The light at the end of the tunnel?

Ben passed National Board Exams 2 and 3! We're so proud of him. :)

There are 5 parts all together, so he is more than halfway done with them. He takes the next part in September and the final part in November.

We are getting there, slowly but surely!

Photos!

Check out the new "photos" section of my blog! (Just click on the link to the right.) I take so many pictures lately that I figured they needed their own section. :)

Earthquake!!!

At about 4:30 this morning, I woke up to the house shaking. Now, this is not necessarily unusual considering we live in a trailer. It shakes every time we run the washing machine. But this time, we were really SHAKING!

Turns out we were feeling an earthquake that was happening about 150 miles away in West Salem, Illinois. It measured 5.2 on the Richter Scale. Luckily, there haven't been any deaths or major damage reported. And of course, our sturdy little mobile home is doing just fine. :)

It was a little bit of a flash back for me, though. In January of 1994, I was 10 and we were living in west LA. We woke up at almost exactly the same time (4:30 in the morning) feeling our apartment shaking. That quake was much bigger and scarier than what we felt this morning. It measured 6.7 on the Richter Scale and the center was only about 15 miles away. The sound of everything falling off shelves and out of cabinets was really scary! Not to mention the countless aftershocks.

Or what seemed like forever, standing outside wearing my pajamas and two left shoes (one tennis shoe and one dress shoe).

It ended well for us, though. We didn't really have any damage to our apartment. I remember being amazed (I guess it doesn't take much when you're 10) that the big pickle jar that fell from the very top cabinet shelf (right up there next to the ceiling) didn't break! And the best part was that we played Monopoly by candle light for hours. I thought it was great!

My new 'do

I got my hair cut yesterday. It's always exciting to cut my hair... especially since I ususally do something drastic. :)

Yesterday, my hair was 3 or 4 inches below my shoulders. Now, it looks like this:

"Plumber Speak"

I got my first lesson in proper plumbing vocabulary today. It was given to me by an old guy at Home Depot who was NOT happy with my description of the parts inside my toilet.

As I explored my malfunctioning toilet tank today, I discoverd that the whole contraption had been held together by a twisty-tie. That's right... the kind found on bread bags. I'm no plumber (made very clear by Home Depot plumber expert), but I'm pretty sure that twisty-tie was not part of the original design.

Plumber Speak lesson #1, as taught to me by the disgruntled plumber now working at Home Depot: Don't ever tell a plumber that the inner workings of your toilet were held together by a twisty tie. It won't make him happy, even if you aren't the one who put it there.

For the record, this is the first time I've ever had to reach my hands down into that scary (supposedly clean) water in the back of my toilet to try to figure out how it works and what is broken.  In case you have never had the pleasure, let me explain:

The "flusher" is hooked to a "chain" that pulls up on a "plastic thing" which pulls up on the "plug", allowing the water to rush down out of the tank and into the bowl to flush everything down.

Plumber Speak lesson #2, in Home Depot plumber's own words: "It's not a 'plug'. A 'plug' is used to stop things up. It's called a 'flapper'."

Oh. Silly me.

Plumber Speak lesson #3: If you're not a plumber, don't use plumber speak (even though you are frustrating the old man by not using it). When I tried explaining my problem using the word "flapper, and then asked if he understood, he said "Being a plumber for over 26 years, I have to laugh at the way you are describing it."

Eventually he gave up on this hopeless plumbing student and just gave me the part I needed. I took it gratefully and went home to fix my toilet. Turns out, I just had to pop one "flapper" off and pop the new one on.

So, 1 hour, $5, and a full session of plumber speak lessons later, my toilet is as good as new. 

Spring!

We had amazingly nice weather yesterday, so we decided to go out and enjoy it! Between sessions of conference, we went over and walked around at Babler State Park. Evan had a great time running around and picking up sticks. The whole family was very patient with "Paparazzi Mom", so enjoy some of our nice weather with us! :)

Go Cards!

Ben and I went to the Cardinals game today. We won 5-4! It was fun. :)


We think this water was supposed to be red, but it was orange instead. Check out that arch!

My First Birthday... By Asher

I hope these are big enough to read! If not, you can click on them and see them a little bigger.

Happy Birthday Asher!

Today is the day... my baby is ONE! *sniff* We had a busy day! I will have some pictures of our day to share soon. :)

For now, I will leave you with "then" and "now" pictures:

Just 3 days old

A few days ago

Crazy Colors!

We had a really stormy night on Monday night and Ben looked out the window and saw this:



The sky was the craziest color of yellow! About 10 minutes later, the sky had changed to this:


 
So pretty!