Summer - Good Bad Ugly

 It is officially summer here, no matter what the calendar says. School has been out for a few weeks and already we have had an epic day at the zoo (see previous post), picked cherries from a friend's tree and made a yummy cherry pie, gone bowling with Payne cousins (of Joy and Jason Inc.), established (and lost) a morning routine of riding bikes (Marianne hated it - she has a thing with being buckled anywhere and the other kids fell out of love with all the hills in our neighborhood), and last but not least we discovered a water leak behind our fridge and had to tear up a good portion of our newly laid flooring. The hose that attaches to the fridge and supplies the water for the icemaker was apparently leaking ever since we hooked it back up after we laid the flooring the first time. Thankfully the moisture barrier saved almost all of the flooring; we only had to replace about 15 boards. The floor was wet from the fridge out all the way around both sides of the island and back into the hall between the kitchen and dining room. Wood floors are laid out like a jigsaw puzzle though, so we had to tear the floor out all the way back to the front window just to be able to access all the flooring in the hallway. Major Ug. Just what Rus and I wanted to do on a Saturday afternoon. But we did it. We fixed it. We still like each other. It could have been so much worse. As it was it almost qualified a as a date - Rus took me (and the kids) out for dinner and after Marianne went to bed we got to stay up for several hours and have meaningful conversation (while we worked)...we even had some pie for dessert.

So just to recap:

Here is the "good" of the summer (not the only good, just the only good I have a picture of):

 the "bad"

see the hose culprit?

 not just a little wet - soaking wet

 below: the newly laid moisture barrier

 below: our kitchen floors on vacation in our backyard to dry out. Yes there was an order to all that.

and the "ugly"

(Tom, Rus, and Jake about to head out on a motorcycle trip)

Here's to nine more weeks of summer!