pool partying

This past week was full of a pool full of people (say that 20 times).  I think every day we had a bunch of friends over.  Monday night (Aug. 31) a bunch of the neighbour kids came over for a night swim.  One of them brought ice cream and toppings for a late night snack as well.  It was a full moon and there was some smoke in the air so the moon was bright pinky orange.

I started work on Tuesday, feeling very sorry for myself for having to go back into "real life", after two full months of summer with the family.  Pathetic of me, I know.  I'm spoiled.  

When I came home after my first day, I saw several cars in the driveway so I knew we had company.  There were four neighbour kids, Maddy's boyfriend, Mark, our friends and their three young kids, and our kids all in the pool.  At first, for a few seconds, I felt like crying.  I wanted to burst into tears because I felt so sad that I had missed out on the fun that they had been having.  Then I realized how ridiculous that was - because they were still here!  More fun was yet to be had.

I tried to throw Mia into the pool and it wasn't working, so I just grabbed her and jumped in with her...with my work clothes on.  After swimming around a little, I went to get my actual bathing suit on and enjoy our company.  Most of our time was spent watching all (ALL) of the kids attack Mark while he valiantly defended himself with pool noodles and boogie boards.  They also all greatly enjoyed his crazy pool entries - flipping and flying into the pool.

Our friends left for a little while to dry off and all that, and came back later for dinner.

On Wednesday Maddy had a bunch of friends over and Thursday Mia had a bunch.  Before, after and in between all of that, there were still plenty of neighbor kids around as well.  It was a week-long swim-fest.  It thrill my heart to come home every day from work to find a pool/house full of people.  What a blessing.

ourmobilelife

My dearest friend and her family came for a visit.  In a 1986 Winnabego.  From PEI.  And their driving to their home in North Vancouver, BC.  And they are living my dream.

They've taken a month to travel across the country in this old dream of rust and gold, seeing the grandness of our fine country.  I've been wanting to do the trek, albeit across the US (but would love to do Canada, too) over a few months, with the whole family.  Most think I am insane, but I'm used to that.  Not everyone is up for adventure.  But I think you may as well explore and live life to the fullest while we can.  Okay.... back to the friends and enough about me.

We were absolutely thrilled to have them visit.  You have to understand that this is woman is practically a part of me.  She is so very, very dear... as is her family.  And I literally ache sometimes because I don't get to see her for so long.  But we had one afternoon, and it was glorious (as long as I didn't focus on the fact that we only had one afternoon - it is barely enough to get started, you know what I'm saying?)

We spent the afternoon in the pool swimming, talking, laughing and yes, even a few tears were shed (we can't go talking very long without going deep - as deep as one can when surrounded by raucous kids, at least somewhat, and deep usually means tears).  Unfortunately Lucy missed out on the occasion, which really was sad, because you want to share your whole family with each other, right?  Right.  And the last time we were together as two whole families is when Lucy was a baby.  Too long.  Much too long.

Time ended quickly and they had to move on to bigger and better things (I only say that to sound humble, clearly they had no where to go but down!).  We inspected their dream mobile, said our fond farewells, wrestled on the grass a little, and off they went.

It best not be another 10 years until our families are together again.

staff cooking

August 14-16 we helped to cook for the staff at Red Rock.  The Pries family was cooking and the people who they were supposed to do it with couldn't - so they asked us.  We were pretty happy to do it.  Mostly you just cook/reheat the leftovers from the week and serve that, but we did a little of our own thing too.  Maddy had said that all they ever have for salads was a plain iceberg type salad with basic dressings, so we made a Asian coleslaw type salad.  I also baked cupcakes and cake ahead of time and brought that.  Then there was lots of leftover rice, so with the kids' encouragement, I made rice pudding.

On Saturday the kids got to have a run behind the boat.  It was great especially because Lucy's friend Piper was there as well.  Piper's mom, Shannon (also our friend), was the camp speaker and they stayed an extra day.  We were very thankful for that.  The girls had a great time bouncing around.

They also went with two littler girls to keep them company.  The four of them were pretty cute.

Lucy got a little extra time to hang out with one of her counsellors as well.

The Pries' brought a wood fire pizza oven from his work and we made pizzas on Sunday night.  It was pretty fantastic.

I'm not sure what Cade is doing here - I don't remember, but I do remember trying to get pictures of him and him trying to avoid me.  I managed to get a picture of Maddy's boyfriend (ACK!) instead (they weren't dating at the time but mutual interest was expressed!).

Other than preparing food, we swam, hiked, and all that kind of fun stuff.  Being there for church was quite fabulous as well, although I did have to leave early to get food ready.... but that is a better church track record than we've had all summer.  And church is so good there.

It has been such a huge blessing to be back connected to Red Rock.  Great place, great camp, great people.

the summer of water

I think that is how we will remember this summer - as the summer of water.  Lots and lots of water.

Water in the pool, of course.  But also water in the basement and water in the yard.  Lots and lots of water.

Tonight we had another downpour.  And we have lots and lots of water.  The upside is that


Oh, the irony.....

Last night when I was writing this, Eric called me.  Obviously I left off mid sentence.  The reason he called is that I needed to help him bail out the tank where our two (yes, TWO) sump pumps are.  They weren't keeping up with the amount of water coming in, and if we didn't bail, our basement would flood.
That after Eric already saved Mia's room from flooding this same evening.
I scooped containers full of water into larger buckets and Eric took the larger buckets and dumped them.  We couldn't keep up.  So Eric had Cade grab a third sump pump, that we have clearing surface water from the backyard, and we used that to fill buckets.  Then Mia got involved (she was helping with other stuff before, grabbing towels and such).  She held the hose to dump into the buckets while Eric turned the pump on and off.  I dumped the buckets.  Cade came to help dump buckets.  We couldn't keep up.  So I went to turn the sump pump on and off (holding it in the hole, moving the bobber up and down to start and stop the water pumping), Mia filled the buckets and called "go" and "stop" and Eric and Cade emptied the buckets.  Much more efficient.  Then Cade filled buckets and Mia helped empty.
We were slowly gaining ground.  Slowly.
Then water started coming in from the drainage.  We were filling the septic tank too fast and it was coming up into the basement anyway.  That forced Eric to think through another solution which was to connect the third sump pump hose directly to where the grey water goes (?).  We could only have it on for a little bit at a time so that we didn't have more water coming in.... but at least it worked!
The night ended, at 11:40, with the four of us having a much deserved swim to rinse off our hot, sweaty bodies.... no showers as that would have just filled up the tanks with more water!

So yes, this is the summer of water.  Maddy's room flooded twice but Eric properly filled the window well so that too care of the problem (not sure why it wasn't done properly in the first place....).  We have a yard sump pump for every time it rains, although we are going to install drainage pipes and hopefully get all the neighbours to join in to take care of the problem in the whole area.  We have a pool cover sump pump, to make sure not too much rain is on top of the cover.  And we have two house sump pumps.  We are constantly draining water.
But like I said, hopefully all the neighbours will get on board and we'll take care of this problem for good.  It will be nice to not have to deal with it any more.