Springtime!

Spring is in bloom! The lilacs have finally come in. I really enjoyed the springtime surprises last year. I had no idea what was planted when we bought the house and since it was in the middle of winter there was nothing in bloom. Today I picked a small bouquet of flowers from our yard.

I so do love color! :)

I have an ultrasound scheduled for May 13th to find out if it's a boy or girl. David continues to go back and forth on his guess while I always have been and continue to be convinced it's a boy. With my pregnancy almost half way through we are getting slowly started in converting our computer room into the baby's nursery. First we needed to move the computer downstairs. Before we could do that we needed to get a desk for it. David found one on Craigslist and we had the Comcast guy come out today and install a new cable outlet for the internet. I just need to set up the printer and we set up to go!

The Pit of Despair!

Saturday morning bright and early (6:00 am) David went down to Home Depot to rent a mini-backhoe, while waiting for Dave Hammerstrom to arrive to help out. When David got back Dave still had not shown up, but our next-door neighbor, Denny, was coming home from his night shift. When he saw what David was doing he got very excited and offered his help. Apparently, he used to do this sort of thing for his old work and he had a lot of fun with this.

Whoa! David trying to gain control of the beast.

Denny showing us how the pros do it.

In the half hour David had dug maybe a foot down. In minuets Denny got another 3 feet. :) Thank God for great neighbors!

They were only digging for maybe an hour when they found the issue...

There it was...the beginning of the end. Look at the crevasse, it's just completely hollow under there!

About this time Hammerstrom showed up to help expose the pipe. Of course David went in first to check everything out.

David's not smiling anymore! Something really smells down there!

Mmmm soup's on!

Apparently what had happened was that the pipe leading from our house to the sewer line had always been disconnected. Someone had had the bright idea at some point that the best way to fix the problem was to put a piece of board between the two pipes at a sort of "slide" to get the sewage to flow. Yeah, it's disgusting.

The board (or what was left of it) was quickly taken out and they made a makeshift pipe out of an old planter box, until we could get the plumbers to come out.

The three amigos.

They put caution tape and covered the hole. Need to keep the kiddies out of there.

The plumbers came out early this afternoon and were able to affix a proper pipe and we are now flowing smoothly. The inspector came out a few hours later and approved all the work. Hooray! Praise God, this could easily have been a lot more expensive then it was.

I'm happy to flush out this issue once and for all. (I'm sorry, I couldn't help it!)

Birthday Extravaganza!

We celebrated David's birthday in style this year! John and Nancy came down for the weekend and on Friday we took them out to the McMenimin's Edgefield for a dinner and a dip the oasis pool. Then Saturday morning we went out for crepes in the Pearl and took John's bike to REI to be fixed. Anxious to get on the road and enjoy the oddly amazing weather we were having John and David decided to bike over to the Hayes' house.

Need to get a good stretch...

John waiting...

They're off!

Just like two peas.

Need to pump up. :)

Nancy and I drove the cars over to bring the supplies and got the party started.

Waiting for people to show the boys trying to think of something to do. Grace gave a David a hula hoop as a birthday gift because "he has such wide hips."


Apparently not.


John's turn.


Adam's got the right idea.

I put this picture in here because David really likes it for some reason. I thought his feet look kind of like a duck's.

Here comes the guests!

Dave arrives with a cooler full of goodies-as usual. :)


Doug and John

Bert


Jesse

Pop and Henry


Faith, Trinity, Anika & Kyra (don't ask me what Mike's doing in the background).

Esther


George and Rachel


Snooze fest.


The Guys.

The Gals.

Now, you may be wondering why did we have a party at the Hayes' house when we have a perfectly good home for this sort of thing? Well, on David's actual birthday we were given a surprise that we would rather not have possessed. The plumbing issue we had back in November had resurfaced and we were unable to use any kind of plumbing devices in the home. We could not get our water to drain. David first tried to snake it out himself, but to no avail. We called a the company who came and helped us last time and they discovered that the pipe at the end of our driveway was disconnected and was causing a backup.

At first we had thought it was going to cost us $4,000-$5,000 to get this fixed since we would have to get someone to come out tear up and repave the driveway. However, it looks like the break is actually where the strip of grass/dirt between the sidewalk and street. David got the permits to dig and is going to get started on that tomorrow. The pipe is 6 feet below the ground! Praise God that it will (hopefully) only be a fraction of what we originally thought it would cost. Please pray that all goes well.

Happy Birthday David!

Today is David's 24th birthday. This will be the last birthday before the baby comes and life changes as we know it so, I thought it would be kind of fun to take a quick look into his past.

About 6 months old...

His first tool set


Hmm...this look familiar


Big Brother!

Circa Age 10?

Strike a pose! David was really into posing for the camera. :)

All-Star alternate.

Age 14

BMX

Trickster

Surprise 16th birthday party.

Senior Picture.

Age: 19

August!

Finally together.

One of August's first public concerts.

Engaged!

Married!

Working on our first house.

Happy Birthday, David! I love you!