Christopher played in the Boone County Schools SUPER Band today at the Florence Memorial Day Parade. He marched alongside kids from all the Boone County public schools starting at Boone County High School and finishing at the Florence Government Center. Its always amazing when high school kids get together and play some amazing music.
Lucy's coach has commented to both of us independently how much Lucy has improved during this soccer season. She's generally playing defense either as a fullback or goalie. Here are a few photos from her most recent soccer game.
About 10-15 days ago the check engine light was flashing on Annette's van. This usually means a cylinder is mis-firing. Turns out we had oil fouled spark plugs on our 6 year old, 90k mile Honda Odyssey. For the non-mechanical members of our tiny audience, this means that oil is getting into a part of the engine that its not supposed to. We took the van to the dealership where they told us it would cost $1,000 to tear down the engine and get an independent inspector to evaluate whether or not this problem was covered by the extended warranty. If it wasn't covered, the cost to rebuild the motor would be around $5300. We checked with a couple other shops and it seemed like the best direction was to get the dealership started on tearing down the engine hoping that it was covered by our extended warranty.
Fortunately, Honda decided to cover the cost of rebuilding the motor. We just had to pay for the timing belt, water pump, oil change and a few other maintenance items that would have to be done at 100k miles anyway. Total out of pocket was around $1500.
At this point we thought we were out of the woods. Little did we know what the 'woods' had in store for us.
At about 4:30 a.m. Friday May 20, a bolt of lightning struck the 70' tall oak tree in our backyard. Fortunately the tree is still standing as of the time when I'm writing this blog but its days are numbered. We had two tree companies come out and take a look. The first said the job was too dangerous and they referred us to another company. The second company gave us a price and agreed to take down the tree and haul it away on Monday, May 23. We are hopeful they're going to get the job done tomorrow because while the tree is still standing all of the girls have been sleeping in the basement.
The estimate to take down and haul away the tree is around $3500. We're considering selling tickets to the neighbors to help recoup some of the money. Holy moly!
Gus was invited out to the farm to visit with Findlay the Labrador. Last time these two pooches met up they produced a litter of 8 puppies. Gus is black and Findlay is yellow which in May 2019 yielded 8 puppies: 4 yellow, 2 chocolate and 2 black. Here is the punnett square to predict the outcome of this union:
Source of information: https://mapleleafvet.com/genetics-of-labrador-coat-color/
Anyway, making puppies is hard work. Gus was plain worn out after the activities of the last few days. That plus he suffers from love-sick puppy syndrome. Trust us - its really a thing.
There are moments that need to be preserved because someday you'll look back and ask, "Why did I ever do that?"
Tonight I took Lucy to Kroger at 8:40 pm to get some vanilla ice cream. I told her we'd get the ice cream but she'd have to wait till tomorrow to eat it. She came up with the solution to spoon it out for herself in the back of the truck.
And so here we are.
Gus came too.
Sabrina and Molly played in the Gray Middle School Spring Concert tonight. They sounded wonderful and we're looking forward to many more concerts to come!
From time to time Facebook will post photos from a few years ago. Each time this happens I snag the photo from Facebook to post here on the blog.
About 12 years ago, we setup an impromptu photoshoot of Babo (Grandma) and Mom in the living room during our portrait photography stage. We knew at the time that these images would be precious and every year they grow in significance.
I'm pretty sure there was a zinger that Babo shared for the expressions in this image.
