Lice, Lizards, Relay for Life (and Our Plumbing Still Isn't Fixed)

Oh man. Our house feels like it's in shambles. Before any of this plumbing mess ever started, we had signed on with a painter to come in and paint our cabinets and kitchen walls. Of course, it ended up being this week when we had to remove all of our cabinet doors, our drawers are all emptied onto our kitchen table. I can't wait until next week when everything is all back in order.

We did find out what was going on with the plumbing and we have a dip in the line which runs underneath our house. The quote is expensive. Really expensive. So we've received one extra quote and I'll talk to another plumber tomorrow to get their thoughts. Insurance may cover a little bit of it (not the plumbing itself, but they'll cover the cost of tearing up and repairing the floor?) I took off on Friday and at one point during the day, our driveway was so full with contractors, plumbers, painters, there was nowhere else to park.

On top of that. Charlie was sitting on my lap Friday evening and I looked down to see a little bug crawling in her hair. Thank goodness she has light colored hair because who knows how long that would have went on if I didn't see that. I think that we caught it early, and we've treated it, but dang. You all know what that means. Copious amounts of laundry, cleaning everything and head checks constantly.

Ya'll, I'm tired.

In the midst of everything, we've still had fun. I had to work at Relay for Life yesterday and the best part of it is that my family gets to come to work with me. It's really funny because Luke thinks that all of my work is basically doing fun things. He enjoyed doing the bouncy house and slide and we all ate lots of junk food. And today we had lunch with my mom and dad and Luke and Dillon went on a lizard hunt. Luke got to hold his first lizard ever and I'm afraid this means that soon we'll be getting pet lizards. Dillon found his old terrarium at his mom's house a few weeks ago and he quietly put it in the back of his truck and brought it home. I know what this means.  Ha!

Anyways. Everyone is napping now, so I think I'll join them.

Luke also had a little preschool graduation this week. I messed up and left the card for the camera in my computer so all of our pictures were cell phone pics. 

Tearing our kitchen up.

Some of Luke's sweet teachers.

Charlie at Relay. She's a rough and tumble kinda gal.

She ate popcorn off the ground and in turn ate some grass too.

Luke and some of his buds. He loves his friends.

This is one for the baby book. Baby's first lice treatment.

When Things Are Just Going All Wrong - Memorial Day '18

Ugh. I know I've posted a ton on Facebook about our issues with our plumbing issues and we're still dealing with it today. I'm not sure if it's the rain that makes all this mess worse or what, but today we not only had water in our basement, but now sewage and toilet paper as well. Fabulous.

I don't know why the other plumbers just didn't quite feel like getting to the bottom of what was going on in our house, but I called back the folks that pumped our septic tank on Friday, as they deal with plumbing and septic issues. Surprisingly, they were at our house within an hour and a half on a holiday. Turns out that (thankfully) we don't have a busted pipe going from the house to the septic tank, but we do have a pipe that dips down and forms a pool so when it gets clogged, it backs up into the house. The new plumbers we used today cut down through all that mess and cleared the clog, but to fix the problem permanently we're looking at some big renovations (talking busting out concrete, re-doing the plumbing, etc...) He said that what they did today will temporarily fix the issues, but it could last us another 4 years or another 4 months, there's just no way to know.

I'm just over it. I don't think I've ever felt so danged irritated with any situation the way I feel with this. There is no easy or inexpensive fix so we'll just have to buckle down and do it. Ah, home ownership.

PS our kids have been wild this weekend, and they're all sick. Charlie has some sort of cold and her nose is like a faucet and she coughs all the time. Dillon has the same thing, now, so it's really just not been our week.

It really all sounds like first world problems. "Oh man, my indoor plumbing is backing up" or "We all have sniffly noses." In the grand scheme of things, it's really not a big deal, but it feels like a big deal and I think Dillon and I both just feel beaten down a little. Luke's new favorite show is the Roseanne reboot and last week's issue they had a flooded basement and no money to fix the huge costs, and I always wonder how they just seem to laugh it off (because, ya know, it's a tv show)... but then Dan got so frustrated that he took a crowbar and beat in a door in their basement. He talked about how he worked so hard and still couldn't get everything done that he needed and it was some sort of validation, like, yeah, other people get it, too. So, for right now, we hold out for the rain to stop. We wait on yet another estimate from a plumber, and we move one step in front of another, as annoying as it may be, we'll get through it.

While most of the weekend was spent stressing about our sewage needs, we did have our first pool day and some good family time. A few pictures below!

How most of the weekend was spent. She has a runny nose, teeth coming in and is just miserable in general. Poor baby. 

Luke has about another 2 months of pre-school. He'll spend the last month before kindergarten with my mom and dad and they're going to do some fun pool days and running around.

It's not a pool day without Cheetos.

Luke also helped clean our fridge off with shaving cream. That was a fun morning and my fridge is shiny now!

Luke's smiley face

One of the few smiley faces from her this weekend.