August Wrap-Up

August was a pretty busy month for us. Steve spent a week traveling to and from and diving in Indonesia for work. We then spent a week road-tripping to Oregon with my parents and brother to visit some of my extended family. We did our usual monthly visit to Steve's parents in Sacramento. And we took a long four-day weekend last weekend to visit Southern California.

I intend to post pictures from Steve's Indonesia expedition and the Oregon trip at a future date. As for the Sacramento and Southern California trips, as per usual, I didn't take any pictures. Oh well. Anybody that actually reads this blog knows what we look like, I'm sure.

Our recent Southern California trip went pretty well. We were booked solid, as usual, but I was pleased that we were able to visit with a lot of folks and be somewhat useful. We had lunch with my grandparents, dinner with our wonderful friend Melissa, a work day with my parents, lunch with our friends Eric, Gail and Scott and managed to visit all four of Steve's Southern California siblings. Steve rented a couple tanks and helped me, his siblings and several nieces and nephews try using scuba gear in his sister's swimming pool. Everyone except for me seemed to take to it easily, but I'm sure with practice I could become competent.

As summer draws to a close, things are getting busy at work for both of us and the calendar's looking pretty sparse. At this point, I'm looking forward to Christmas break. Just four short months to go.

So that's why our plumbing bites...

Our rental house is wonderful and we love living here, but the plumbing has always been a little sketchy. Occasionally the toilet wouldn't flush properly and the landlord would get somebody out to flush the line. It was pretty clear to Steve and me that there was a leak in the pipe, since right where the pipe ran under the lawn there was a mysterious patch of vibrant green grass year-round (our grass goes dormant in the summer). But since it's not our house, we had to wait until the landlord agreed the problem was bad enough to need a better fix.

Today the plumber dug up the line and found this:


All that damage was pre-existing; the plumber didn't break it on removal. So, now we have a nice new line.


Hopefully that will remedy the situation somewhat. I know owning a house comes with its own headaches, but even though you have to cough up the money for it yourself, at least things get fixed on your time line.

Violet on the Deck

Violet has been really unsettled lately, so this afternoon Steve brought her out on the deck to hang out with us. Violet, who has never been a huge fan of me, let Steve hold her for an extended period of time and was even licking his arm.

Oh well. I'm pretty sure Kiwi still likes me best.






Washing her face: