Happy Thanksgiving!

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly the week can fly by but still feel like it is the longest week ever!  It's been almost a week since I last posted and quite a bit has been going on.  First of all, we finally finished our flood claim on Sunday.  What a mess!  In the end the replacement value, by our estimate, is a little over $6000 which is less than original cost.  We lost almost all of Andy's text books, a freezer, a lawn mower, a desk and countless other items that are not too hard to replace.  However, I lost all of my high school and junior high memorabilia which I'm extremely sad about.  I never realized how quickly mold can develop.  It took less than a week to ruin just about everything down there.  On the bright side, the basement is now clean and organized.  Upward and onward right?

Samantha continues to do well with her potty training and rarely has accidents - even at night.  It has been two and a half weeks so I think that is a huge feat for a little kid.  I'm very proud, of course.  Her behavior the last 3-4 days has not been so great and she has even been acting up in school.  That has led to many 'talks' about what appropriate behavior is at school and nice ways to talk to adults.  Trying to make her understand that the emphatic "NO!" is unacceptable behavior has been difficult.  But I am happy to say that her behavior today was better and I think I may have found some of the cause of her obnoxiousness.  She now has TWO bottom molars.  Well, they aren't completely in, but the teeth have broken the skin finally.  So, I'm fairly certain that that has led to some of our behavior issues.  The rest is driven by the fact that she is two and thinks that she is about 14 and can do whatever she wants. 

Grandma and Grandpa arrived at the 'hairport' on Tuesday and are now 'biziting' us.  For those of you that don't speak toddler, she said that Grandma and Grandpa were at the airport and they are visiting us.  She is so excited to have them here!  She is very interested in Grandpa's work (composing on the piano) and when he gets up she sits down on the piano bench and starts pressing keys.  Then she tells everyone that she is 'working' and that she will be done in a minute.  She has also been Grandma's shadow and they spent most of the day going on walks and playing tea-party with the stuffed animals.  She also helped make tonight's dessert and it involved quite a bit of cool whip.  I hear that she helped herself while Grandma answered the phone!

Tomorrow of course is Thanksgiving and there are so many things to be thankful for.  I am most thankful that my family is together and that we are healthy.  We are thankful that we get to spend this time together when many families are separated.  We are blessed to have wonderful friends and we look forward to seeing the rest of our family during the Christmas holiday.  I will ask that you keep my little cousin Samuel and his family in your thoughts and prayers as he is battling a nasty central line infection and is in the hospital.  He and his family will spend Thanksgiving at the hospital but they are surrounded by caring and dedicated medical staff and for them I am thankful.  My heart is with the family I will not see this Thanksgiving but I will see you soon.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

3yr old Template

The above picture doesn't have anything to do with this post, but I thought I would show you some of the sights on base.  This is one of the oldest 'working' lighthouses in the US.

I know it has been a couple of days and I can honestly say that there really is no reason for it.  EXCEPT that I had to catch up on House and Grey's Anatomy that has been on the DVR for a while now.  So I have vegged out on the couch the last couple of nights watching recorded prime time TV and fast forwarding through the commercials.

Not a lot has been happening around here now that things have returned to normal.  Things are finally starting to get cleaned up on Fort Monroe and when I got home this evening, all of the old hot water heaters had been removed!  We look less like a junk yard now.  :)  We have also found out that our renters insurance will most likely cover the flooding in the basement and we will file a claim as soon as we figure out what is down there.  I know there are quite a few book boxes down there but other than that, who knows.  It will be like opening presents on Christmas only more damp!  We were also informed today that they will move the fuse box out of the basement and into the kitchen and that we should move things away from the wall so that the contractors can get in.  Won't this be a pretty addition to the kitchen?  I will definitely post a picture once the remodeling occurs. 

On Monday I had a parent-teacher conference with Samantha's teacher, Miss Victoria.  Samantha is doing very well and has mastered almost all of the two year goals and milestones for her class.  So beginning this week she will start the three year old template!  You are probably wondering what she is still working on and the main thing is potty training.  Her other challenge is completing a task even when there are distractions.  If you have been around Samantha for any length of time you know that she wants to know what is going on in all areas of the room at all times.  Curiosity is good but 'focus' has to be practiced.  All in all her teachers are very happy with her work and so are we.  They are very good to her at the CDC and you can tell they really care about her which is comforting to us.

Andy is coming home tonight and should arrive here in Newport News at about 10pm.  It will probably take another hour and a half to get him here but at least he is back in the continental US.  Samantha is very excited and has asked many times if Daddy is in a 'hairport'.  She wants to know if he landed in the sky, which is much better than her asking if he would land in a tree. 

The only other development this week is that my cousin's son Samuel went back into the hospital on Wednesday with a suspected central line infection.  Fortunately he is doing much better and if you have the time, please say a little prayer for Samuel and his family.  They have been through a lot this past year and this visit to the hospital was a very scary reminder.  If you would like to read about Samuel and family, you can go to www.missyknight.blogspot.com. 

I look forward to tomorrow morning when Samantha figures out that Daddy is home.  She has really missed him (me too) and we are looking forward to the weekend!  Grandma and Grandpa are coming on Tuesday and will be staying with us through the following Tuesday.  Samantha is going to have a full week ahead of her.  More soon, I promise.

Too exhausted for words

I'm afraid this post will be short as I'm too tired to come up with anything clever tonight.  We have had a very busy day but the result of it is we have hot water!  They started replacing the hot water tanks at around 10:45am this morning which meant draining the old one so that they could put in the new one.  Of course this put more water in the basement so Samantha and I went in the basement (she in her rain boots) and swept water into the sump pump.  I truly believe this was wasted effort but it made me feel better and Samantha got to splash around in the water.  Once we made a path to the water heater and it finally drained, it was replaced.  By 2:30 I had hot water.  I'm so very thankful that we have hot water again. 

After nap time we went to play with Erin and Elliot and the kids were happy to be outside but not necessarily happy to play with each other.  It seemed that everyone had something that someone else wanted so there were moments of crying and screaming but for the most part the kids had fun.  We also took a walk to the seawall to see what the storm sent on to the beach.  Basically there is a lot of seaweed and a very bad 'fishy' smell.  I'm glad we don't live by the seawall and am sorry for our friends that have to smell it!

Although this is a beautiful picture of the beach, usually it has white sand on it and not so much seaweed.  The storm washed away all the good sand and made really neat prints in the sand from erosion and receding tide.

We ended the evening having dinner at a friend's house which was wonderful.  We have had such a busy day of cleaning and playing that I was too tired to even think about dinner.  So, I make this a quick post so that I can go and take a hot shower!

The things that I knew but forgot

Well the good news is our hot water heater has been checked out by the base housing department.  The bad news is that they called the time of death as 'sometime Friday night'.  We are among many that are saying goodbye to the old and hoping for a new hot water heater before the end of the week.  I was told that they have them 'on hand' but I have no idea where we are on the list to receive one.  So rest in peace hot water heater, it was good while it lasted.  Oh and if you have stock in water-heaters, this will be a great Christmas for you.  Send Fort Monroe a thank you card when you get the chance!

Today has been a day of remembering what I had forgotten.  For instance, we have no hot water (sensing a theme to this post?).  So people who remember this fact would probably NOT cook a dinner that required more than one pot and would probably pull out the plastic wear so you could just throw away the dishes.  Not me!  It seems I used every pot and dish I could find plus decided that some items in the refrigerator needed to be dumped.  Yeah, I know, not the brightest bulb in the box but I did it so I have to clean it up.  So, in the spirit of our pioneering fore-fathers, I boiled water to wash the dishes.  Fact number 2 that I learned that I forgot: boiling water is 212 degrees.  I think my hands can stand up to about 105 before I pull them out.  So I put the dishes in the water and waited about 10 minutes to let the water 'cool'.  Fact 3: Metal conducts heat.  The first thing I decided to clean was a stainless steel pot that was submerged in magma-hot water.  Fact 4: hot ceramics/glass cannot be rinsed in cold water.  Fortunately I remembered fact number 4 before rinsing the coffee carafe.  No dishes were harmed in the cleaning of the kitchen this evening.  However, I think I have scalded the palm of my hand and the tips of my fingers.  Hopefully I will remember these lessons tomorrow.

The past few days have also been filled with rules that I never dreamed I would have to create.  The newest rule today was not to put your head in the toilet to see 'your pee-pee'.  That rule was followed by 'no stickers on the oven'.  The stickers have become very popular because we are using it for potty training purposes.  You get one sticker for the 'potty progress' board for going to the bathroom and you get one sticker for you.  This rule now applies to me when I go to the bathroom.  Samantha has a sheet of stickers that she keeps in her little kitchen and when I go to the bathroom she asks me if I went pee.  When I answer yes, she says that I'm a good girl, grabs my hand, and takes me to the kitchen to get my prize.  Pretty cute and the reward system seems to be working (most of the time). 

The stickers have also become a training tool that Samantha uses for her Baby Sarah doll.  I'm not sure if Sarah is potty training or not but you can see for yourself that she has been a VERY good girl. 

Samantha has also become quite particular about what she wears now that she is allowed to wear big girl panties.  She dressed herself in the green pants and striped orange shirt.  She wears the pink sunglasses everywhere so this isn't new.  The purple beads signify that they are about to have a tea-party and if you look closely you can see a page of stickers.  If I had taken a picture of myself you would have seen four stickers on my cheek and three on my hands!

Andy is still in Puerto Rico and we definitely miss him.  Samantha, if she could, would call him about 5 times a day.  She misses daddy and I think she is a little tired of mommy being her entertainment source.  Hopefully, tomorrow, Samantha will be able to see her friends Erin and Elliot for a play date OUTSIDE so they can run around.  Erin and Elliot's Mom, Janel, is making it possible for us to take warm showers so we are very grateful to them!

Nor'easter 2009

Several people I know have a blog and I enjoy reading them everyday. I've been meaning to start one but just never got around to it until today. I thought we would start with the worst storm that I have witnessed in 2009 (or in many years). It's the Nor'easter. Call me crazy, but give me a hurricane any day. 2-3 days of 50+mph winds and tidal flooding can make anyone crazy. I will say that we have made out better than most as we still have heat. I was under the fool-hardy impression that we still had hot water but Andy pointed out that it was probably reserve water and he was right. So hopefully someone will come and relight the pilot so that we can have hot water again.

Oh I forgot to tell you why we have no hot water and why it is a miracle we have heat. The basement flooded and that is where the furnace and hot water heater live. The basement had at least 5ft of water in it from what I can tell and the sump pump has been working continuously since 5:30am. When I finally braved the wet to open the basement up, everything was turned over and wet.
We have tried to make the most of the day and Samantha has had tea parties with her 'friends' Bingo and Baby Sarah.
We also went out side so that she could burn some of the energy she was storing. She loves to splash around in her rain boots but definitely dislikes the wind gusts.
All in all we were very lucky I think. We are dry and warm even if we don't have hot water right now. Andy is in Puerto Rico and missing all the fun. Thanks for checking us out and please visit frequently to follow our potty training adventures!
-Carol Ann