Happy May

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, it's been a long time since we have been on here doing anything. So, we decided that it would be time to update you all on our lives . . . We're doing well!School is almost over, only one more concert and boom the terrible two will be over (school that is). It has been raining/snowing but mostly cold the last few months. We have only had a few sunny warm days.

We have had quite the ordeal with our septic tank. The people we bought our house from promised that they would pump our tank if we had any problems within a year of purchase. (We are officially home owners of over a year!!!) Monique and I have been researching septic systems and we found out that first, we have one, and that it was located in our back yard about 17 feet away from our house. From asking questions we learned that the man hole is usually 2-3 feet the 'top' of the tank, so we began our quest by digging about 19 feet away from our house...then we dug another hole...and another hole...and another hole...(somewhere in between we finally got an affirmative to getting our tank pumped) The tank pumper came and said, "where is it?" and we said we are sure it is right in this area but as you can see we haven't found it yet. Then he said, "I'll probe around for it but you really don't want me to dig for it" He probed and probed and probed some more and only commented on how gravely our ground is. I said "you got to be kidding me, our ground has gravel in it?" with a smile. Well, he left because he couldn't pump out of the ground. He came back the next day with a See-snake (A snake with a camera at the end) to look into our septic tank. They put the snake down the air vent and through the pipe until it ran into the baffle. Well, they found the septic tank! (it was about 17 feet away from the house!) With a sonar gun he was looking for gold, I mean an empty spot in the ground where the septic tank is. With green spray paint he put a dot right where the septic tank began, took two steps west and said "here is where the manhole is...6.9 feet underground" and put a big X on the ground (right in one of those holes that I dug earlier). We were going to have the person that we bought our house from bring in a back-hoe and dig down to the tank 6.9 feet down to find our man hole except for one problem...from all the research we had done we knew that the tank had a standpipe which extends the manhole up 5-5.5 feet up from the tank so I told them before you come in and start digging we were going to dig a really big hole looking for the standpipe so they didn't come in and tear the standpipe off of the tank. We dug a great big hole about 3-4 feet in diameter around the X and about 3-4 feet deep in the deepest spot. We could not find the manhole and about gave up when Monique called her brother to revive our search party and bring dinner (thanks by the way lamb-chops were yummy). He dug around and down and around and down and still couldn't find anything. It was getting late when he said "I wonder what would happen if we dug were the dot is and see what is under the start of the tank" Well not in so many words and we started to dig a hole around the dot and within 1.5 feet we ran right into a big concrete lid. At last we found the standpipe, well actually Monique's Brother found it for which we are very grateful. Two days later the tank pumper came again to pump from the uncovered gem, the hidden mine of unwanted waste, the bane of my existence for a few days. At which point the person paying for the pumping action put up a huge fight because she didn't want to pay for them to locate the tank when we already knew where it was we just really wanted to know where the lid was. The tank pumper almost left before the pumping took place except that the paying party was on his cell phone complaining to the company owner.

In the end we got our septic tank pumped, we got a really big hole in our back yard, and the person paying for everything got a huge discount. Next up, clean out the lines and inspect our plumbing. It's been a crappy few days.

(Note: I didn't take any photos of the septic tank, I am sorry)

This is McKenzie's first experience with grass! She didn't like it very much.

Along with only 3 more weeks of school left means only 3 more weeks until I ship to Ft. Benning, GA. Although this is not an event that we are both looking forward to, it is an event that we both cannot wait to be over so really the count down is 13 weeks and counting HOORAH!

This is a snow storm in the end of April!

The snow is starting to creep up the Mountains and around here that means Spring time has finnaly arrived and with it that means I can actually see sunlight before I go to work, lighter later in the evening, and warmer weather (although that doesn't come until June or July here).

McKenzie really likes Jello!

So with all that on your mind Happy May everybody!