Carp-e-Diem !

Had a pretty intense cloudburst for about 2 minutes. The rain on the plywood roof is really loud. Not enough to leak, so far.

Looking back through the posts of the blog, I came across these two pictures. December 1, 2005 Artists rendition from the architect Actual view

Previously, I posted this picture of Max and me in the hole I dug for the sewer line work.

I thought that the line was going to be burst in place and there would be no extra digging required. Boy, was I wrong. Below is the picture of what I came home to on Monday evening.

Monday Night

By Tuesday the company had completed the work and refilled in the trench (mostly). They left a very tall stand pipe for me to cut down to size.

Tuesday Night

The kids and I spent some time listening to the water flow through the pipe. One would run in the house and flush the toilet and then run outside to listen. Then we discovered that we could look into the pipe with a flashlight. Tomorrow night, we will *watch* the contents of a toilet flush move through the sewer line. I bet you all can’t wait for the pictures from that adventure!!

We are trying to get all the windows in so that we can get the siding on the house so that we can get the roof covered. To that end, we are now in week 3 of putting in windows. Grandpa Seal has been helping us these past 2 weekends, so I have been pulling stucco off the house while he and Poppa put in windows. Mark was here this recent weekend after a few weeks off for hand surgery. He helped me out with some rough stucco.

Taking off the stucco

GPa Seal peeking out of the window

Replacing the Front Window

YaYa woking on getting the window sill clean

North Close up

North West view

West view

South view

South East view

Notice how shiny all those windows look? Many thanks to YaYa for her cleaning of the windows. On Friday, I saw some guys working in the alley behind our house on the sewer lines. I asked one of the guys, in nicer clothes, what was being worked on and they said that they are going to replace the whole sewer line that runs down the middle of the alley. Since they were going to be in the area working I asked if they could replace the line from my house to the main line. (It is currently old tar paper and runs under the slab of my garage.) We worked out a deal that they would replace the line (in-line burst method) and I needed to expose the line where it comes out of the ground. So, Sunday afternoon was spent digging a hole. It ended up being about 3 feet down. Max is standing on the pipe.

In a sewer line hole

On Thursday afternoon, Max was eating a burger and his tooth finally fell out.

Missing tooth

Now that Max is 7 (pictures sure to come in November , he is displaying some great wisdom. The other day we were speaking of one of his friends, we’ll call him John.* We don’t see John as much as we used to, but still make an effort to play with him several times a year. Max said, “Wanna know why John isn’t my best friend anymore?” I said, “Why? Is it because we haven’t seen him in awhile?” He said, “No, it’s because he doesn’t obey his mommy. I don’t like friends that don’t obey their mommy. I don’t like fussing!” *This name has been changed to protect the original disobedient kid.