Almost Finished

Our basement is just about back to normal now. This weekend Ernie painted the wall, put the bookshelves back up, and Samuel and I put most of the toys back. The only thing left now is for Ernie to install an access panel in the ceiling, in case we ever have to get to the pipe again that started all this trouble.





The wall is a light brown color, which is hard to see in the pictures above. Here's another shot of it close-up:



And here's our tiny helper:

New Floor

Here's the latest update on our basement situation: we didn't have any luck finding the original carpet to match the part that wasn't damaged by water, so we installed laminate flooring this weekend. The room is just under 200 square feet, so with Ernie and I working together (and a babysitter entertaining Samuel) we were able to do it all. Here are some pictures of the room now:







The wall still needs to be painted and the furniture needs to be put back, but other than that, the room is almost back to normal!

In other news, one day last week I took Samuel down to Indianapolis to see my friends Sara and Melissa and their kids. Here he is having fun in the wading pool at Sara's house. He LOVES to play with water lately. Hose, buckets, pool, sprinkler...he can't get enough of it. He is usually blue lipped and shivering when we make him come inside, yet he still screams for more.



And here he is playing with a toy Jeep that he completely loved (and also screamed when it was time to get out of):





Thank you to everyone who left us a nice comment about Monty - we appreciated reading those!

Dear Monty,

You were, without a doubt, the best dog in the entire world. Anyone who had the good fortune to meet you would say the same.

You were the dog that other people would meet and then decide they wanted one of you. After they went out and got their own dog, they realized how different you were.

You considered yourself to be a person in a dog's body, and would give us looks that clearly said "why am I being forced to do these silly dog things?"

When Bella first came to live with us in 2002, you weren't so sure about her. After awhile, though, you decided she could stay.



You loved kids, and your ears would perk up whenever you heard them playing outside. You were always gentle with Samuel, even when he would pet you a little too enthusiastically, or would claim your blanket as his own.



You didn't jump up on people or lick them. In fact, you so rarely gave kisses that it was an honor to get one from you. You loved for people to pat you, and if they stopped, you would nudge their hand with your head for more.

With the exception of the evil squirrel that taunted you and Bella in Parker, you were always nice to other animals.



You loved to go for rides in the car. So much so that one time you jumped into a car that was just being cleaned, not taken for a ride. We didn't know you had jumped in there, and found you several hours later, patiently waiting in the back seat.

You had wonderful fashion sense, and loved to show that off:



You were Ernie's faithful companion since he was 19 years old. You two loved to go for walks in the woods in NH, and for rides in Ernie's truck.



We were blessed to have you in our family for as long as we did.



Although we are sad that you are no longer here, we know you are in a better place now. A place where you can walk without pain, a place where there are no scary thunderstorms or fireworks. A place where, perhaps, a giant conveyer belt goes past all day long, bringing you bowls of ice cream, pieces of bacon, and - your favorite - cheez-its.

We love you Monty, and we always will.

Progress

So we are making progress on fixing the damage in our basement. Ernie put new insulation in the walls, and new sheet rock up. Here's how it looks now:

We still need to work on the floor. Only part of the basement needs new carpet, so we wanted to try to match it to the non-damaged section. The carpet in there now is a basic off-white berber that the original homeowners put in last year before we bought the house. You think that would make it easy to find the exact same carpet. Nope. So far we have been to four different stores looking for a match, including the place where the carpet actually came from. No one has it. Apparently it was discontinued in January. Because of that, we are thinking about installing laminate flooring instead.

In other news, here's a little video of Samuel after he ate (and LOVED) chocolate ice cream. Apparently the way to get him to eat a healthy dinner each night (i.e. not just pretzles and cheese, although personally I like that dinner menu) is to bribe him with dessert. He likes this idea so much that the other morning at breakfast he told me that if he ate all of his pancakes he could have a marshmallow. Nice try, kid.