38 Years

Yesterday I bid farewell to my 38 year old Maytag washer and dryer. Yes, they were old, but they still worked. The heat element in the dryer went out last Thursday, so instead of paying to have it repaired we decided it was time for a new set. The washer still worked great, although it had been leaking for some unknown reason for the last 8 or so months. I was sad to say goodbye to my trusted companions, but I am excited to have new machines both with much larger capacities. So for family history sake I took some pictures of the old set. They have been used by many people in our family. I also added some pictures of my new set. Yes, they don't look much different from the old, other than being white. I went with a commercial grade washer and dryer. The brand is Speed Queen. From all my research (that I have been doing for months to be prepared when the old ones died), these new machines have a longer warranty (3 years) and are suppose to last much longer than any of those fancy front loaders. I didn't need fancy, just something simple that will get my clothes clean. I guess only time will tell how good they are, but I am pretty sure they won't last 38 years. Farewell to my olive green cleaning machines!

The old and the new.

School must be in because...

One of my biggest complaints about the kids starting school (besides having to get up early, be on a schedule, carpool, do homework, etc...) IS we all end up sick in the first month or so!!! Nate started us off by not feeling well near the end of August. He just felt off and low on energy. Then Ashlyn started with a fever the last week of August. She wouldn't eat, was grumpy, and had a funny stomach. By the time she started acting normal again Liam started with a fever. His sickness hit just as we were headed to Bear Lake for Labor Day weekend, so he spent the whole weekend (plus two days of missed school) with a high fever and no appetite. I finally took Liam to the doctor thinking that he must have strep, but alas the test came back negative. The doctor still put him on an antibiotic because he didn't know why else he would have such a high fever for so many days. Well, just as Liam came out of his funk, I got hit!! It started with my throat hurting a little and moved to my throat killing me!!! It was so painful I couldn't stand to even swallow. Long story short, I was down and out all last week. I spent a week on a liquid diet because of the painful swallowing. I went to the doc positive that I had strep, but my test came back negative too!! Luckily the doc gave me an antibiotic even before the test came back. He took one look at my throat and was convinced I had strep or something bacterial going on. It was a long week of trying to be a mom while laying on the couch feeling awful. We are all finally healthy, although if you didn't notice, I never mentioned Gavin in all this because some how he missed out, a least for the moment. :) After all that I was tempted to start home school just to avoid all the dreaded school germs. We have always been diligent about cleaning our hands when we enter the house, but now we are being even more diligent about keeping all the school germs away from the house!! Now that you have endured my long boring story, some cute pictures of my favorite girl! She is growing up way too fast.