Dear Diary...

We've had a crazy couple of weeks here at our house, or maybe just in my head- I don't know.  I've been posting the highlights (fairly) regular.  But since I frequently look back at the post to see when something happened, I need to catch up!

I'll start almost two weeks ago when I went on my work retreat....

The retreat was fabulous- and I hope I can take my family back there soon.  It was a great place to enjoy the outdoors- hiking, swimming, campfires, with all the amenities of a hotel... hot showers, hot tub, and restaurant!  My kind of camping!

Even though getting away with my colleagues was wonderful, it kinda sets me back on my housekeeping.  Like I needed an excuse!

My cousin and his family came and spent the weekend with us, and I so love to have company, I rather enjoy visiting with them instead of yes, you guessed it: housekeeping. 

Enter another busy week of work, cooking, cleaning, soccer practice, farm tours, and fervent praying that it would stop raining.

Thursday morning, while I lay in bed listening to my oldest two get ready for school (argue), I hear William say: "Elizabeth: DO NOT go into the basement.  There is water ALL OVER the floor."
I have never gotten out of bed so fast in my entire life.

Sure enough, the one thing I absolutely hated about our old house happened in our new house.  The sump pump stopped working.  Water. Covering the ENTIRE basement.

Ryan called the insurance company and got a cleaning service on the way.  Not that I wasn't extremely grateful for someone else to come in, pick up the place and get the cleaning process started, but the fourteen fans and two dehumidifiers just about drove me bonkers all weekend.  Not a fan of white noise.  No pun intended.

Guess what I learned in this whole process?  You can get an alarm for your sump pump.  It goes off when the pump gets covered in water.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? Why in the world do we not have one of these?  ARGH!

In the midst of that mess, my grandparents slept over.  Picture this: three people hard of hearing, fourteen fans, and four very loud children.  OH MY GOODNESS.  Funnier? At about 11:30pm when everyone is tucked in bed, the smoke alarms went off.  All twelve of them.  No joke. and we could not get them to stop.  Alarming? (pun intended) not a single soul got up to see why they were going off.  If our house catches fire we're screwed.

I've slowly, very slowly started going through our belongings to see what was destroyed... photos of course.

A few highlights:

Only two more days of school!  Woo Hoo!!  I love not making the kids go to bed at a decent hour- and so do they!  I found this on my bed one day when I got home from work.  A belated Mother's Day gift.  A piece of pottery he made in art class.

The marigold Isabelle gave me for Mother's Day bloomed!
(And more practice on the "manual setting")

Ahh... my favorite thing of all....

ASPARAGUS!!

Found at Wal-mart no less.  BUT! grown in my "home" county - the Asparagus Capitol of the world!  Oceana County, Michigan.  You should check out the farmer: Todd Greiner Farms.  I love it when I know where my food comes from!

You would think, as much as I love this stuff we would have a little patch of our own, but no, no we don't.  So, if you are in asparagus country, or know where to get a nice "mess" of it, bring me some!  Because unfortunately, my back yard farmer does not have any, and my neighbor lady has dibs on the stuff that grows in the ditch....

Today and tomorrow are being spent working, keeping the house clean, laundry, the big basement mess.  ugh. and planning our vacation to HOUSTON!