..the good, the bad, the ugly, and the REALLY bad and ugly....

 

I decided to work this blog backwards... starting with the beautiful sunset....Lowell snapped this picture on Saturday night, and I am so glad he caught the beautiful colours of Bryce Canyon and the peace and serene atmosphere..  We arrived Friday night and were all outside and watched the millions of stars against the ink black sky... it was amazing.  And, it always looks like the stars are so close you can touch them.. But, the sunsets are always one of my favourites...

Saturday came, and Jim and I had to make a trip into town to get some plumbing supplies, and while we were gone, Lowell worked a bit of magic.. fixing the path to the bridge.  The first step onto the bridge was really a killer - it wasn't especially high, but for someone with a knee issue, I had serious issues... So, while we were gone, Lowell worked his tail off and put in a 2nd step, and did a little landscaping around.  When we got back, it looked fantastic and I so appreciate it.

Lowell said he was trying to divert the run off when it rains.  There was a constant drainage problem that was taking away the sandy soil and exposing the rocks.

The scrap wood collection needs to be hauled off, next week.

By the end of Sunday, Jim had started to work on railings on the bridge.  He got two poles up by the time we were about time to leave.  It's looking amazing.

This past weekend, Lowell came with Coy, so we all tried to pitch in and make it interesting for him.  Lowell told Coy that if he picked up the little bits of wood in the area where he was going to be working with the backhoe, and cleaned up that area, he would give Coy $5.00.  So, the wheel barrow got brought out, and Coy started to work... Papa was helping Coy maneuver the wheelbarrow around, and giving him tips on what to pick up...  Coy did great... I don't know if he ever got his pay, but he sure worked for it..  Here's a shot of Papa killing a spider in the wheel barrow for Coy.

...Coy... hard at work!

Coy's Mama was adamant about having Coy brush his teeth.. which is a little tricky because there are no faucets and no sinks set up inside the cabin yet... So, whenever you brush you teeth or wash your hands, it's over the side of the deck, with a bottle of water.  Once we have the sinks and faucets, this kid is still going to want to brush his teeth over the side of the deck... amongst other things... hmmmm...

The shower stall and the bathroom continue to be a problem.  We had the guy come out on Saturday to fix a smaller leak in the shower and this is what it looked like AFTER the explosion... and yes, I mean, explosion.  The guy fixed the shower, Jim and he plugged the drain, and then filled it with water.  They waited a little bit and it didn't leak, so they started to drain... that's when they found out that the water in the shower, didn't drain... but it was filling up the toilet... hmmmm... Jim snaked the toilet thinking there was something weird plugging it way down the line, and the clog didn't move but Jim ran out of snake on the line about 20 feet down.  It was then, that they wanted to see the pictures from this blog, to see how the plumbing was put in under the cement back several years ago... Thank goodness I take a million pictures from the blog because I did find them from several years ago, and it gave the two a little insight.  It was draining from the downstairs toilet to the septic tank outside, but it was not draining from the upstairs bathroom out to the septic... Jim figured it out... When we had the inspection on the plumbing, there was a tee plug ball/balloon thing that was put into the line to plug it up it before the test was done... The ball/balloon was never removed and it clogged the system...  Jim thought that if he just move the plug a little bit, that it would allow drainage behind it and everything would flow into the septic... Well, it sort of happened... that is, after the air filled plug was depressurized it didn't move until Jim tried to move it just a little and then the explosion occurred...  Um... I'm going to put this really delicately... it wasn't pretty... Actually, it was absolutely disgusting.....With all the back pressure from "water" filling the pipe up from the main floor toilet above, the plug came out rather violently... actually, it was an explosion covering everything in it's path... After hosing Jim down outside on the deck and cleaning up, the clog was finally dislodged and everything from the line drained into the septic... really, really ugly.

This is what the balloon/plug looks like...  yep... here's the offending party...

And, this is the shower after it was resealed... It doesn't leaks now...  Inspection is on Friday...

The big push right now is to clean up and grade the courtyard area where the jacuzzi and the pizza oven and all that good stuff is going to be put... the ground has to be levelled, and the retaining wall blocks started around before we set the antique brick pavers in place.  It's a ton of work...

And, as much as big boys like to play with big toys, little boys are fascinated just watching.

I was kind of in charge of keeping Coy amused and out from underfoot for a couple of days, and I had activities planned.  The first was decorating Hallowe'en bags...

Next, we made pumpkins out of toilet paper rolls...You can never have too many rolls of toilet paper...  I told Coy to go outside and get some sticks, that is before we even got started, and he just didn't understand why we needed them...  But, he obliged..  When I showed him how they are made, and how easy it was, he had to make several.

..super simple 5 minute activity for kids... He said that he wanted to show his class at school how to make these pumpkins...

and, of course, we had to make a pumpkin with cats on it.

Brianne told me that as soon as he got home, he pulled the pumpkins out and then did a demonstration for Brianne how to make them.  I don't know if he will show his class, but he had so much fun making them.

The next on the list was making some jam... peach and strawberry.  Coy has made jam with me before, and it's always a treat.. He likes cutting the strawberries and squishing the peaches...

Here's the first two jars that were made poised on our vintage looking stove....

And, here's all of the jars after they were processed.  It was a great activity for the cabin...  I told Coy that he was going to be "jammin'" and he walked around all afternoon saying that, "Coy's Jammin'".. super cute.

And, the last major activity was making a fall tree for outside his house.  This is that craft where you invert a tomato cage and then wind the leaves around it.. super easy... I think after Coy wove the garlands around a hundred times, he was a little tired of it.. but, thought it was going to be fun for his Mum... 

Brianne said that the kittens that they have, Thunder and Lightening and Tinkerbell, really, really like this tree and had moved the greenery aside and were using the bottom of the tree as a teepee...  Before they could put it outside, they had to rework it, and fight with the cats at the same time... they had the idea the tree was truly there's, and didn't want it moved or changed.  But, they finally got it reworked, and got the lights on it, and put it on display outside their front door...  Coy is so proud of his handiwork.

This is a little out of order, but the stakes were placed to mark where the retaining blocks are going.  This is going to be a HUGE job, that I think is going to happen this coming weekend.  Dig out, make square, compact the dirt and place the huge retaining wall blocks.

And, I convinced Jim that if he works a little bit every weekend on the siding, it's going to get done.  There is always so many projects that had to be completed, that it doesn't seem there is much time for the siding.  So, he's got a little more work done...

Saturday night, we had carne asada for dinner... cooked on the barbecue.  I thought it was super tasty.  We paired it with tortillas and all the vegetables.  Was super tasty.

And, I found this plant stand a week or so ago.  It looks pretty rough now, but I am planning on painting it black, so it will go with all the wrought iron in the place.  Jim was not a fan - he's only interested in building materials right now, but I really like it, and so does Lowell... So, we keep it.

And in the same vain, I bought this chair.  I love it... Jim hates it.. I think it's interesting.. Jim still hates it...  

                                                    

When we got home on Sunday evening,  Jim developed a rash, like really bad. He didn't have a problem breathing or anything more than just a rash.  I demanded we go to the emergency room...  Talk about resistance... At the emergency room, they took blood draws and couldn't find out what the problem was... Turned out to be hives, but we can't figure out what he's become allergic to.  Maybe the jam?  No, but he had fresh peaches Saturday, a little on Sunday and then a peach shake too!  I know he's allergic to pistachios, passion fruit and penicillin,  It just makes sense to me that peaches start with the letter "P" also... I think he's allergic to... p's... I made an appointment with a dermatologist for Thursday, so, maybe we'll start getting some answers.  They gave him a steroid in the hospital, which brought the hives and itch/burning under control, but really freaks out his glucose... It was super hot over the weekend, and I am thinking that he is having some kind of reaction to sweat...  who knows?  Hopefully, we get some answers.  I'll keep you posted.

Update:  Jim just got back from the dermatologist... he was told that he needs to stop taking the steroids because of the havoc they are causing to his glucose...  We tried to get a hold of his endocrinologist who specializes in diabetes yesterday, and, (big shocker here...) the guy apparently doesn't have the time or inclination to get back with us... with this in mind, we are in the process of changing endocrinologists because this guy is a putz... moving forward.... the dermatologist says that he didn't ingest something because his throat would have been swollen, and it wasn't... but, he has just developed some kind of allergy like an autoimmune issue... he also said that a lot of these cases, they never figure out the why it happened... so, we're still up in the air...  But, it's all but disappeared now...  Strange...( Jim just thinks it's because he's getting old... sigh....) With all the blood tests that were done, he has no infection in his system, nothing biological growing... absolutely nothing out of the ordinary... blood pressure was a little high, but nothing outrageous... and I figure that is because of the stress of it all...  We are going to watch this one closely...

                                                  

So, not so much as usual, but the title of this blog, as you have read, is very, very appropriate.... it was a couple of days of good, bad, ugly and really, really bad and ugly... 

The Adventure continues. . .

Jim and Cheri