Christmas with Mike from Minot

Hi Mary and Jeni,
Well Christmas was interesting. We tried to do a movie scenario where the plumbing goes on the fritz and ruins everything but I turned the water off and ignored the problem until after the food was consumed. It was hard though because everyone kept coming up to me and complaining about the drip. (Well it turned into a river) and I couldn't turn it off.

First the water was just coming out in a little stream. It started after Jonny did the dishes around 1:30. ( So it was HIS fault) We went under the sink and played with the turn off valves and it went away. But not for long. Pretty soon it was back again. Jon and I both played with the little turn off lever under the sink but as soon as we turned our back the water was back stronger than ever.

By 4:00 I decided to just turn off the water downstairs. Both boys and Dad looked at the faucets. Dad had the replacement inners but the faucets were so corroded ('gunky' is the technical term, according to Mike) that the only thing to do was replace them. Of course we weren't sure of that right away so we had our Christmas dinner. This is the 'adult table'. Mom and Dad and Chris and Deb got to sit there.

We had three different desserts. Jon had to explain the apricot sauce for the fruit pizza. There were options. That is his Chocolate Whiskey cake too and a couple of sweet potato pies that Deb made in the dark of the night.

We also played a hard fought game of Hand and Foot. (I won and annoyed Chris mightily).

During the game Jon went out and played with the faucet some more, but when I went out to look at it I just decided to call the plumber. I could see lots of corrosion, I mean gunk, under the faucets and thought it looked like it should be replaced.

So I called and got a plumber scheduled for between 11 and 2 on Friday. However at about 8 a.m. there was a phone call and I made Jim answer it (Poor Jim) and it was the plumbers saying they had a man in the area and could we take him early. That is when we met Mike. He came in the house and the first thing he said was "Who here is from North Dakota?" He is from Minot and came here in 1985.

After Mike was under the sink he said we should replace all the stuff under there because he would be out there to replace those within 6 months and it would be an extra 79.00 each trip. Dad came out of the bedroom about that time so I double checked with him and he sleepily agreed. We shall see if he remembers it later. We did everything Mike said and it looks very nice under the sink now and we don't have to use the drip pail anymore. I suppose I should get under there and scrub while everything is out. I suppose. Humph.

However, as Shakespeare says "All's well that ends well" so here is our ending. Nice eh?

Love,

Nancy

My birthday flowers

Hi Mary and Jeni,

I promised to post my birthday flower photo so here it is. I also am sending a picture of my cake too so you can see how gorgeous it is. We got it a Woulettes again. Poor Jim forced to spend his money. But I think it was worth it.

The flowers were a surprise. I thought they were for Mom for Christmas and so I went over to Brown and Greene and they all yelled "Happy Birthday Nancy".

You guys are the greatest.

Love,

Nancy

It's Whitefish Lake

Nancy! I looked at that quilt and said, "That looks like Whitefish Lake," and then I read your post. Yes, I do like it! That is one of my favorite scenes - the lake in winter. It's quiet, and icy blue and white, with all the subtle colors of winter. Here's the picture that I think of when I see that quilt...

...and some more we took that day. It was the morning of the day we got married.

Gee, I'm starting to feel all sentimental. This anniversary will be the first one that the Ol' Bear is on a cruise and we won't be together. Sigh. Oh well, what matters is that we're still having an anniversary, and we'll be thinking of each other on that day. Honestly, usually I'm the one that forgets. In fact, Christy and he have a running joke about if I'll remember or not! And no, I don't think you should cut anything off it!

Landscape Quilting

Hi Mary,

Well we had a nice safe quick trip up home and back. Good roads. The only problem was when we came back we couldn't get online at all. So I spent some time with Earthlink and they got us online for an evening but Dad said they screwed up his computer. Oops!

So Dad fixed his computer and then we were offline again. So after some more time with Earthlink they promised to upgrade our router. Yes the new router is working wonderfully. It is a 'G' router and the old one was a 'B'. B for Bad and G for Good?

Anyway I can now upload a picture of the Landscape quilt that I made from the picture of you and Brian standing in front of Whitefish Lake on Jan 1 2000.

I haven't been able to finish it. I was going to make a traditional quilted binding and then I noticed that it would just about fit in my oversized standing picture frame if I just cut a little off of it. But I don't want to cut anything off of it. Meanwhile it is on my design wall waiting for me to finish me designing.

So, do you like it?

Love,

Nancy