FLOOD DISASTER ZONE!!!

Ok, it's a calmer day for me, there are only 7 kids here, the majority are older than 2 & they are entertaining themselves which has given me time to catch up on a few things this morning.

I have been pulled to the news the past couple of weeks, watching the flooding back in the midwest. I was looking at a web site the other day, it was a slide show of pictures from the flooded area of Keokuk & Fort Madison, Iowa. There were several pictures that I knew the exact location of the picture - from being back there last summer. It has been kinda surreal for me, knowing I will be back in that area again in a few weeks.

Which brings me back to our own Flood Disaster of a couple weeks ago. Kimball went downstairs first thing in the morning and came back & had us go down - the ceiling above the toilet in the bathroom (yes, the wonderful Sponge Bob bathroom), had a huge bubble in the ceiling.

Terrell went down with a bucket, put a hole in the bubble and drained about a gallon or so of water out of the ceiling. For the rest of that day and the next, the bucket just sat on top of the toilet lid, catching a steady drip, drip, drip.

It wasn't until the next nite that Terrell was able to go down and pull down the ceiling to see where the drip was coming from. After a few brain-fart moments, he & I realized it was coming from the toilet upstairs. So he had to pull that toilet off and replace the seal with a double high new seal. Leak fixed. Hole still there. I have been promised that it will be fixed - Brad has volunteered his expertise to come patch the ceiling up again. Then I will have to repaint. I hope I still have enough left over paint to fix it up once again.

Tea anyone?

It was Emilie's birthday a couple of weeks ago. I spent some time trying to think of something fun that I could give to her, and this is what I came up with - A tea party! I called the Protea Cottage at Gardner village and made a reservation to take her to a traditional Afternoon Tea on June 21st. We spent the day together yesterday, visiting a few quilt shops before arriving at Gardner Village around 1:00 or so. I don't think Em had ever remembered visiting Gardner Village (seems we went there once when she was little) so we wandered thru all the shops first, killing time before our 4:00 pm reservation.


When we first arrived, we picked what we wanted to have in our tea pots. We picked a peach-apricot tea for the first tea pot, and pink hot chocolate for the second one. We were then escorted up to the tea room to our table


Then we were served a 3-tiered tray that had all kinds of finger foods. English scones, strawberry jam & clotted cream on the first tier. A variety of finger sandwiches on the middle tier and deserts on the bottom tier. I went to a class at Macey's a couple months ago, and I learned that you enjoy your food, from the top tier down.


This was so much fun. We both decided we DO NOT like tea, it just tastes too much like drinking a cup of hot weeds. Sorry, we did give it the 'ol college try sweetening it up with sugar, & lemon. No go. The pink hot chocolate was wonderful! Next time, our beverage selections will be the pink chocolate again, and lemonaide.

Here is the birthday cake they brought out to Emilie, (I had to pre-order this when I made the reservation). Em got to take the teacup and saucer home. We were so stuffed we couldn't even taste it, but we did once we got home. We actually disected it to see how it was made. (two cupcakes on top of each other, with the frosting piled on top). I thought this was such a cute idea.


We had such a good time, we both want to go back again! Happy Birthday Em!