Home Improvement

We have been fighting a cloggy toilet upstairs for several months. Alicia kept telling JR it needed to be fixed and he kept telling her to call the landlord! For about two weeks Alicia and Brittany have been using our toilet downstairs. With Dani's arrival I had to put my foot down. Tooo many people were going to use the downstairs toilet! So we bought a new one on Monday night and JR and a friend put it in. Quite hilarious.

After JR got the old one out, which was pretty easy, they put the new bowl in.... and kept yelling at me not to take pictures! All was going good until they went to put the tank on and it wouldn't fit. They measured and the contractor who refinished the house four years ago did not put the drain hole the necessary 12" from the wall like it's supposed to be. Moving the hole was NOT in the option list, and going back to the old not working toilet because it was too cheap also got booted off the list.

And that meant ... yes, you guessed it! Cutting a hole in the wall so the tank would fit. How funny is that?? But it is working and one day... maybe... the hole will be finished so it doesn't look goofy.

Dani

On Saturday evening we welcomed Dani. Though, I am sad to say, we were late getting there. Alicia and I went to our standing hair appointment, JR went down to the local barber shop, then we tackled the lawn...s. We actually do three of them, our neighbor to the north and our neighbor to the south. That's a 2 1/2 hour job for JR and I and it's always HOT!! So we took our showers - couldn't show up stinky - what kind of impression would that be?

So anyway, when the girls and I had the training class 4:30 was mentioned in conjuction with the pick up. So true to form, when the email showed up with all the pertinent info -- I did not read it all. Because - yes - I knew better!

We arrived when they let out and kids were going to pick up their bags. Great first impression!

Any way... Dani is a lovely 16 girl. Very quiet and speaks English very well. Thank goodness she likes animals since we have so many. We got her enrolled in school. She likes it well enough. She has three mentors who really help her out. It's good. So here is a picture of the first day of school for Brittany, Dani and Alicia!!

OMG It's August

I can't believe that a month has gone by already!! I would like to say I have been very busy, but I can't in good conscience.

This last week we had a guest from Australia. Alicia met Nathan last summer when she was "down under" and he came to the states to spend time with different people he knew and came here for a week. It was a lot of fun having him around and what a nice boy.

Tomorrow we pick up Dani from Wichita. It means it is the start of a new year!!

Alicia started school on Wednesday!! She is a senior now and plans on graduating in December! My word we are getting old. We are letting her use the Ranger since she has to drive to school. She decided that the stock radio wasn't good enough for her so she saved her quarters from her waitressing job at Pizza Hut and bought a new stereo with a CD player and a jack for her MP3. It was quite hilarious watching her try to take out the old radio to put in the new one. But she did it, with help from her friend Brittany.

My coworker who does beautiful photography (he did the girls' pictures) is always being asked to take pictures here at work. I hate to take pictures. Not my favorite activity but we were doing a scrap book for a girl who was leaving and had a "Margaritaville" theme. Being the funny "man" I am, I had Chris do a re-creation ---- any one remember this? Yeah I thought it was quite funny!!

Well Chris knows how much I hate picture taking and unfortunately we had to do it again!! for some new staff. All I can say was the sun was in my eyes!!

But the actual picture used was much better than that, thank goodness.