Snow! and Water Heater Woes

Connor built a nice tower of blocks on our living room shelves.  When he showed me his masterpiece I saw this cute couple peeking through.  Awww.

Rhett's bedhead is getting more awesome by the day.  I think I'll start calling him Rooster.  Poor kid.  I could put his hair in some cute little pigtails if I wanted.  His hair is so stinkin' soft and fabulous.

His outfits kill me.  

On Wednesday, a guy finally came to take a look at our water heater.  It's a tankless, but the pilot light got blown out during the super freeze we had in December.  The water froze and cracked the heat exchanger.  It had been dripping water ever since.  It still worked fine, but we were concerned about the leak getting worse.  We ran into some complications, including the drip turning into a full on spray, and had to have the water to our house turned off for the rest of the day and had to call another guy to come take a look.  Luckily, the new guy was able to temporarily stop the leak and install some valves that allowed us to turn the water to the house back on that night, but we didn't have hot water.  Thank goodness we had all had baths/showers that morning.  Washing hands in glacier cold water isn't pleasant, but showering in it would have been a treat.  

Reid stayed home from work Thursday and sent me up to Billings without any kids!  It was a lovely, and much-needed break.  Usually my trips to Billings consist of rushing around Costco & WalMart with (at least) my 2 youngest, who loathe shopping.  We get the essentials, drive thru McDonalds, and then rush to get back in time for preschool.  This time it was actually relaxing.  I returned a few things to WalMart, ate at Cafe Rio, then spent the rest of my time at the mall.  I had a couple things to return at The GAP, and lo and behold, they were having a 30% off all sale merchandise sale.  My favorite sale!  I scored big time, making the most of some gift cards and rewards I had.  Can't beat shirts and pants for a few bucks each.  As much as I hate to admit it, it put me in the best mood!  Ahhh. Retail therapy.

A pic from the drive home, in Montana.  I totally dig the country scenes.

I made the crew dinner when I got home, then went off to a Relief Society meeting where we exchanged Family Home Evening ideas.  It was good for me, and helped give me a boost for helping improve FHE at our house.  One idea I want to implement, is preparing FHE on Sunday afternoon.  Lately, we end up putting something together on Monday at the last minute, and that hasn't been working great.  I think our boys would also be able to thrive in their assignments if they had more time to prepare.  

I really liked this simple FHE jobs clipboard.  It would be perfect for a small family.

I also really want to start using a conducting sheet.  It will give the kids some good experience in how to conduct a meeting.  FHE is a perfect time to teach our kids some great life skills.

We were still without hot water all day Thursday, and Friday found us heating water on the stove for shallow baths, and using paper dishes to reduce the amount of hand-washing we'd have to do.  

Friday night our new water heater was installed and working.  Yay!  After considering the price and weighing pros and cons, we decided to go with a tankless again.  Our new one has some awesome settings and shouldn't have the problems we had with our old one (which we found out was secondhand, not new, when they installed it).  I'm a little bummed, because the money we're spending on it was going to be for buying new couches, but hot water is not something I'd give up.  So...here's to making do with what we've got.  :)

Friday night, we had some friends over for dinner & games.  We all had a good time, and ate too much.  It snowed all night, and we woke up to beautiful powder!  The boys went out to play in the snow Saturday morning.  It was pretty cold out, so the snow wasn't so great for packing, but boy did it make me want to go skiing!  I was daydreaming of skiing all day.  The Red Lodge, MT ski resort is only an hour away.  I need to check it out!  Big Sky is only a few hours away as well.  I have fond memories of skiing at Big Sky when I was at BYU-Idaho.

We took it easy the rest of our Saturday, then went to the high school basketball game in the afternoon.  The boys had a blast cheering on the Grizz!  At half time they have people attempt free throw shots for $1 a shot.  You get a big ol' soda if you make it.  Clark tried his luck, but didn't make it.  Maybe next time.  The high school sports here make for some cheap, fun entertainment.  At my high school, even students had to pay to get in to football and basketball games.  They're free to everyone here.  We bought a couple bags of popcorn for $1 each.  We need to get out and do that more often.  Basketball is nice because it is INDOORS. :)  

Clark decided to wake up with the pukes this morning, so he stayed home from church with Reid.  Connor fell asleep during Primary, so they came and got me out of Sunday School to help them out.  Haha.  He was out cold!  I took him back to my class, and he woke up after a bit and wanted to go back to his class.  That's a first for me to have a kid fall asleep during their class.  We had a great lesson about Pride and Humility in Relief Society.  I have so much to work on in that regard, it was a great reminder for me to not let pride seep into my heart so much.

Reid and I cooked up some chicken teriyaki stir fry together for dinner.  Then we played a card game, Wizard, with the boys.  Clark was mostly back to himself, and destroyed us.  That kid knows how to bid!  

After the kids went to bed, I caught Reid with my library book (City of Ashes), hehe.