Life in the Parsons house...

(repost from myspace)

life in the Parsons house...

Current mood:amused

The 3-month mark. Some days it seems like more than 3 months, sometimes less. But everyone says that.

Went to Kentucky Memorial Day weekend and stay at the cabin the whole weekend. It was so peaceful and relaxing. Hit the drive-in Saturday night and saw Indiana Jones. The *perfect* drive-in movie. Loved it!! People asked if I'd recommend it. Sure, everyone who loves Indy should see it, but lower your standards a bit or you'll be disappointed. It rates third out of the four Indiana Jones moves. (Temple of Doom being the worst. And yet, I had to watch it again recently...)

Sunday was a reunion of sorts with Jason's family. I got to meet some new people on his mom's side. All very nice people. They all talk in low tones and they're very laid back. I took this as an opportunity to not have to chat with people and just sat and listened all afternoon. There are times I feel obligated to be "on" and entertain the people around me. I figured that afternoon I'd have to be "on" but thankfully didn't need to be. Jason did most of the talking and I just shared wedding pictures.

Monday was quite the adventure with taking Jason truck to his parents' house get their lawn mower. The truck is old, and for some unknown reason is caked with mud on the inside. Yes, INSIDE of the cab. I got my neat sheet (water proof picnic blanket) out of my car and set it on my seat. It didn't have much cushion left, so this also helped. I couldn't believe the truck ran, but it did and got us to about 10 minutes before his parents' house - then we had a flat tire.

We have AAA and within half an hour we were on our way again. Amazing, huh? Another perk of a small town. The guy that came to rescue us even invited us over to their family's truck washing. He said the kids were happy as long as they were getting wet. Do kids wash trucks in Dayton? Probably just take them to the local car wash. Wait, do they have car washes in Olive Hill? I don't remember seeing any...

In our driving back and forth we drove through the area hit by the tornado. We could see the path by the damage left behind. It apparently crossed the road, but then stayed along the road for awhile. There were tree stumps everywhere - from the trees that had falled across the road being cut down. I tried to count the stumps along the road - more than 50.

I wish I had my camera, but maybe an out-of-towner gawking and taking pictures of the damage would cause more pain for those who were hit. People were still cleaning up their yards on Memorial Day. The greenhouse had plastic back on the frame. And the debris was still in the trees that were standing.
Lastly in the adventures of the Parsons house, we got a hot tub. It's my dad's old hot tub that he wanted to get rid of. The hot tub itself is about 17 years old, but the electronics is only 5 and the motor and pump are 3 years old. We got an incredible price (Dad was just happy to have his back patio clear) and there is now a hot tub on our back patio. Yay!!

Huge thanks to: Tim (and Sarah), Rob (and Heather), Jonathan (and Becca), Charay, Ralph, and Don. And of course Jason who got the truck and put up with me changing my mind as to where the hot tub should go... Thank you guys!!!

I got home from work Friday night and started cleaning the tub and then rinsed it out. I couldn't figure out how to drain the tub. We looked for the plug, called Dad's cell phone and left voice mail. Crawled around some more and then called Dad's home phone and left voice mail. Poked and turned things and still nothing, so I called Claire's cell phone. She said Dad always used a hose and if there's a plug, they're not aware of it. Oh. No wonder we couldn't find it. So Jason used a bucket to drain it. We'll get a siphon with a pump and a long hose next time we want to drain it.

I had plans with girl friends and I left around 7pm. (Actually, Jason was supposed to come, but REALLY didn't want to. Used the excuse of working on the hot tub to stay home.) I got home after 11pm to the report that the hot tub was full, but the jets weren't working. The motor was running but nothing was coming out of the jets.

The next morning Jason got brave and got into the water (63 degrees - he was singing soprano for awhile) and took the top of the intake off. He cleaned it off and the jets started working! We went to bed Saturday night with the temp in the 80's. So a little over 2 degrees/hour. We figured out that with the wind, if we would have put the top on, it probably would have warmed up faster. (We left the top off so we could keep checking the temperature...)

Sunday morning we checked and the temp was 101. (I think we set it at 102, but have reset it for 98.) I did the spa shock before we went to church and then added chlorine and the ph/alkalinity stuff after lunch. It took a couple applications to get the levels right, but by 4pm we were good to go. We noticed that when the top was off the temperature dropped from 102 to 99 and it didn't go back up until we put the top back on.

We've decided we need a floating cup holder (do those things even work?) and some kind of steps up to the spa (can double as a table if we don't find cup holder). We also probably need to get a new lid, though putting it back on the hot tub has been a good exercise in communication. (We need more practice... "push it my way, MY way" and then I get squished between the lid and the wall.)