Happy to be home

It's been almost 3 weeks since we got home from Maryland.  As much as I enjoyed traveling, I'm so happy to be home.  The weather has been great, neighbor kids have been out and playing with Howard and we're starting to really enjoy summer.

Brian had a bad case of pheumonia that had been coming on for a couple of weeks (started with a cold when we got back from Maryland).  It turned UGLY during the 4th of July weekend.  He wasn't moving from bed, had a hard time taking in fluids and wasn't eating anything.  After 2 trips to the doctor, a chest x-ray and a couple of different prescriptions, he is finally getting better.  Other than low energy, he's doing much better.  We did not like having a sick Brian/dad around.  He looked and sounded miserable.

In the middle of Brian being sick, our washing machine started leaking.... bad!  We had water going down through the floor into the garage coming out through the light fixtures in the garage.  We could see the problem was that the seal inside the machine was torn.  We called to have it fixed and was told with ordering the part and a weekend, it would be 5 days before it could be fixed.  5 DAYS!?  Hello... do these people not have families.  If I skip laundry for 1 day it takes work to get caught up!  The kids and I packed up with our dirty laundry and headed to my mom & dad's house for a few day to do laundry and allow Brian time to heal without the pressure of taking care of and playing with the kiddos.

 My parents have 2 houses.  The "lake house" is located near Lake Wenatchee State Park.  My dad used to work in construction, so anyone with a parent/spouse in construction knows that a house is never finished.  My dad built this house before my brother was born (almost 30 years ago) and it's been a work in progress ever since.  In the most recent remodel, there's a small hole in the floor that lead to the crawl space under the house.  When Howard & my niece, Alice visit, a mouse comes to visit them through the hole.  The mouse looks an awful lot like my dad under the house pushing something furry through the hole.  While we were there this past weekend, my dad caught the mouse!!!  This time, the mouse looks an awful lot like a finger puppet, but Howard and Alice KNOW it's the real McCoy!  Papa keeps "Mousey" (as they have named it) in a special, secret cage where he feeds it and takes care of it.

 Also at my parents lake house is an old vine maple tree that Alice & Howard have dubbed "The Monkey Tree".  I think they call it this because they can swing like monkey's on it.  They take turns climbing and swinging from it.

 As the house that it's in constant remodel mode... my dad is working to put some rustic tree trunks in the living room and kitchen around support beams.  I went out with him to haul 2 12' trunks and 2 9' trunks.  The mosquitos were THICK, but I LOVE  being the woods cutting wood.  When I grew up, we had wood heat only, so we spent all fall collecting and cutting trees for heat all winter.  It's one the things I miss most about living at the lake.