tim and lisa cocking

The kids were great on the drive down, to my slight surprise. Three boxes of crayons, three sets of paper to color on, one Cinderella movie, three magic wands (crafts to make), one McDonalds stop, naps, one more video, and we were there.

Rehearsal day (the 27th) was long, as usual. Yesterday was setup and sound check, with a little more rehearsing. It’s been great to see our good friends Andy McKay, Michael Lloyd and Derek Hrabovsky again after well over a year. The kids have made it pretty impossible for me to rehearse, but I was able to sing with the band for the opening session last night anyway. Ellie has decided that she’s scared of the music, of which she informs us repeatedly (she’s saying it again right now, in fact). So when I tried to let the kids play in the conference room during warm up, she went hysterical. I had to remove all three kids, and myself. But the session went well, and I enjoyed the speaker. It’s nice this year to actually be able to sit in on some sessions, something I’ve never been able to do before.

We’ve gotten bedtimes and naptimes pretty well sorted out now, and the kids are actually sleeping when they’re supposed to, more or less. Mostly less, but at least they are sleeping. Ellie just woke up Micah, so this little break is over.

We’ll try to post some pictures a little later. We’ve paid for 24 hours of internet access, so hopefully we’ll get to that later tonight or early tomorrow.

Ah, fall in Michigan (it is still fall, you know). The wind is blowing, the air is cold, the ground is covered with 8 inches of snow, and the water is flowing into our basement. Our old friend the ice dam has arrived!

I went downstairs to do laundry today and splashed when I stepped off the stairs. Not a good sign. A quick look showed water coming in at a pretty good clip. It’s coming from the front corner of our townhouse where it joins to the unit next door. Our unit sticks out about 3 feet farther than the next one, and that corner has been full of icicles all week despite the fact that workers kept coming out and beating on it (generally during naps). The water is running down the basement wall and dripping from the floor joists. It looks like the subfloor is getting pretty wet.

It actually isn’t a big deal, though. We caught it quickly, before much stuff had gotten wet. Since it’s coming in right at the bottom of the stairs, it’s not in an area that we use for storage. Most of the stuff anywhere near there is up on shelves. And since it’s a rental, any structural damage isn’t our problem. Of course I called maintenance as soon as we discovered the problem. Their response was basically, “Oh well. Not much we can do about it.” They’re going to send the “gutter guys” on Monday. I assume they’re the ones who have been beating on the roof all week. I’m sure they’ll be happy to see that all their hard work paid off–NOT!

We’ve got lots of experience with ice dams (read: $15,000 in damage to our first house), and it’s really nice to really not care about it this time. We’re just making sure to keep our stuff out of harm’s way, and the rest is up to management.

And it’s not even winter yet

It started snowing around 8:00 this morning. So far I’d guess we’ve gotten about 7 inches. This is on top of about 4 inches we had on the ground already. It’s supposed to keep snowing till midnight or so. We’re planning to take the kids out to play tomorrow.

Okay, okay, I’ll admit it is kind of pretty. But I’m still looking forward to living in a place where this weather is not an option!

We were at Sears this evening, buying a car top carrier so we can get all our stuff and kids to Indy in a few weeks.

So I’m walking around with the kids while Tim waits in line, and suddenly Micah starts saying, “Crocodile! Crocodile!” and pointing. At first, I was mystified. I thought maybe an Izod display or something, but I saw nothing resembling a large reptile.

I could tell what she was pointing at, although it didn’t make sense. So I asked her, “Elevator?” Her response: “Yeah! Elegator!”

Makes perfect sense to a two year old.