February made me shiver

I don't care what the calendar has on it.

February is one LONG month.

Keenan spent a week at home doing virtual class due to proactive measures with school (a couple positive cases stemming from a basketball game).  By the second day he was ready to go back and be with his friends.  Sounds like that feeling was shared by most students and teachers.  Once again we're thankful for our school and that the boys have been able to be in person for classes since August.

Loch had a much needed trip to our groomer.

Then we had an ice storm.

They are the worst.  Listening to limbs cracking and crashing is just awful.

We lost power around 11 AM, which brought Kevin up from his work in the basement.

We spent the afternoon playing an epic game of PayDay.

And adding a few layers of clothes.

Thanks to news reports & social media, we knew there was lots of damage in the area and quite a few power outages.  Once it started to get dark Kevin got the generator started, and our space heater plugged in.  We decided to have the boys and the dogs sleep in our room with the space heater in there and the door closed.  Under extra blankets, it was pretty comfy....until the generator ran out of gas sometime around midnight.

We got a text that our power would be restored by midnight the next day (Sunday).  It was still grey and gloomy and after lunch the boys headed to a friends house.  Bless good friends that take & feed your kids!  Then they decided to spend the night (which was fine since they had Monday off).

Kevin got industrious after he realized our WiFi was working again.  He ran more extension cords around the house & viola!

We had cold pizza, a space heater, and shows to stream on tv!

And a text from Duke that our power would be on by midnight the next day.....

The boys came home bummed to hear about another delay but pretty happy about Kevin's tv situation.  

Mid morning I checked on our status & saw this:

A crew had been assigned to us!  I headed to a friends house for a much needed shower & picked lunch up on the way home.

When the trucks rolled up to our house I took the crew out bottled water and snacks.

And five minutes later, we had power!

So very thankful.

Having a CPA unable to work for almost three full days is no bueno at all.

That weekend Kieran hit the Greenway to take advantage of some wonderful sunny weather.

He hit it-hard.  Twice.

And track season began on Monday.  By then he was just a little stiff and mostly scabbed over.

Last week we had an absolutely beautiful day.  I spent time outside cleaning up from the ice storm & all the rains, then decided to take 30 minutes to sit & read while I waited on the boys to get home.

It was bliss.

Kevin & I enjoyed a walk before dinner, then I started a load of laundry before we sat down to eat.  We sat at the table and talked about possible vacation ideas for the summer, then finally got up to clean.  Kieran was the first one to notice.

The water in the laundry room, and into the kitchen.

From the washing machine.  The drain hose came out of the drain.

I grabbed towels & started soaking up water & Kevin ran downstairs.  His desk is in the basement, under the laundry room.....

It was bad.

We moved stuff out of the room, wiped things off, took down wet ceiling tiles, then ripped up the wet pad & took it outside, and moved the carpet to Kevin's garage.  Thankfully we have two dehumidifiers, and multiple fans so we set those up, and set more fans up in the laundry room and bathroom.

And as Kieran wisely pointed out, nothing that belonged to my Mom or Dad got damaged.

Kevin headed to his office the next day to get a new computer & monitors while I waited for carpet cleaners to arrive.  They cleaned & deodorized the carpet and measured for a new pad, while I set up some tables up in the back of the playroom for Kevin to use.  He mentioned needing to work 15 hour days to get caught up, and I was hoping if that happened he could do that from home.

The next day he got set up in the playroom, and the carpet got re-installed in the basement.

And a package arrived for Kevin but we had no idea what it was.  It had packing tape labeling the company as "gifts and awards".  Of course that started a whole litany of quotes from "A Christmas Story" about major awards.....

And would you look at that.....

It was a major award!  (from a client)

Then to round out our month, Friday morning Flopsy was in obvious pain.  Recently she had been diagnosed with arthritis in her legs and was given a couple different meds to try.  We were hoping that she would only need one type, but based on how she was acting that morning I knew she would need more.  After coming back from the vet with the additional medication she was in more pain, and even Hobbes was pacing nervously near her.  Another couple phone calls with the vet, and we were back to the vet for a visit.  In addition to the arthritis, she's also got a disc issue and had an abscess cyst on her tail that was infected.  Bless her sad heart.  By the end of the afternoon we were headed home with additional muscle relaxers, medicated wipes, and antibiotics.  And after two more hours of pacing, the meds finally kicked in and she was able to relax.

 And so did we.

It was one long month.