Thunder

We love the Thunder fireworks (opening event of the Derby Festival). They are so spectacular and awesome. Once you see Thunder, all other fireworks pale in comparison. We have gone many years and keep coming back. My mom comes into town just for the event. We fight the crowd (nearly 700,000 this year) and squeeze into a small plot of land on the Waterfront for the best view of the air show and fireworks. This year the weather was perfect and the crowd was extra crowded.
Nathan did so well playing, eating, walking and just hanging out with us. He loved the airplanes and was fascinated with the fireworks. He was not scared at all. In fact, he had such a full day, he actually fell asleep about half way through the 30 minute display.
We had a great day.

2 cool dudes

Thunder Fireworks

Yes, he really fell asleep!!

Dogs and bubbles

Nathan was a little afraid of Mom's 2 little dachshund dogs that came for the weekend. They are hyper and think everyone wants to love on them. When Mom got out the bubbles, Nathan couldn't stay away.

Uncle Andy

This weekend my mom and brother came into town for Thunder. They got to spend a lot of time with Nathan. He loves his Mamaw and is still asking for her.
He also had fun playing with his Uncle Andy. Here are some great pictures of the 2 of them together.On Saturday morning, Mom & Andy took Nathan on a walk in French Lick, IN while Jeff & I stayed home to get some work done on the house. The boys had a great time running and playing.

Playing on the swing

No Nap NaNa

Nathan caught red-handed ("sock-handed") when he should have been napping.

Easter Bubbles

We had a nice, relaxing Easter.
The service was great with a wonderful guest musician, Mark Ivey who sang with the choir.
After church, Nathan got to play with his Easter gift: a manual bubble-blower. He had so much fun making the bubbles come out and trying to blow them away.

Stubbornness

Nathan can be quite stubborn when he wants to, as any child age 2 can be.
Case in point:
The other day we were sitting down to dinner (chicken nuggets, macaroni & cheese, fruit). Nathan refused to eat, which he is often known to do. He hadn't eaten well all day and I was not in the mood to have him say "No" to another meal without trying it. After a long battle and 2 time-outs, I finally got a single bite of chicken in his mouth.
Here is where the stubbornness comes in. He held that bite in his mouth for 90 minutes without chewing or swallowing. I am not exaggerating. In the mean time, Jeff came home and I had to leave but he still kept it up. I think Jeff finally gave in and let him spit it out, but he never got the M&M's he was promised if he ate his bite.

26 weeks

I just came back from my Dr. appt and another ultrasound. With Nathan I only had the 2 ultrasounds at 10 weeks and at 18 weeks, so I didn't have any later pictures until he arrived at 36 weeks. This time has been different, so far I have had 4 ultrasounds with more planned with my subsequent appts. My Dr. is watching me closer because of my pre-term delivery last time and today when I went in for a routine measurement, the baby was measuring small, so she did another ultrasound just to be sure. Baby girl is developing normally and all of the measurements are normal so they will just continue monitoring.
Unfortunately we didn't get any good pictures where I could identify anything (the ultrasound tech and Dr. could see what they needed to see just fine). She has turned 180 degrees and is now breech, which may be a concern later if she doesn't flip back before I deliver. I really don't want a C-section if I can avoid it. Also it is very difficult to get a picture of the baby's face when her feet are crossed over her head (talk about limber). Hopefully my next pictures are better, and she has flipped back down.

Sesame Street Live

We took Nathan to see Elmo and the other Sesame Street characters at Sesame Street Live along with his best friend, Ellie Lawrence. He was absolutely enthralled. We had great seats on the second row of the balcony (thanks Ashley) so we could see everything. Nathan sang along with all the songs and after each one he clapped excitedly. It was so fun to see Nathan so excited about the whole event.

Car accident

To add to our already full plate, last week Jeff was involved in a significant car accident on his way to work downtown. He was not injured and the woman in the other vehicle had only minor scrapes and is also fine.
Unfortunately, his Honda Pilot was not okay. There is a lot of damage. Thankfully we have good insurance and they are taking care of everything, well almost everything. We do not have car rental coverage so we have had to borrow a friend's vehicle for the next few weeks. Because the car seat in Jeff's vehicle was involved in an accident, we have to replace that, but the insurance company will reimburse us the cost of the new one.
This unexpected event has impacted our home renovations budget. Because we have to pay the insurance deductible, we have had to cut some of the extra things we were going to do to the house.
Jeff took some photos of the accident with his phone. They are loading his vehicle onto the tow truck. In the center background, you can see the black Chevy Cobalt that hit him square in the rear passenger door. Both back tires exploded on impact. He was pushed across 4 lanes of traffic (no other cars, thankfully) and spun around 1 1/2 times.

Telephone run-around

When our PODS unit was delivered on Friday, the semi truck accidentally broke the phone wire coming from the street to our house. We have not used that line in many years, since we switched to Insight cable phone service, but nevertheless we needed to have the downed line removed.
Since AT&T is the main provider in the area, I tried to call them to remove the line. Since I don't have an AT&T account, I was unable to get through to a customer service representative on my first attempt. Next I called Insight, hoping they could help me. Of course they have nothing to do with the phone lines from another company. I tried AT&T again and was on hold for over 15 minutes before I finally talked to a person. He told me I had to call Insight and get a "special phone number" to have AT&T remove the line. That sounded like a bunch of run-around, but I did what they said without success. Insight had no idea about a "special phone number" and again insisted they had nothing to do with AT&T's phone lines. For the third time, I called AT&T and was on hold for another 15 minutes before I got through to a person and pleaded with them to please help me. This woman finally took my information and put through a work order to have the line removed.
You would think this would be the end of the problem, but of course not.
Our next door neighbor came over the next day saying her phone was not working. I did not realize her phone would be affected by a down line coming from the street to our house. We had to call AT&T again and have them come the fix the line instead of remove it (which they did that same day). At the time we asked that they cancel the work order for the line removal, which of course they did not. Thankfully, the AT&T repair technician assigned to remove the line called ahead and I was able to stop him from removing the line. When I talked to him on the phone and told him the work order should have been canceled, he just said, "There are a bunch of idiots working in the call-in center." I could have told him that!!!

Flooring headaches

Buyer beware. I do not recommend having your vinyl flooring replaced by Home Depot. As with any installation projects, Home Depot sub-contracts its jobs to other companies. Our flooring project was sub-contracted to Romanoff Flooring Company.
Home Depot sends out a separate company to measure the floors and determine the condition of the existing floors. When the installers came to do the job, they did not agree with the measuring assessment (big surprise). They refused to do the floors in the bathrooms all together since the sub-floors were concrete, not wood.
I was on the phone multiple times that day with Home Depot and Romanoff Flooring trying to get the job done. They ended up installing the kitchen flooring and leaving the remaining vinyl for another crew to come and install it in the bathrooms after we removed the existing flooring.
We were not thrilled, but okay with the arrangement until the next morning when we walked through the kitchen. It was so badly installed that there were visible waves. Whenever you walked on it you could feel the floor give.
We immediately called and they came out to assess the problem. It was installed so badly that it has to be completely redone - at their expense.
This has been such a headache. Jeff is working with the company to have them remedy the problem as soon as possible.

Home renovations update

We have been working very hard getting our house ready to sell. It is a lot of work, but our realtor says it will all be worth it in the end. He says the real estate right now is all a price game and a beauty pageant.
What we have done:
Removed the old range unit and replacing it with a new Stove and microwave unit
Stained the deck and shed
Packed up about half of our excess junk and stored it in a PODS unit
Packed up all Jeff's studio equipment
Painted both bathrooms, the dining room and kitchen
Had the bathtub reglazed
Replaced the light fixtures in the bathrooms, dining room, kitchen and hallway
Updated and replaced the wall sockets and light switches in most rooms
What we have left to do:
Paint the master bedroom and living room
Touch up paint the nail holes in the basement
Replace the broken mini-blinds
Have the basement carpets professionally cleaned
Have the countertop in the kitchen replaced (waiting for installation)
Have the flooring in the bathrooms installed and the flooring in the kitchen re-installed
If we can get all of the above done without any set-backs, we are hoping to have the house on the market by just after Thunder.

Nathan "helping" with the painting project. He is actually removing the tape before we even had a chance to paint the wall.