Weekend guests and a small (?) problem...

Tomorrow it will be 3 weeks since we've officially lived here, hard to believe!  I'm not anywhere near being completely moved in, and it just doesn't matter, we don't have any deadlines to meet so we can move when we get around to it.  I've decided not to move anything this week in the hopes that my back will get back to normal if I rest for a week.  That doesn't mean that I can't boss Rod and Chris around and have them move things for me! 

Last week was spent getting ready for our first overnight guests who were arriving on Friday evening and staying until Sunday, my sister Deb, her husband Bob, and their daughter Donna from Dalton, Ohio came to visit, and we girls were going to practice making crepe paper flowers for Donna's upcoming wedding in June.  My other sister Linda was actually our first official visitor, but not an overnight guest.

I was very busy on Friday, I had a lot to do before company arrived but had everything tightly scheduled and knew I could be ready when my sis arrived if I stayed on that schedule.  Chris didn't have school that day, while he enjoyed sleeping in I started laundry, cleaned the kitchen up, and swept and mopped the floors.  Then we both took showers and headed to Edinboro to pick up our new glasses and a few things at the grocery store...I was exactly on schedule...to good to be true, right?

When we got home- following my plans- I started to finish the cleaning, then I was going to prepare all the food for the weekend so that I could be free to make paper flowers and when it was time to eat everything would be ready, all I'd have to do was pull out the food and put it in the oven.  Sooo, I started a load of laundry (the sheets for our beds!), started the dishwasher, and was cleaning the hall bath when the alarm on the washing machine went off.  A code was flashing, telling me that there wasn't any water in the machine...  I turned everything off, called Rod- who was on his way home from work, and told him we had NO WATER, and asked him what I should do (yes, I was panicked!).  He had me flipping breakers, changing fuses, checking gauges, but still no water. We hung up, Rod called our contractor Chris Fuller, and he said he'd be here in 40 minutes, which was about 30 minutes before Rod got home, and about 60 minutes before our weekend guests arrived...

The end result was that the problem was not discovered that night, Chris said he'd be back Saturday morning.  Rod went to the store and bought bottled water and filled two 5 gallon buckets with water at a friends house to use for toilet flushing.  I did not prepare any food ahead of time, our bedsheets were partially washed and still in the washing machine, and we had to be very careful with our toilet flushing!  So much for my schedule...  Our guests are very laid back and adapted to the situation just fine, I tried to look on the bright side and said things like,"at least we have electricity", and it wasn't to long before we all went to bed.

The next morning was windy and snowy, Chris Fuller came back, and since the night before they had determined the pump and other things were not the problem, they pulled something up out of the well to check that.  That also wasn't the problem, so...what was the problem?

 Chris Crouse, Chris Fuller, Bob Horst, and Rod kneeling.

They finally decided the problem was in the transformer, and had to call the electric company, who came right out.  They found that when they had hooked up the power to the new house that something hadn't been done correctly that involved the water pump, that connection had got wet, and on the day that we were getting company, shorted out... They fixed the problem, everyone went home, the guys came inside where I was spending my time preparing food and Deb and Donna were making flowers.  The rest of the week end was sunny and relaxing, and I give thanks for water that comes out of the spigot when you turn the handle..

Donna and Deb concentrating on making flowers.

Bob and Harley concentrating on relaxing in a sunbeam, and I think Bob was drying out his pant legs!

Deb got marker on my new counter top!  She promised me it could be removed with bug spray, plus all insects would be repelled from that spot.  The stain was removed, and I haven't seen any insects there...

Sunday evening; this type of spectacular sunset is what we usually have here on Brown Hill, but the first since we've lived here!  The end to a really crazy week end!

P.S. Within minutes after posting this our power went off, and just came back on after three hours without electricity...  So, what's next?