago and was called "The Little Train that could Sing."  It was sweet.  The students could pick to be a cargo car or some cargo such as: fruit, dolls or animals.  Unsurprisingly Lydia picked to be a doll. We talked about a couple of costumes but she opted to wear an old, too big, dance costume of Susanna's. This was not my first choice but in the end I decided it really didn't matter and it would make her really happy.  She loved getting to wear it at school.

Jared's program was called "Twilight at the Zoo." The songs felt a little repetitive (all about the same thing except substituting out a different animal) but the kids did a nice job and seemed to really have fun.  There were monkeys, fish, pandas and peacocks.  Jared's class was not an animal but they were rappers and did little introductory chants about each group of animals.  He got really into it which was really fun to see.  It has been my favorite of his three performances.

Jared and Ms. Martin.  

He loved being in her class so much.  I was really happy he had such great year with her. 

They so thug.

Last Friday was Lydia's "Last day of Kindergarten."  Its weird to me because she is still supposed to be at school until the actual last day, which is June 07th.  I guess it was the last day of "official" school routine days.  This week is just 4 days and they are having theme days, today was Ocean Day and tomorrow is Nature day.  They have been doing an alphabet countdown for the last 3 weeks or so which I think is a really fun idea.  Today was "S day: Soak up the Sun, so they could wear sunglasses, flip-flops and hats. She has told me quite a few times that she is so sad she only has a few more days with Ms. Hunter.  It is so nice that they both had such great years with the kids in their classes and their teachers.

This is a bad picture of Abby and Lydia swinging.  They have become best little buddies. I know Lydia will really miss Abby as they are moving to Minnesota in a few weeks.  I'm glad they had this year together.

"S day"

Cub Scouts and warm weather

We hosted the Cub Scout Pack meeting at our house this month. It was originally set for last week but with our water heater bursting/basement flooding and all the rain it got pushed to this week. The plan was to have a campfire, do the awards and then roast marshmallows.  Looking at the forecast for Thursday I was nervous because it was supposed to be pretty warm, 86 or so but lucky for us the humidity was really low and our yard was all shaded by the start time.  It turned out to be a pleasant evening and lots of people came. Nobody parked in our driveway which was funny (it is steep and curvy and you would be blocked in so I got it but it also made me laugh). I remember being really nervous about parking there when we bought the house. Now I speed (carefully) out of there in reverse!  At least 5 cars could have fit but they all opted to keep going down the street. Our street is not that wide but its also not that busy. The older group of Cub Scouts arrived at 6:30 to work on a cooking merit badge and the rest of them arrived around 7:00.  It was fun to have people over, it was low key enough to not be stressful and the weather really made the night.  Our yard is not really level anywhere and the fire pit area is not huge (lucky for me since I had to weed it) but it wasn't as if people needed to be by the fire to stay warm so it worked out.  People played badminton, catch, tried out the tire swing, jumped on the trampoline and got along really well together.  I loved getting to visit with friends and was proud of myself for actually circulating to different people.  Often I find myself staying in one spot and then I don't talk to as many people as I would like so its something I am trying to work on. I think having it at my house helped because there wasn't a table to just sit at and I felt more hostess like.  I am pretty sure I will always prefer one on one or maybe a group of three but it was a nice evening.

Twinning with Jessie, a happy accident. 

The littles (well not that little, half of this group is 6 now) getting a chance to jump their hearts out.  

Happily there were no injuries that I was aware of. 

Lydia roasting a marshmallow she then did not eat. I didn't mind.

I was impressed by Jared's roasting skills. 

 Someone else commented on how well he did and he said, 

"I inherited my Dad's roasting skills." Burn. 

Mark was there for the first 30 - 40 minutes but then headed over to the church for interviews and such.  We were nervous we wouldn't get a fire going since it had rained 2 nights before and the wood was still damp but Mark succeeded. 

 

It is sadly starting to be consistently warmer than I would prefer.  The same day when we got home from school we made Lemonade.  I did the activity with my preschoolers and had enough lemons left over to do it with Jared and Lydia too. I feel like it tasted better last year but they had fun and liked it.

Today was the first day the lakes/pools were open.  Jared and Lydia wanted to go to the lake but neither Mark or I were feeling it. We had been running errands and it was already after 1:00 and we had somewhere we needed to be at 3:30.  Fortunately I had bought some water balloons a few weeks ago so we had some fun with those.  We tossed them to each other, launched them in towels and then bounced them on the trampoline.  It was a fun afternoon.  Much better than going to a lake or pool in my opinion.  Definitely easier and more low key, although filling water balloons does take a decent amount of patience. I think we will spend the extra money and by the self tying balloons at least once this Summer.  They were pretty awesome last year.

(Yes that it a toilet by Mark.  Our basement is so torn apart! We are updating the whole bathroom, new shower, toilet, vanity, mirror, and flooring, more insulation and new paint.  A whole wall of sheetrock has been taken down in the main room.  Its getting new paint, insulation, electrical outlet boxes, (they were a scary fire hazard, most of the outlet boxes behind the wall had rusted away, a fire could have broken out and there was no fire barrier so it would have just rushed right into the upstairs!) and water vapor protection as water has been building up behind that wall. Lastly, new flooring and possibly paint in the hallway) People were working in there last night and are here again today.  They have been since about 2:45. It really was a blessing our water heater burst so we could get this unexpected insurance money.

 

Mothers Day and old times

Mothers day was great.  I slept in for a bit and when I did get up Mark had crepes ready for breakfast.  He didn't have any pre-church meetings and we all enjoyed having him around. For dinner he made my favorite, orange chicken. I had actually planned to make something else for dinner, but a few days before Mothers day Jared asked me why we weren't having orange chicken.  It wasn't so much that I forgot it was Mothers day it just didn't occur to me that I should plan to have Mark make dinner.  I was very glad Jared brought it up.  Mark was in charge of picking the treat for Mothers Day this year.  He asked the sister leaders at ward council what they would prefer and they all said chocolate.  He opted to get a variety of chocolate candy bars and have the YW hand them out at the doors.  He was concerned about it not being "cute" enough but I think simple was good.  I was very happy with my Twix bar.

I do love being their Mom. 

A friend passed this suit coat and vest onto Jared.  He has never really had a suit coat and loves it.  The sleeves are a little short but he can enjoy wearing it a few times at least. 

While looking for a separate piece of information today I came across a video of my high school graduation posted on YouTube! These sweet kids sat down and skimmed through it with me.  I had a decent memory of where I sat in the ceremony (front row is pretty easy to remember.  I made sure to tell them it was because of my awesome GPA in school and tell them they can do it too!) and told them when to expect to see me and they spotted me as I walked in.  It was fun to watch some clips of it.  There were also highlights from senior grad night.  What a blast from the past!  I am posting it here with the times for future reference.  They could not believe how many kids there were at least as many as their whole school and that we had fireworks at the end.  It was pretty cool. 

YCHS class of 2000 Graduation

Walk in: 14.55

Dipolma: 38.35

Senior grad night: 1.34.10 and 1.43.56

The other day Lydia came home from school and went straight to her room.  A few minutes later she came out wearing this:

An old Sunshine Generation costume!  I'm not sure if its mine or Susanna's but it was fun to see her in it.  It has been such a treat to share all my treasurers from my childhood with them the past months.  I wish could find a picture of me in my costume back in the day. I really thought I had one but can't seem to find it in our house here in VA. My mom has pretty much packed up all of the YC house, (her moving date keeps getting pushed back now it is set for May 31st) so it may be a lost cause but it would be a fun comparison.  Since I've been having preschool upstairs the preschool families are seeing lots of pictures of us.  Today one Mom commented on how much Lydia looks like me.  She has almost zero of Mark's looks.  Its been this way from the beginning really but especially since 3 to the present.  My Mom made the same comment when I sent her this picture of Lydia.  

Basement Woes

Last Wednesday, around 9:15 I went downstairs to do a final check of doors and lights before going to bed.  As I rounded the preschool tables I sadly saw and stepped into a puddle of water on our carpet.  At the very same time there was quite a down pour going on outside so I really wasn't sure if the storm caused the water to come into our house or if there was a mechanical problem. As I stepped into the hallway I stepped into more water.  I followed the hallway around to see where else there was water and found a huge puddle in another section of the hallway, leaking into the "guest" room and the floor of the bathroom covered in at least an inch of water.  Fun times.  I opened the utility closet door and found more water.  I was still really not sure where the water was coming from. I really did not think it was pipes leaking as we replaced all our plumbing shortly after we moved in.  I quickly tried to look for any water spots on the walls and ceilings and saw none.  Still confused and very concerned I went upstairs to grab my phone and call Mark who was at the airport.  We talked for a bit and tried to trouble shoot the problem.  He suggested that maybe it was the water heater which in the end it did turn out to be.  Our water heater burst draining a whole lot of water into the basement.

We talked a little bit more and then I started laying out towels to try to clean up some of the water and block water from leaking into other places.  I called one clean up place to ask a few questions and they said they would call back in the morning which was fine.  There was no way I was going to clean up much with what resources I had so I did the best I could, turned off our water just in case it was something else and went to bed.  Before going to bed though I had to send an email canceling preschool.  I felt bad but really there was nothing I could do.  We could not have preschool down there and would not have any hot water for washing hands and what not. When Mark got off work around 1:00 (it was a really bad airport week, Monday night planes were delayed because of storms and he didn't get home until 3:00!!) his supervisor who has a plumbing background stopped by to check out the situation.  It was very kind of him.  He confirmed that yes it was our water heater and they turned off the breaker to the water heater.

This carpet was so squishy and it quickly spread to about half the carpet area of the basement.

First thing the next morning I contacted our Warranty company to file our claim.  Once I had a contact for a plumbing company I called them and then called a restoration company they recommended.  Both companies were were great to work with and were able to fit us in that afternoon. The restoration company got to our house around 9:45 to do the initial evaluation and the plumbing company arrived around 1:30.  They had told me between 3 and 5 so it was great they arrived earlier. While I was setting up the contract with the Restoration company my dear friend Laura came over and cleaned up most of the standing water. I was so embarrassed that she was down there doing it by herself while I talked to the Restoration rep but Laura is awesome and makes you feel good about any situation.  Julie kindly offered to pick Jared and Lydia up from school and have them over to play which was really sweet of her.  They had a great time. I'm so fortunate to have such truly caring, selfless people in my life.

I was really impressed with how quickly the plumbing people got our new water heater installed.  Because we have a warranty there was a chance we would have to wait on their decision.  When I talked to the plumbing guy and told him the model of our water heater (It was from 1996!) he said they had those on the truck (awesome) but sometimes the warranty people want you to use their products so you would have to A.  argue which I am not good at.  B  Wait a few days for them to locate a product and get it to you.  I mentioned my lack of arguing skills and asked if he was good at it and he said he was so I left it in his hands.  Once I told him I had an 8 and 6 year old and ran a preschool out of my house he reassured me I would have the water heater by the end of the day.  We got it even sooner.  By 3:00 we had the new heater installed and happily had hot water again.   The Restoration company arrived around 5:30 and didn't leave until 10:00.  They did a great job and came back to check on things Saturday and by then everything was dried out.  We feel really fortunate that we got connected with the people we did.

One drawback was the fact that our old water heater was so old it was not up to code and our warranty does not cover code upgrades.  Now had we known there was such a thing when we bought our warranty we may have looked into the upgrade since a lot of our major appliances are so old but we had no idea so instead of the 100 dollar deductible we had to pay 400.  That was obnoxious.  Thankfully now our water heater is in good shape.

The insurance people were really helpful too.  We talked to our adjuster Thursday and the inspector came out today.  He inspected everything, wrote up the estimate and handed me a check within an hour.  He was really kind and answered lots of questions.  He commented on how kind and calm I was being and how refreshing it was.  He had been dealing with storm damages all day and lots of people yelling.  We found out last week how high our deductible was so I had already had time to prepare myself and was expecting to not get very much money to cover the repairs and saw no need to take it on on him.  We feel like he was really generous with his estimate and are really grateful. I joked with Mark that maybe our estimate was a little better than it could have been because I was nice and calm.  Seriously just treat people how you want to be treated. I think it has to do with having been on the customer service side of an office at one time and taken a lot of crap from people when I truly had nothing to do with the problem.  We also were unaware of just how high our deductible was so that will be remedied soon also.

In reality this has turned out in our favor.  We knew our water heater would be breaking eventually (it was over 20 years old and people say you aren't supposed to get more than 10 years from one) when we bought the house so now its done and we don't really have to worry about that and wanted to update our basement if we could so now we can.  New paint in the main room, flooring in 3 rooms, new vanity in bathroom and some mold protection.  Even though we technically did pay for it because we have been paying for our insurance for all these years its nice that the money did not have to come directly out of our accounts.

The preschool families were really kind about it.  We had a make up day today and are meeting upstairs for this week.  I hope we can be downstairs for our last week of the year which is next week but we will see how quickly we get this work done. I am not holding my breath but we sure lucked out with everything so far.  Mark stopped by to visit the former Bishop of our ward to talk about some other things Sunday night and they were asking about the water heater situation.  Turns out that the Bishop before this family had a big basement problem and so did the previous bishop who Mark was visiting with, we are just following in their footsteps. I want to ask them what other things happened during their 5 years so maybe I can prepare myself!  Really I think it just has to do with the fact that it is a good amount of time so things are bound to happen but weird that it was the basement for all three families so far.  They all joked that they better not tell the next guy.  We are really grateful for how this all played out especially that we were home when it happened.  It would be so sad to come back from being out of town and walk into that.

So this month is turning out to be quite a bit more expensive than we expected.  We had our HVAC system serviced about 2 weeks ago and it was more than originally thought because it had been so long since it had been cleaned out and now our water heater.  Our HVAC is as old as the water heater so it will most likely be next. We sure hope things stay calm for awhile now.

EU passport day

A few years ago Mark heard about a really cool event in DC.  On the first Saturday of the month of May the International embassies in Washington DC hold open houses.  The following week the countries in the EU have open houses. They are free and open to the public.  We have wanted to go for at least 2 years but it just hasn't worked out.  This year things worked out and we were able to attend the open houses on EU Passport day.  It was a really fun event.  We did have to walk around a lot in fairly warm weather and there were some long lines but we had a great time and plan on going again next year.  Earlier in the week we read a few articles about the event, consulted maps to find which ones were close to each other and made a plan.  The Belgium Embassy was ranked as one of the best ones to attend so we decided we would go there first.  Finland is right next to Belgium so we planned on checking them out too. We noticed that Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Holland were all right next to each as well so we planned to go to Belgium and Finland and then head over to the last three.

The doors opened at 10:00 and the line for Belgium was incredibly long.  We decided I would wait in line for Belgium while Mark took Jared and Lydia to Finland.  They had a great time in Finland.  They had fish on crackers to taste (Mark tried it Jared and Lydia did not) and some Finnish cheese, paint to draw a Finnish flag on you, a balloon artist, and a photo booth.  I met some very nice people from North Carolina and enjoyed talking to them (they are big UVA fans).  Lydia was getting antsy so she and I decided to take a little walk and as we did a policeman with a K-9 dog said to me, "come with me you can go to the front of the line." I was so surprised and slightly confused.  I called Mark and told him to come meet us really quick so he and Jared could skip the line too. I didn't feel too bad about this as I had already waited in line for an hour and 20 minutes.  It was such a lifesaver.  We got into the embassy and were treated to all kinds of swag specifically lots of Belgium chocolate.  After getting the Finnish flag Jared and Lydia made a goal to get flags from each embassy so when they saw the woman with the stamp for the Belgium flag they were excited.  They handed out bags, chocolates, free beer, flags, and Smurf paraphernalia because the creator of Smurfs is apparently from Belgium. In the courtyard they had more alcohol (a large reason why this embassy was so popular) waffles, a soccer game going and screens with Belgian music.  It was well worth the wait.

After leaving Belgium we walked back to our car so we could head over to the other embassies.  We had parked at the National Cathedral which was close but still a decent walk.  It was getting pretty warm but Jared and Lydia did pretty well.  The embassies are located in a really nice neighborhood.  There were lots of pretty houses which happily all looked different from each other and had beautiful landscaping and mature trees.  It was so different from where we normally are in DC.  Even though it was hot and a long walk it was a pretty place for a walk.  I would love to go there another time.  Maybe even take bikes.

Mark found a place to park and then we walked over to the Czech Republic.  They had lots of traditional food for sale but we skipped it this time and enjoyed the live traditional music.  Jared, Mark and Lydia got their flags on their arms and then spent a few minutes in the bounce house.  Next to the bounce house were the reigning Czech/Slovak queen from Kansas and the 2nd runner up to the Ms. Czech/Slovak US.  It was fun to talk to them.  The 2nd runner up is actually a middle and high school history teacher so she and Mark enjoyed sharing stories.

After the Czech Republic we headed over to Hungary which was thankfully just around the corner.  They had lots of music and food and some fun kids activities.  Jared colored a Hungarian flag while Lydia watched a Hungarian cartoon.  I had read that they had dogs there so we went in search of them and found the funniest looking dog.  We are not dog people, but Jared was mesmerized by this one dog.  Its called a Komondor.  He loved it so much.

I love his face in these pictures, so much. 

Our last stop of the day was Holland.  It was not as close as we thought and we were all so hot and tired by the time we got there.  It also had a long line but it was definitely worth the wait.  It wasn't quite as long as Belgium but still long and at the end of a tiring day.  They had fun bags and in the bag were water bottles for which we were all so grateful.  Once inside we tried some cheese from Holland, it was delicious and some of their poffertjes or miniature pancakes. Their actual embassy was probably the nicest one we visited.  They had a fun painting activity and a "on location" photo op.

It turned out to be a really fun outing.  I was talking to a friend about it and she commented on how I was a really good mom and that I alway found the coolest things to do.  (It was the day before Mothers day after all) I replied "yes, I am really good at making my kids walk all over the place and stand in long lines."  But it really was worth it.  We are looking forward to going again next year.  The family I chatted with while waiting to get into Belgium  had gone last year and gave some tips of places to avoid and places to stop by.  Next year it looks like we will be stopping by Germany for sure.  Besides going in buildings you normally can't, learning little facts about places all over the world, and fun samples it was fun to be around other people who are interested in the world out there and being wiling to travel and go new places.  It was fun to try out things and visit with people.  And since we were driving back from DC we of course stopped at Moo Thru, always a good way to end a day in DC on a high note.  We do love living out here.

DC driving, but it shows most their "flags" (on his arm)