Joe's Crab Shack

Joe's Crab Shack was the place Lacey picked for her birthday dinner. Last Friday we went and had a great time. Erik started the evening off with a Shark Bite. When they bring this to your table, the shark is holding a vial of grenadine. They announce to all around - "Watch out! Everybody out of the water! Shark attack!", then they pour the grenadine into the drink. = )

In the dessert menu, it tells you to take your picture through the porthole. Lacey obliged:
Seth did not, but I caught him anyway.
After dinner, what better thing to do than use Mom's sharpie and draw mussel animals. The manager and waitress loved this.
Dessert - holy cow! Six layered chocolate delight.

Game Face

Lacey had her first soccer game this weekend. She has face crayons with the exact same color as her team shirt so her and her teammates decided to add "eye black" or in this case "eye teal".

It must have worked, they won! There was some discrepancy whether the score was 5-1 or 4-0 (I never did hear for sure from the scorekeeper), but at any rate, they won by four goals. I missed the first 20 minutes of the game but they appear to have a really great team, good team spirit and respectful of each other. Big change from last year and it looks like it is going to be a fun team to be a part of.

New Light on Life

On the way home from Palm Springs last week, I made it 2,300 miles without incident and then, near Albany, OR, I got hit with a piece of flying debris (a chunk of tire about the size of a dinner plate). Incredibly, this was almost $1,000 worth of damage. A new headlight and the repair to the bumper.

Same bumper and new headlight! Also, minus all the bugs I gathered from Palm Springs.

Drying Out

The view of our lovely plywood floor. The contractor has taken out all of our flooring and we are now in the drying process over the weekend.

Two dryers and one dehumidifier. Besides being extremely loud, with all three running it also heats up this room to about 80 degrees. Needless to say, we are thankful for the pocket doors so we can close this room off and have it be somewhat bearable in other parts of the house.
Here's a better view of what is drying out. You can see how the nailheads are dark and have moisture around them. Even though the insulation below the house is not wet, I think the subfloor right here in front of the sink and dishwasher will need to be replaced. We'll see how well the dehumidifier does. It dumps a surprising amount of water every 20 minutes or so.
A plywood floor, a Sharpie and two kids:

Our new room

We have as new plastic bubble room! Last Friday the dishwasher sprung a leak and ruined the kitchen floor. Tomorrow the contractor starts ripping up the wet floor, then we live with a dehumidifier running for the weekend and hopefully by the end of next week we have our kitchen back. Stay tuned...

Sent from my U.S. Cellular® Android phone

Visiting in Salem

On our way to Spring Break vacation, we were able to stop in Salem and visit Seth's aide from his first few years of elementary school. Amber's oldest, Trae, was born on Seth's 8th birthday and her recent additions (9 months old) are Kingston and Marley. Aren't they gorgeous?

Here is Amber and Trae checking out Seth's movie collection. Terrence and Marley looking on.
Kingston and Marley giving Seth's game bag some close inspection.
Seth with Amber and her children.
It was so wonderful to visit, Amber hasn't seen Seth since 3rd grade. He was slightly taller this time! In fact, he's taller than her, as usual that made him very happy. I'm so glad we were able to make this stop, beautiful kids, beautiful family.

Seth's Mask

I love masks and this is Seth's mask he made in Art. I love it!

Teal to Orange

Today was ortho day, Lacey had her first set of wires changed on her braces. Each time you get to decide a new color. She chose orange. They look cool, but I just assumed we would do green for St. Patrick's Day. But.....what do I know?

Not Broken, Just Botoxed

Seth is resisting having his picture taken so I snuck one while at bowling. He has a fancy blue cast on his right arm in an attempt to stretch the wrist and not have it so bent. It's pre-cast position was making getting dressed difficult, his wrist has tightened so much that the palm was nearly laying on his forearm. Botox and casting is the least invasive option and other than the inconvenience of having a cast, it is pretty simple.

Three to four weeks of casting is what we are in for. Hopefully, we can keep it stretched better from this point forward and avoid needing to do this again for many years.

The Color of Money

Finally, Seth's room is done. I made his money valance, it is hung up with the black curtain rod and the black mini-blinds are up. It looks like it would make his room really dark and small looking, but I think it actually just "manned it up a bit". The room does not appear smaller in person, it looks nice. Most of all Seth is happy with it.