A Muddy But Fun Affair

On a fairly regular basis I hear, "Can we ride the quad?"  And most of the time the answer is, "not right now, later".  I hear these come out of my mouth and Jeremy's so often.  Most often something else is more important or less of an inconvenience at the time.

As I have been working through the four quadrants of importance and urgency, I have been assessing where I have putting my priorities. Both in my business life and my personal life.  So,  yesterday when asked once again by my ever persistant children, I finally made the right decision first.  Putting aside my want to do's, need to do's and just simply saying, 'Yes we can'.

And what a blast it was.  We didn't even have to spend a bunch of time preparing for an afternoon away which was the best part.  We have enough mud and mountains to climb just across the street right now to provide a whole bunch of fun and mud.

Silke got her first atv'ing experience and couldn't get enough of it.  Mud didn't keep her away.  Neither did the bulldozer she managed to nearly crash into:)  Watching the joy of all the kiddos again reminded me that many things in life can wait.  This time in our life is quickly passing and moments like this are always worth the effort.  

Thankful For Family And Memories Of The Past

The weather of Thanksgiving weekend certainly wasn't looking too promising.  The outlook was actually quite depressing sounding.  But, I had made a decision a few weeks earlier that we were going to go on our final camping trip of the season rain or shine.

So, Saturday morning we loaded up the essentials.  Many clothes, food, rain gear, muddy buddies and boots and off we drove to Camperland for what we were hoping would be a great time hanging out with our whole extended family.

Much of the weekend was spent building memories to treasure.  As well, much of the weekend was spent remembering about people and times past. We had many a conversation, reminder and laugh about 'Grandpa-isms'.  Those crazy things my Grandpa would say and do.  He had passed away almost five years ago already but he certainly will never be forgotten.

We also spent so much time reminiscing and sharing stories, love and laughter about Beth.  She has been our families most recent loss.  And camping together and cooking a huge Turkey dinner was all in her memory.  She had a great passion for her family.  She also had a love of camping.  And big meals, that was her specialty.   So, we did it all.  For her memory and for her families healing.  And it was great!

Fifty-six people made it for Thanksgiving dinner.  And wow was it ever fantastic.  Babies got passed around.  Children hung out together on the playground.  Young adults proved there skills drifting a 3 wheel bike.  Grandparents sat with grandchildren.  Some energetic adults even took part in a post dinner hike and a game of manhunter.  We all have so much to be thankful for and it was nice to share together some of those things all weekend long. 

Cheers!

A Hair Raising Moment

It's fall clean up time around here. Or at least the start of it.  No better time of year to clean out a pond top to bottom, getting rid of all that green slime that has accumulated because of all our glorious sunshine that we got to enjoy this summer.  

I was at it for a few afternoons.  With rubber gloves to my elbows and rubber boots up to my knees  I got to it.  With a whole bunch of patience with dealing with  green slime, leaping frogs and avoiding getting this dirty water all over me, I finally got it done.   I got to sit back and watch my shimmering little fish swimming around in perfectly clear water and feel good about a completed task.

Only one problem.  My pump just wouldn't work.  After a few moments I figured out that it wasn't the pump, but an issue with the electrical outlet.  So, off to the panel I went.  Found nothing wrong with the panel in my garage, so I moved on to the one in the office.

Aha!  I found a few switches in the off position and snapped them back on.  I did consider for a moment that maybe they were purposefully turned off due to the office renovation going on.  But... proceeded to click them on anyways, thinking to myself that a good electrician would double check the power supply before getting back to work. 

Monday, mid-day rolls around.  I was in the office at work and we heard a slight ZZZT and a slight flicker of power.  Hmm.  Coincidence, I thought.

A short while later, the electrician working on the office renovation comes downstairs.  I thought I would be really helpful and said, "Hey, I turned on some breakers on the weekend 'cause my pond pump wasn't working.  I hope that wasn't a problem."

Yikes.  Did I ever get the look!  He proceeded to lift a very black index finger in the air.  And says, 'Yep,  I just found out'.  Then he pulled out his pliers, which now has a strange hole through the medal and he said, "and now these are wrecked".  He walked over to the panel.  Flicked a few switches and went back to work upstairs.

And then... with a whole lot of feeling relief that only a plier got hurt, I could only fall over laughing!  Sorry Jeremy, I didn't mean it:)

Phew, I am feeling a lot lucky that no one got hurt.  But I can't help to chuckle a little every time I have a vision of Jeremy raising his black finger and saying, "I just found out".