Omnium-gatherum
Matt Hanson’s Brain Archive
July 25, 2006
A Mild Disaster
It was still early morning on Mother’s Day when I ventured downstairs. I don’t remember exactly why I was headed downstairs just that I didn’t get all the way to the bottom when I noticed a peculiar sheen to the floor. A small bit of panic swelled from somewhere inside me. Slowly, not sure I wanted to do this, I looked over to the right to survey the rest of the basement. The panic leapt into my throat when I saw things floating. The kids were up and I had a serious problem on my hands.
“Kiimmm!” It was not how I wanted to wake up my wife on Mother’s Day but I had to forgo my breakfast plans for her…and sleeping in wasn’t an option either. Sorry hon.
We were only one of many houses in Dover, in fact in all of NH, to experience basement flooding during these rains and we learned what a destructive force water can be. It only took several inches of water to destroy most everything - furniture, speakers, lots of books, the dryer - we were lucky it didn’t hit the furnance (just another inch). I’ve since ripped out the floor, the wall paneling, drywall (which got very moldy), and all the wood. Our basement is finished no more.
The upside of this is that we will get to refinish the basement in the way we’d like to do it. I’ve been playing with Home Designer to visualize the exact layout. It will still be another couple months before I can even get a contractor out to the house, but it will be a cool addition when all is done.
All in all we got off lucky considering how many people’s homes are completely devestated by floods every year.
July 12, 2006
It’s always difficult to fit in everything around Christmas time. This year we didn’t do Christmas with Diana until April and so combined it with Jeff’s Birthday - see the lollipop-cake-man!
We also had some very good weather in April, so here are some pcitures of the girls playing in the backyard and other various pictures of them inside as well.
Colored Eggs
Easter is colorful time. Egg painting has become a tradition at our house and Kaley loves dipping and coloring them. Maizy however is not at a point where she can sit and color eggs or even handle them. She’d be far more content throwing the eggs on the floor, stepping on them, then pouring or drinking the egg coloring. Perhaps next year. This year we used paint, stickers, and traditional egg water colors - take a look inside!
