Davidson's Defrost Day

It's not that we actually set today aside to clean the refrigerator. I mean, who actually says "Today I think I'll empty my whole icebox and see how much stuff I've accumulated over the last 4 years"?? But that's what we're doing today.
This morning as I'm trying to herd all 4 children out the door to meet our friends at the library I reached inside to grab some milk for Ruth. Hmmm, I thought, this is kind of stinky stale air in here. Then I started feeling the containers. Odd how warm they feel today. So I check the freezer and everything is nice and frozen. So, why is the ice frozen and the milk warm? I know nothing about refrigeration and that's one thing Curtis knows nothing about as well.

We're doomed!
How can we afford a new refrigerator? (the man just said "oh boy"... I don't think that's a good sign!) Speaking of man... there's one here at the moment and it's not Curtis. He's checking out the damage.
Back to this morning... the 3 walking children helped carry everything that was perishable downstairs to pack into the other fridge in the basement. We looked like little ants with our treasures all marching in a line up and down the stairs. I'm so thankful God has provided us with a second fridge and freezer for moments just like this. We then headed out to the library and on to Burger King for yet another healthy lunch.

So, now the man is here. I had to empty out the freezer as well so he could get to the frozen coils, damaged defroster, and replace the no longer functioning safety thermostat. Apparently it cuts off the fridge on a timed basis to defrost and prevent the coils from becoming frozen up. It didn't work. He says we had 2 inches of ice on our coils and the safety thing did not reset itself to warm the coils. Whatever... it's broken! $ So I wonder $ what the rest of $ the day will $ hold for $ us around here$. The humming of his wet vac and his heat gun blower thing have lulled all 4 children into a much needed nap.
So I shall throw out the 4 year old food. Wipe up the sticky spots. And reassess the need for such "plenty" in my iceboxes (plural!). I asked for a frozen January day... but we have 60's instead. Time to clean the meltdown.

Now, if I could only get to the heaping piles of laundry on the other side of the wall...

Scrapping Day

Or Croppin' Day... it's a girl thing!
I spent the weekend with my girlfriends in a cabin far, far away! I did take Lydia with me and she so enjoyed the one on one time with her mommy. She told the nursery workers all about it on Sunday. I digress. Back to the cabin.
It rained. A PERFECT cropping day. We sat around the table from sun-up until well into the wee hours of the next day. Didn't miss a thing... except that the ground outside was becoming quite saturated from all the lovely rain. The van sank deeper and deeper into a soft mudpit and not one of us even thought to look.

Well, Saturday night we tried to go to dinner and realized our dilemma. The funniest part (now) is how motivated and intense Anne became. She WAS going to get that van out... and she did. I kept thinking just as soon as those tires catch some solid ground she's getting flung into the lake.

Jill kept thinking just as soon as those tires catch some solid ground she's coming through my windshield.














I searched the basement and found a very small "jump rope" type rope. There were no chains. I thought IF we can get it tied to both vans there is no way it will pull and not snap clean in two pieces. Like I said, Anne was very determined. She tied "four knots" on either end and was very proud of them.
We flung mud everywhere, smoked the tires in the wet grass and made the evening fun instead of the disaster it could have been. I really was concerned that I might be buying Jill a new front end to her van. Apparently, they (the cabin owners) have recently dug a trench for power and/or water lines to a new building next to the cabin. We were unaware that underneath that innocent layer of crabgrass was a mudpit silently awaiting my two front tires. Ah, all I wanted was my two front tires, my two front tires, see my two front tires. Gee if I could only have my two front tires, then we could go and eat some dinner. Gosh oh gee, how happy we would be if.... ok, I digress yet again.
The pictures don't do it justice. If we had only had a video camera we would certainly be the $10,000 winner of America's Funniest Videos!

We finally ate dinner at a lovely hole-in-the-wall "grill" in Hartwell, GA. We laughed until someone wet her pants, but that could have been Lydia! :)

Enjoy our moments of ... (fill in the blank)

By the way, I did get my cruise album completed!

MONSTER Trucks...

This past weekend we took the older two kids to the Superbowl of Motorsports Monster Truck show at the Georgia Dome. Now, this is not my ideal of a good time in the big city but the kids had a good time watching the trucks. We went with Curtis' friend Chad, his son Tanner, and his Dad. We, along with 65, 993 other fine folk of GA hooped and hollered as these trucks roared around the floor for 3.5 hours. There were also several thousand folk in town for a Hawks/Wizard game as well as a Boat Show. (Traffic was thick!) The kids were thrilled about going and couldn't take naps in the antiaption. It was 35 degrees and had a wicked wind blowing. We searched for the "perfect" parking spot (Chad was driving) and finally jumped out on a corner so we wouldn't have to walk as far with the kids. After 2 or 3 trucks ran Maggie told me she was ready to go home. She enjoyed what she saw, but was over it within 30 minutes. Her favorite truck was "Cowboy" because it was black. Bennett's favorite truck was "War Wizard" because it had spikes on the back and "it lost a wheel and an axle and it could STILL drive". Apparently that was something that happened on one of my several trips to the potty with Maggie. She wanted to explore after she got bored with her seat. We went on a pretzel and Sprite run too and saw some young men pushing and shoving. I was glad she still had her earplugs in and couldn't hear their words.


This is a picture of one of the motorcycles that put on a mini-show between rounds. This driver is doing a "superman" I think... where they hold onto the seat and fly behind the bike. They did some pretty cool tricks and were in the same corner as our seats so we were able to see really well. Our camera just isn't fast enough to catch them. (if you click on the picture it should pull it up bigger so you can see it better)
It was very loud so we wore our earplugs while the big trucks ran their races. Curtis had a hard time focusing the camera at such close range... but this is about the only picture we got of the kids. There are lots of truck photos... but most are blury. We didn't do the pit pass thing, mostly because we couldn't get there early enough. We left the house shortly after 4pm and were late for the start of the 7:30 show. We had to stop for NY style pizza for Chad and then the traffic coming into town was stop and go after the toll booth on 400 and all the way into town. Good thing Chad and his Dad are TECH grads and know all the backroads and hidden parking spots.

Anyway, Ruth and Lydia got to spend the evening with Grammy and Papa and got quite a bit more sleep than the rest of us! I decided if we return to the Truck show again it will be when Lydia is old enough to enjoy it... so 4 years from now. The Dome was sold out this year so I assume it will only get worse as the years go on... buy now if you want to go! :)