Water

We knew when we bought our house that the basement might have problems. The people we bought it from had just finished the basement, everything looked really nice. But it was obvious it hadn't been through a Seattle winter yet. And because it was newly finished the things you'd typically look for (signs of previous water damage) were either covered over or no longer visible. For all we knew the basement would turn into a lake the first time it rained.

Shortly after moving in we had a couple big storms - lots of rain and wind, power out, that kind of thing. And we've had a very typical winter this year, with rain more days than not. So far there'd been no signs of water in the basement, so I'd figured we were good to go. Lucky us.

Thursday I got the kids off to school and sat downstairs to eat my breakfast. Headed off to school and picked Mal up afterward. I went to get some work done at the computer and thought, "hm, my socks must've got a bit wet while walking to my car/picking up Mal" (not surprising because my boots are old and have developed a couple leaks). But a few minutes later I realized that there's no way my thick socks got that wet, pushed back the chair, and saw that the carpet under the desk was wet.

I initially assumed it might be water coming up through the floor, because the carpet near the wall was still totally dry. But once Ryan got home and moved the desk I realized that where the feet of the desk had been - much closer to the wall - was also wet. We figured out how to remove the baseboard (which our contractor neighbor later told us may not have been necessary - oh well, new thing learned anyway!) and pulled back the carpet. In removing the baseboard we discovered a small bit of sheetrock with mold on it.

Our neighbor came over and since all the water was located almost directly under a window, told us he guessed it had something to do with the window - either the window was installed improperly and so water was getting in, or maybe the dirt making a bowl around the window was the culprit (almost certainly not helping the problem at any rate). After he left we got the padding pulled up and tossed it out, and propped up the carpet and set up some fans so it could dry a little faster.

So now we get to decide how much money we want to throw at this problem. Do we get the land regraded and install a pipe/drain thing or do we guess that perhaps a foundation drain has failed or needs to be installed and pay for that and the regrading? If we do option 1 then realize the problem isn't fixed, some of it will have to be dug up to do option 2. If neither of those solve the problem then we'd maybe have to dig stuff up yet again to determine what the actual problem is, wasting even more money. Argh.

Anyway, we had a landscape/drainage person come out and give us an estimate. We'll have another drainage company come on Thursday and see what they say. Our neighbor seemed to think we shouldn't worry about the possible mold inside the walls and just clean what we can see off with bleach. But I really don't want to go that route (we dealt with mildew/mold in our Indiana place, really don't want to again), so no matter what we'll at some point rip out that wall so we can replace any wet insulation and deal with any mold.

Our neighbor told us that they've had a river of water flowing through their basement a couple times, so apparently if this is the worst it gets we're pretty lucky. (And I can say from experience that this is better than 5 feet of water in the basement.) I'm starting to wonder if we'll ever get to do the projects we want to do on the house rather than just dealing with the unexpected problems that crop up. Home ownership is so much fun.

Sequim

We were invited to go along with our friends, the Redpaths, to Sequim (pronounced Sqwim) on Monday. Sequim is famous for it's lavender festival, but mid-January is obviously out of season for lavender.

Instead of lavender (though we did see some farms/plants, they were obviously not flowering at the moment), we were treated to some gorgeous views of the mountains and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. We saw a sleeping cow on our drive (there are lots of farms in the Sequim area), one kid said it looked like it was dead. Mal kept talking about how the cow died, which eventually morphed into something about it being a zombie. The kids kept trying to emphasize that, no, the cow was just sleeping, but Mal was insistent it was dead. Later he informed us that a person in a car parked next to us was eating a toy for breakfast.

After lunch at a local diner we checked out the Dungeness Recreation Area, which is both a county park and a national wildlife refuge. You can see Canada from the park, though the view was a bit cloudy yesterday. Looks like there are some camp sites in the park, some close enough to the water that you'd be able to enjoy the calming sound of the waves from your site. We couldn't find a way down to the water - there's some serious erosion happening near the path and climbing on the bluffs would be very dangerous. It's a beautiful area and would be worth a trip back when the weather is a bit warmer to explore the trails further. All told, a great way to spend the day. Photos courtesy of Mr. Redpath's camera.

On the Edmonds-Kingston ferry

Burgers at a diner were pretty tasty

Mountains

Looking out at the Strait

Running on the trail

Scenic views along the trail

More running along the trail

Snowfall

We got a tiny bit of snow yesterday. It stuck to the road for approximately two minutes and then melted and stopped sticking. The kids bundled up and went out to play like it was the greatest thing ever. Mal was convinced we should be able to make a snowman. Gareth twirled in joy on the deck:

I think it's a good thing we didn't get any that stuck overnight. If they have this much joy over practically no snow, imagine how devastating it would have been to have snow just when you're going back to school and can no longer spend all day playing in it?

New Year 2016

Our New Year's Eve was a busy day. I made up gingerbread for our houses while Ryan hosted a couple of co-workers to jam for a few hours. One of them brought his two oldest with him, so Gareth and Mal played with his kids while the adults baked/played music.

We didn't puzzle this year. In fact, due to our extreme lack of storage, we culled our past puzzles quite extensively. Instead, Gareth played Minecraft with the aforementioned kids until midnight while Ryan and I watched some shows and munched on cheese and crackers. This year we tried Manchego and a cranberry Wensleydale.

On New Year's Day we had friends over to decorate the houses. Typically I put the houses together the night before, but this year I ran out of time. The kids played for a bit while I finished building the houses, then decorated. I didn't get a picture of the one they all worked on, but it was covered in candy and frosting. The kids ate almost as much candy as they put on the house. They tired of decorating after one house, so I had mostly free reign with the second house, though Mal helped me quite a bit.

I didn't want to put a lot of effort into the roof, so hence the icing with sugar sprinkled on top. Pretzels work well to cover a lot of surface quickly as well as for making windows and doors.

After dinner Gareth informed me that the house wasn't decorated enough, so he added a few more candies. And that closed our New Year's Day. Mal was asking to go to preschool today, so I think we're all pretty ready to get back into the usual routine.

Christmas 2015

Mal usually comes up to our room to wake me up every morning (though I hear him coming long before he gets there). Christmas morning he woke me up, saying, "There's presents!" In past years the kids haven't been allowed into the living room before we're all ready to go out, but in our new house they can see the tree from their open bedroom door, and their primary path to our room is through the living room. It seemed a bit futile to even attempt to keep them out of the living room until we were all ready. However, once Mal had brought me down and shown me the presents, I had him and Gareth get dressed and then they had to wait in our room until Ryan and I were ready before getting into anything. They had fun playing on the bed while they waited.

When we got back downstairs they quickly got into their candy. We tried to tell Mal that candy doesn't equal breakfast, but he didn't seem to believe us. At least he scarfed down his almonds and cashews as well.

Pre-opening.

Gareth got lots of gifts that have been on his wish list for a while and some Dr. Who items, so it was a pretty exciting Christmas for him. Gifts like this perplexus. It happened to be the first gift he opened and we had to drag him away from it to get anything else open. We've all been enjoying it. It's frustrating, but the kind of thing you keep coming back to anyway.

Mal was able to open most of his presents independently this year. He got lots of duplos.

Gareth was excited to get some winter gloves. Not only will they work great in the off-chance we ever get snow, but they'll keep his hands warm on cold, rainy days when riding his bike.

Ryan passed out the presents this year to ensure gifts were handed out equitably.

Mal also got a gear toy, which he seems to enjoy. Though, as usual, his biggest interest is in Gareth's toys.

Gareth also got monopoly, so we spent a few hours playing a game. Initially he was killing Ryan and myself because he got all the railroads. But in the end Ryan landed on Park Place and Boardwalk, took a huge risk mortgaging properties and spending most of his money to buy them, and once he recovered from that and put houses on them the tables turned and Ryan ended up winning.

It's been a nice, relaxing break. We've cleaned up the house a bit and eliminated some toys the kids had outgrown to make room for new toys. We've had opportunities to get together with friends and have had lots of just hanging around the house playing with new toys, reading, watching movies, and spending time together. I wouldn't mind another week of break, but it won't be horrible to get back to our regular routine this coming Monday either.

Pre-Christmas

It seems every year we have one or two traditions that we just can't pull off. Last year we skipped going out to breakfast because the thought of taking Mal to a restaurant was terrifying. I think we'll do that one this year, but between school and various parties we got halfway through December without getting a tree. Which isn't unusual, because we often purposely wait until the second weekend in the month. But I had a final on a Monday morning (that various events had left me unable to study for until the day before) and waiting until the next weekend would leave us with a tree for less than a week before Christmas (and also seriously limit our selection of trees). So in order to actually get a tree we opted to forego cutting down our own tree and just go to a lot to get one. In the end we went to a local nursery, paid a rather exorbitant price, but got a perfectly nice tree and were able to get the whole thing done in an hour. As you can see, we still have a pumpkin hanging around from Halloween. It's not the only Halloween item out still. 

Mal was very upset at the nursery when we walked back to our car so we could drive it around to where they'd load the tree on it. Because we didn't have the tree with us he thought we were leaving without a tree and was ready to hyperventilate because he was so distraught. We managed to calm him enough to explain to him that we were getting a tree. Then when we got home we had to break the news to him that we wouldn't be putting the lights on right away, and he was upset again. He managed to survive until Monday afternoon when he begged me repeatedly to put the lights on, so since I was then done for the quarter I acquiesced. He's insisted the lights be on from the moment he wakes until he sleeps ever since.

We made some gingerbread cookies this past weekend and I was surprised at how interested Malcolm stayed in it. Both boys came along when I was just starting to roll out the dough and helped cut out the cookies. When Gareth was three he'd usually help with a few cookies and then get bored and run off. Mal stuck with it through all the dough and wanted to help cut them out and transfer them to the cookie sheet. While it was occasionally frustrating to have so many helpers, I'm glad they enjoyed it this year.

I attempted substituting dark chocolate for the milk chocolate in my fudge recipe this year and it did not turn out well at all. I'm not sure why - some kind of content difference between the milk and the dark chocolate or a humidity thing? No idea, but it was frustrating to have wasted so many materials. So this year will be all cookies because I'm annoyed enough to not want to try again. Normally I'm more stubborn about trying things again, but I'm tired this year. Maybe because I've caught yet another cold from Mal (thank you petri dish of preschool!). I'll look up some new recipes during the year and see if I can find a promising dark chocolate one to try next year. Our recipe we've always used with the milk chocolate is just way too sweet anymore.

The crumbly, separating mess :(

Ryan and the boys watched Elf the other day. I guess Mal was tired because he fell fast asleep while watching:

Growing up my grandma gave us these cubes that could be put together to say "Merry Christmas", "Season's Greetings", or "Happy New Year". They spent most of their time saying anything but those three things. My mom knows how much we enjoy getting to play with the block letters, and when we only had Christmas (with Thankful on the back), we found we could make a lot of curse words, but were severely limited in what else they could say. So as part of our countdown my mom has sent some more letters to add to the mix. Some are clearly for other holidays, but we can combine what we've opened so far with what we already had to make statements such as "fart shame" or "my cats shimmer" or "'Murica":

Rattlesnake Museum and Coming Home

Several weeks before our trip I showed Gareth options for things we could go check out while in Albuquerque. He got very excited about the Rattlesnake Museum, so I made sure we went and saw that. Sunday afternoon we headed over to Old Town to do that. Thankfully the tickets weren't particularly expensive, because it was rather disappointing. While they certainly had rattlesnakes, they also had the space cluttered with every item that had ever been branded with a snake or was loosely connected to snakes in any way. And rather than have one single gift shop space they had cheap trinket items scattered throughout the museum.

Anyway, here's a snake.

Mal really, really liked the tortoises and kept insisting that we go back to them.

At least he spent some time checking out the snakes and other animals there. Gareth only had eyes for random things spread through the museum.

So, all in all, not really worth it. Snakes are rather boring as most of them hide in corners or sleep anyway. But since it was a request that Gareth made, I'm glad we did it just to fulfill that request. After we finished in the museum I made us take a short walk to the Old Town square because I'd caught a glimpse of the sad, er, I mean grand, Christmas Tree there. 

Old Town itself looked like it was shops full of tourist trinkets. So I think I'm okay with not exploring it further on future visits.

Monday we got all our stuff packed up and then spent the afternoon with Ryan's dad at a park across the street from the first house they owned in Albuquerque. I'd never seen that house before, so that was interesting. And we all had a good time throwing frisbees around and playing on the playground. Gareth was very sad that evening as he said goodnight to everyone. Mal was more oblivious. Everything went smoothly with the flight home, aside from Mal and Gareth continuously pestering one another whenever we were sitting in the airport.

When we arrived in Seattle I had a clarinet choir friend pick me and our luggage up so we could go to dress rehearsal while Ryan took the boys and headed home on the light rail and bus. When they walked in the door Mal said, "No! I don't want this one!". Guess it took him until walking in the door to realize he wasn't going back to Grandma and Grandpa's house. And then he went to the fridge, opened it, and proceeded to ask for and eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and apple slices with peanut butter - two things I'd offered him many times in Albuquerque and which he'd consistently voiced staunch opposition to throughout the trip.