Basement Flood

We awoke at 3AM Saturday morning to the sound of our guest, Ed, saying " Chris, your basement is flooded!"  Huh!!!! 

Yep, a 4-6 inch pond in our finished basementL

All I could think of was for us to get everything out immediately.  That’s what we did and we were able to save just about everything from the basement. We think the electronics are fine but we haven't tested them.  Only a couple of sentimental things were damaged.  The kids portable DVD player was ruined. We’ve already replaced that item….can’t live without the portable DVD player, right?:-)  (Mom, the barbie house was still on the bench so it was just fine.  It was the first thing we removed:-))

We spent the day ripping out the stinky, wet, disgusting carpet, bleaching toys, and organizing all of our stuff.  We will need to remove the lower portion of our drywall this week so that the walls can completely dry out during the next week or so.  Other than that, it's all fine.  I recognize that it definitely could have been a lot worst.  In the grand scheme of life, nothing really.  I’m just thankful we had company over that was sleeping in the basement so that we found out early; then we put them all to work (!!).  They were truly life savers who rallied to get us organized and kept our emotions in check.  Thanks so much Ed and Ti and Bibiano!!  We are also lucky that our next door neighbor is a plumber who helped us out first thing that morning with draining the water and called in one of his sewer friends for help.  When our neighbors woke, they jumped in with their kids helping clean and organize.  Have a mentioned that we have awesome neighbors?!

The most common question of the day by strangers:  "Are you having a yard sale?".  At first this was funny, but after about 15th/20th time, it was really, really annoying!!!   M suggested that we put up a sign saying...."This is not a yard sale!"   Seriously people!  With all of the crap in our front yard, Chris said it looked like we were being evicted!

Good times:-)

Here are some pics but they don't really translate....

hehe, save the beer!

BTW, this was officially the rainiest day since they began keeping records in 1871!!!

Beating the Summer Heat

Our Green Visitor

Over the weekend, Chris was doing a little work in our garden when he noticed something strange on one of our pepper plants. This HUGE caterpillar-- Ceratomia undulosa, larva, to be precise.

WOWzer! Not really knowing any better, we left it on the plant that night and woke up the next morning to NO leaves on the plant. I didn’t realize they were such munchers… I missed that day in science class. We moved him to a bug container that we’ve had for 3 + years now. The funny thing is we bought this container for exactly this purpose but had sort of forgotten about it. So, it was never even taken out of the box. M is super excited to watch it grow. “When is it going to turn into its chrysalis”---that’s what I’ve been hearing for the last 2 days! Pretty cool, huh (except that this one is going to be a moth not a beautiful butterfly).

This is what it’s going to look like, yikes!

M turns 6

The theme this year was.....

+

=

You guessed it--- LUAU. 

We combined ARose's and M's birthday parties again this year.  No complaints yet but I smell a change in the air coming:-(

M greeted each of the girls at the door with leis and flower bracelets.  We had fun with some hula hoops, tossed some water balloons (then attacked Chris with water balloons, which is a must, of course!), enjoyed a contest of limbo, attacked a parrot with a stick (relax, it was a pinata) and even through in a little science for good measure....an erupting volcano.  I think it was a success.  You can be the judge!

And, a cherry on top...a surprise visit from the Pettits!!!  Thanks guys!  It was so much fun.  Miss you guys!

ARose turns 2

Last Sunday, our little baby turned 2 (what!).  How did we celebrate?  We did what any 2 year old (especially this one) would want to do.....we had ice cream and went to the pool.  She is an absolute maniac in the pool.  No fear whatsoever.  This scares me to death, but I'm happy she is a little fish.

ARose Favorites at 2:

Calling Daddy, Mommy-- on purpose

Swimming

Tickles

Riding M's back

Singing her "ABC's"  with special emphasis on S and Z

Reading "5 Silly Monkeys" and "The Three Bears" EVERY night

Hanging upside down

Just being silly!!

Day at the Beach

I love Chicago......this is just a taste as to why!

Computer Update

Several people have asked so I thought I'd provide an update.  There really isn't much to talk about though.  I sound like a broken record here.  Our computer problems have not been resolved.  FRUSTRATING!!!!  We having been trying to work with a local company to no avail.  We've managed (SLOWLY) to transfer all of our photos from the fried portable hard drive to a new one.  We can connect to wireless (usually our wireless but sometimes our neighbors...hehe) on our ipad but the connection on our desktop (which is what I use to blog) still doesn't work.  Unfortunately, blogging from the ipad is more challenging and apparently the pictures are not showing up on non-ipads.  I'll try to fix the Door County pictures soon.  Until then, my posts will continue to be limited:-( 

I'll try to get you back to up speed on the goings-on of the Frigs when I can. 

Relaxing Door County Style

We decided last minute to take a road trip over the Fourth to Door County. A little R&R was what the doctor ordered. And we listened. Our good friends Ed and Ti met us there with their girls. We found a true gem to stay at. I don't know how we got so lucky. It was a log cabin cottage on a homestead from 1870. Perfect!!