Summer

On the continuing list of things going wrong with our house, a few months ago during a big rainstorm, we sprung a leak right outside the laundry room. So that means a roof leak. Since so much drywall in and around the laundry room needed to be replaced, we decided we would make it into a laundry room remodel. We don't actually have the money for this, but that's what home equity lines of credit are for, right?

So we ended up getting a new hot water heater, this time a tankless because it would create a ton of extra space in the laundry room. We're going to have someone else do the roof, and then Wes will tear out all of the drywall and build me some shelves and cabinets so it will be a real laundry room with a pantry!! Yay! The only problem of course is that he has hardly any free time, so I expect this project to be done no less than a year from now. But someday, I look forward to having a pantry so that I can move the tower of cereal boxes out of the kitchen. If we ever have an earthquake, my kitchen will be flooded with cereal.

Got back from our beach vacation last week. We went to the Gulf coast, and saw tarballs beginning on day 3. It wasn't really a huge deal because they cleaned up the beach every day so the tar was gone by morning (or at least it was gone by the time I made my way out to the beach). I always wish the beach vacation was longer. I don't really relax until day 5 and then it's time to start thinking about packing up and heading home. We do vacation with some awesome friends, and I always miss them when I get home, although it's much more socializing than I'm used to. It takes me a full week to recover from the trip, all the packing and unpacking, and getting back into a groove. Now I'm back to tackling the giant pile of paper I've been avoiding for a month. So why am I on LJ??? ;)

Last night I had some neighbors over for happy hour. We had a lovely time chatting, and it just makes me glad to live here. I honestly don't know why I don't spend more time with these women. Between vacation and the heat, I was pretty much a hermit last month. I need to change that.

The kids cracked me up last night. My neighbor's kids play really well with mine, so she left them here for awhile after she left to go eat dinner. The boys were playing with blocks and the girls were mostly building up the drama that the boys had hit them with something earlier in the evening (what do you expect with 4-year-olds?). At some point, the boys were building "traps" for the girls, and the neighbor boy explained in detail that his was a bomb. Henry on the other hand was building a robot. He seemed completely uninterested in amping up the violence. I swear he's wired just like his dad.