Jawdy's Basement Presents the First Ever Video Blog!

First off, head over the picture site for two new picture albums featuring Hannah's Third Birthday Dinner and Elijah's Kindergarten Program.

Now, speaking of Elijah's program...here is the first video ever posted here at the Basement. There are more to come - mostly shorter than this but I HAD to run this whole thing because it's absolutely classic. Elijah is there in the middle - it won't take long to find him. SHAKE THOSE HIPS!!!

Milestones and House Pains

Sorry so late!! For the first time since writing on Jawdy's Basement, I have been uninspired for some reason. Strange, I must say. Usually I will remark a bunch of times that "I need to post about this" but lately I have not said that. UNTIL NOW! What a eventful week we had here in the Borenstein Family - Utah Branch....

First is big news about Elijah. He woke up one morning and announced that his tooth had come out! It had been loose for quite some time, about a month I think, and he woke up with it on his tongue. I think we were more excited than he was. He was so nonchalant about it - just announced that the thing was on his tongue, put it in a plastic bag and went to watch his morning TV. That night he put the tooth under his pillow and the tooth fairy delivered a fresh $5 bill in it's place. He awoke the next morning and grabbed the $5 and went around telling everyone that the tooth fairy gave him "just one five-dollar bill." Poor kid. When I lost my teeth, the tooth fairy gave me some broccoli and flaxseed. So the going rate is $5 per tooth now? Amazing. He's actually decided to bank the cash in hopes of saving enough money to purchase the millennium Falcon. The ACTUAL millennium Falcon. I told him he would need to steal other kid's teeth to get enough cash for that. Our boy is TOOTHLESS!! I loved calling him that. That's what Dad called my sister and I when we lost teeth. "Hey toothless - come eat your broccoli. You don't want the tooth fairy to get offended!"

Sunday was, of course, Mother's Day. It was also our Hannah's third birthday. We got a little homesick when we asked Hannah where she wanted to have her birthday dinner and she said "Aunt Cannice's house." Eventually she decided on Mexican food so we went to the city and ate dinner at the Blue Iguana. Hannah ordered a burrito and had the greatest time. It was precious.

They don't really do a Happy Birthday thing over there but our waiter, Carlos, was kind enough to sing Happy Birthday to Hannah anyway. That plate is fried ice cream and Hannah thought there was popcorn in it when she tasted it. We told her it was cinnamon and she asked Carlos how they got the cinnamon in the ice cream. It was adorable. She said it was the best birthday dinner she ever had.

We are so proud - our little girl is three!

So the weekend was over and then came today....let me start by taking you back a few weeks...or a few years...

Most of you know that the one common denominator with all of the houses we have owned has been WATER. Our first house had water flowing into the downstairs family room on a regular basis. If that was not happening then the hot water heater was overflowing and murdering our carpet. So we moved. House #2 had that whole basement fiasco that I don't want to remember right now but if you want to relive it, you can do so here. SO now we moved across the country to one of the dryest states of all. You know what's coming....

A few weeks back, I noticed a small puddle just inside the laundry room door which leads to the backyard. I figured water had just seeped under the door (we had rain) so I dismissed it. Every once in awhile I noticed some water in the same place and just figured that it seeped under the door. So this weekend I went to Home Depot and bought a door seal so I could reseal the door and end the seepage. I won't be needing the sealer.

Last night I noticed a rather large pool of dirty water there. It had not rained. I opened the laundry room door and it was perfectly dry outside. Uh-oh. So I got down on all fours and proceed to follow a small trail of water that ended at the baseboard of the wall. The wall was leaking. I ran my hand up the wall in horror as I realized it was bubbly and mushy and WET. My first thought was, "the water fucking followed us to Utah." We already had an exterminator coming to the house today to get rid of the CARPENTER ANTS that are in my kitchen....and now this. Sleeping was difficult last night but all's well that ends well...

I woke up and called the home warranty people. Thank god for home warranties!!! The plumbers were here in an hour. They removed cabinets from the wall and cut open the sheetrock....all the way up to the ceiling. There, JUST BELOW the ceiling line, was the source of the problem. The water was coming from the kitchen sink. Had the source of the problem been just a few inches higher, the plumbers would have had to cut open the ceiling and secondary damages are NOT covered in the home warranty....like I said all's well that ends well. They replaced the pipe and remounted the cabinets in the laundry room and it only cost me $55 for the deductible.

Oh yeah - the carpenter ants are gone too.

We got our swamp cooler working!! Don't know what one is? I didn't either. Read about them here. We don't have central air here in Utah - you really don't need it because it's totally not humid. Now, you all know that I am not the average HANDYMAN so one of my employees came over today, climbed on the roof, and hooked the thing up (it's been 85 and sunny and will be all week). It's much nicer in here now!! Thanks Kelly!! Check out the clouds!

So now we are back to normal. No more ants. No more water in the house. Nice and chilly in here too. Life is good again.