When it Rains, it Pours

This weekend was INSANE! (Warnign this is a really long post) Actually the last couple of weeks have been kinda rocky but it hit hard this weekend. Work is painfully slow for Jacob right now. He is having to use up his vacation time to make sure that we are still getting a paycheck. We were thinking that we would have to use up all of our savings to get through this slow time and that I would have to go substitute teach. Well, when you try to do the right thing the Lord knows and he blesses you. Jacob's boss called him and apparently another guy that Jacob works with set up something for Jacob so that he would have work.

I'm not sure of all the details but he will be doing office work instead of going out in the field which sucks for Jacob but it's going to be guaranteed 40 hours/week for one fiscal year (which is from October to October). During that year he will be doing quality control on the paperwork that comes to his desk. This particular job is with the new lead contractor at Hanford CH2M Hill so his network will increase in a BIG way. He will still be working for his company GRAM but will be contracted out to CH2M Hill. This means a pay raise as well. At the end of the year if he doesn't like the job he can ask to be transferred somewhere else in the company or go back to his old job. It isn't 100% sure but it's about 99% sure that this will happen. So that takes care of that problem. Now onto the next...

THE TOILET

Jacob's family came to visit this weekend for the long weekend and for Emma's party (I will talk about that at the end of my post). Yesterday while I was at my doctor's appointment (which will too be at the end of this post) the toilet and tub backflowed into the house. We came home to my mother in law bailing water out and my father in law plunging the toilet. YIKES! That's not even the best part. I started calling around the ward looking for a plumbing snake. Five phone calls later I located one. I went over and picked it up and we put it down the toilet. Nothing happened.

Meanwhile the plunger my father in law broke so he went to take it back to the store. Jacob and I decided to go to Home Depot and buy a hefty plunger. While we were there we looked at plumbing snakes. We decided to rent one. Back home we go to use the new plunger on the tub and toilet. Well... the plunger didn't do the trick. Meanwhile my dad called (since I called him to ask advice) and gave us some ideas on what to do. As a result Jacob crawled under the house to find the clean out valve to the sewer line. After a LONG time he found it. Well, the snake we borrowed wasn't long enough. Jacob went downt he road to rent a 50 foot snake. He came back and tried to fit it under the house to get to the main line. The heating vent was too low and the snake was too big to fit under the vent. Jacob came up and tried to fit the snake through the toilet and the head of the snake didn't bend enough. So... up on the roof he goes to put it through the sewer vent. Guess what? It wasn't long enough! In the meantime I'm running back and forth to my neighbors house to pee.

The next step was to take the toilet off and put the snake down. Jacob didn't have any gloves so he was using my bath towels to pull the line out and feed it into the pipe. That didn't work. By this time it's almost 6:00 in the evening. My in laws left to head over the mountains and Jacob, Emma and I went to the store to pee and buy gloves.

When we got back Jacob and I put Emma to bed and ran the snake down the toilet hole again. Five minutes later it was all the way through and we backed it out. There were tree roots on the end of the snake! We then poured root killer in the hole and sent the snake down again. Well, the snake broke halfway into the pipe. Jacob pulled it out and we decided to sit and watch some tv.

THE T.V.

Wouldn't you know that the tv bulb would go out!? That's right, our big screen tv is no longer working either.

THE POOP

Here we are at 10:30 the next day with no plumbing still. Jacob is on his way to rent another longer snake and we hope this will work. Meanwhile there is poop on my bathroom walls and in the tub.

NOW FOR THE GOOD NEWS!

EMMA'S PARTY

Emma's birthday party was really fun. We had 15-20 people over and 3 of those including Emma were 2 year olds. The kids had tons of fun playing together and the adults had fun sitting around and talking. Thanks to Lora for coming over and helping me grate cheese for all the pizzas we made!

MY DR.'S APPOINTMENT

My doctor's appointment went really well yesterday. It was a quick in and out but we got to listen to the baby's heart beat. It was 158 bpm which I guess any range between 120 and 180 is normal. I think Emma's was somewhere around that too. It took the PA a long time to find the heart beat and I was starting to worry but I'm glad the baby is fine.

I think I'm going to post a new recipe next week. I can't think of one right now. I hope that your weeks aren't as eventful as mine! I'm glad that every week is not like this for me. It's weeks like this that make you appreciate the good ones. Keep your fingers crossed that we won't end up having to call a plumber! And lets hope that this cold I'm getting goes away quickly!