School was cancelled for the day and we all gathered around the fireplace to keep warm.
Seven hours with no running water means some serious potty dancing going on. No one wanted go outside and drop their drawers in the negative temperatures. The older girls said they wanted to pick up something at the store, but I knew what they really wanted to do!
In the afternoon I had several extra teens sprawled out in front of the fire trying to learn to play poker. Good thing the power returned before they needed to use the bathroom, too!
Friday night we hosted all the neighbors on my street for one last get-together before the one neighbor moves to Twin Falls. We also invited the new family that will be moving in, giving us a total of 26 dinner guests. It was an enjoyable evening.
Yesterday Kid 4 accidently knocked over a quart of white paint in the laundry room. The cover popped loose, leaving a spill on the linoleum and splashing some on my Bogs (winter riding boots). Kid 4 told Stable Boy, who was in the middle of something at the time and wasn't able to take care of it right away. They both forgot to tell me.
In the meantime, Riley the dog discovered the spill and promptly left a trail of white dog prints all over the laundry room before making himself comfortable on the pile of black clothes that was waiting to go in the washer. My knuckles are raw from trying to scrub the paint out of all the clothes. Somehow that dog managed to daub almost every garment in the pile, even stuff at the bottom. I don't get that!
Last night Kid 1 & 2 hosted a "Pearl Harbor Day" party for their friends. Our DVD player has been temperamental (as in sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't and sometimes it just stops right in the middle of the movie and you have to let it rest for a while) for a couple of years. Seeing as how it would be difficult to have a party where the highlight was watching the movie Pearl Harbor if the player choose not to work, I broke out one of our family Christmas presents a little early for the occasion.
I didn't realize I would end up spending half the day trying to get the silly thing to work! I even made a trip to Radio Shack thinking maybe I needed different connectors. Stable Boy finally helped me figure out that there was an "input" button on the TV remote that I needed to press to get it to the correct setting. Very frustrating.
It was worth it though, watching all the teens watch the movie. Some of them had never seen it and I think it was eye-opening for them to catch a glimpse of the history of Pearl Harbor. It was a good night.