Anyone know where Noah is? I need to borrow his arc….

So, it appears that the rain has finally stopped. The rain started on Friday last week sometime and we had non-stop rain until Wednesday. I think that we had about 8 or so inches of rain around here, although I’m not really sure because we didn’t really put out anything to measure it. Behind our house, there is a dip/trench that runs between the properties and on down to the storm drain. The problem lies in the fact that since not all the properties have sod in the backyards since they’re not yet finished, there’s all sorts of junk that gets washed downhill to clog the drain. When that happens, it overflows, of course. Two of our neighbors however, are in the path of the water that overflows. Every time, the water would flow over the edge of the basin, down the hill, around and between our two neighbors houses out to the front and into the road…which is how the landscapers planned it. It just sucks since they end up having a river flowing through their backyards. We were lucky in that respect. The water just drains off of our backyard. Btw... our house is the first on the right. This picture is taken from our friends' house.

I heard the other day that the Philadelphia area, where we used to live, has just had the worst flooding that they’ve had in 15 years. Apparently, the Skuylkill river that runs right through Philadelphia was 15 feet over flood stage the other day as well. Too bad I can’t send some rain on home to Arizona where they are currently experiencing a terrible drought (what’s new though?). Hopefully their monsoons will start up soon and not fizzle out like in years past (knock on wood). It’s weird how fickle the weather can be. One area that has plenty of rain keeps on getting more and another that doesn’t ever get any, never gets enough. Oddly enough, I think that we got near as much rain in under a week that Tucson gets in a whole year...which I've learned is about 11 inches. In the drought map up above, Tucson is in the red area in Arizona. Ugh!

Oooh Aaaah Comfort!!!

So, I have a moment free right now and I thought I'd fill you all in on a couple of things.
We got the infamous bed in this last weekend. I was never really happy with the way that our room had turned out in the beginning and I could never really figure out why. Well, when we got the bedframe in this weekend, we put the bed on it, dressed it up and everything fell into place. It looks fantastic and I'm going to include a picture here for you to see. I was saying to Dave that when you lie on it, it feels like a waterbed, except that it has some kind of thick gel inside. What's more is that when you climb into it, you expect that bouncy feeling you usually get with a matress, but are almost shocked when it just gives way to you and molds to you. Interesting.

I had also ordered a birdbath to go along with my birdfeeder. I went to put it in the ground today and turns out it was a pricey pile of crap instead of a cheap one... so I'm returning it. I'll have to see what I can find. I think the whole neighborhood, birdwise, is eating at the feeder now. It seems like just yesterday that I filled the feeder and it's almost empty again!

We went out to dinner tonight at a great Thai restaurant in Perry Hall called Bouala's. A woman from our neighborhood owns it. We went with our friend Rae and our other friend Suzie with her newborn of 1 month Isabelle. Beautiful little girl.

Beds, Gardens & More!

So we finally broke down and ordered a KING SIZE bed! The only difference is that we decided to get one of those Tempur Pedic beds. My parents have one and so does one of my sisters and they seem to like it a lot so we thought we'd try it. The only problem is that we also had to get a new bedframe for it... since the two of us are genetically, yes genetically, incapable of getting only what we need for now. I'm convinced that it is written into our DNA that we must go all the way and get everything that we want. That said, we DIDN'T get the mechanized bed that tilts up. Not so much our style. So, now we're poor until Daddy Warbucks sells another house.

Speaking of houses, the air conditioning finally got fixed. As it turns out, the leak was behind the tiled shower. Fortunately, they didn't have to break through the tile, but were able to go into the drywall over the tile and fix it.

The next thing that's coming down the pipe is a fence. We would like to have one so that 1) the dogs can run around the yard w/out being hampered by a leash and 2) so that I can finally start working on a garden. I already have some plants started in pots so that by the time I get around to planting them, they'll be semi-large and somewhat established. So far, I have three climing red roses, nine Hydrangeas (some red, and some that change color depending on the season), and a boysenberry bush that I brought from the other house. It's actually producing right now. The other day, Dave's mom and nephew were in town. I took off all the ripe berries, smashed them up and put sugar on them and let it make a nice boysenberry sauce and then drizzled it over vanilla icecream. Delicious!

Have I mentioned about how I got a birdfeeder a few weeks ago? I had seen a nice one at Lowe's, but every time that I went, they were out of stock and only had the display model. Oddly enough, you can't order one from the internet unless it is actually stocked in the store that's near you. Now tell me, why in the heck would I go on the internet to buy something that's in my local store and pay shipping costs on top of that?!?! Go figure. Finally the birdfeeder came in and I put it out in my very empty yard. I was afraid that no birds would come to use it since there are no trees close to our house. Fortunately some house finches came by...and I think that they told all of their friends, because I had to refill it yesterday. :0) Dave's mom was kind enough to get me a quick-reference Baltimore area bird guide so that I could identify which birds were coming by. That was very nice of her. Now, I only need binoculars! Anyhoo... I have to go help Dave paint one of the bedrooms. It's called "Lazy Woods" by Duron... sorta a mossy green... muted... not strong.

Wine-ing and dining

We have a winery close to our place in Maryland called Boordy Vineyards. Today, they started up their annual summer concert/wine tasting series. Each weekend on Saturday and Sunday in the evenings, they play music (and have different music each week) and this week was 80's music. Of course, we had to go. Our friends Kelly and Joe were giong and invited a few friends. It was a potluck event and I made a salad. It was great; we staked out a huge area on the grass and were able to walk around, meanwhile, other people had these teeny little spaces because they didn't plan well enough ahead when they got there....too bad! I decided to have some Reisling... because I find that I've been tending towards the sweeter wines lately...atleast for the white wines. I took along a plastic wine glass that I have...on that has a light in the base that changes color... really neat when it starts getting dark. EVERYONE WAS JEALOUS! (Except for the ones that had the same glass, I suppose:) It was just nice not having to think about anything and just having a good time with friends... again. I wish that this was a picture of the winery... unfortunately they didn't have any good ones on their site for me to include.

Take me out to the ballgame!

I kept on thinking that I'd have time to get to this sooner than I did, but here I am. The professional baseball team in Baltimore is the Orioles. I don't get downtown as often as I'd like to see games, but his last Tuesday, Dave and I were fortunate enough to be invited to a baseball game by Dave's office manager MaryJo. We went after work with her and her husband. What's different about this time is that these were skybox tickets to see the game. Apparently, Dave's company, Long & Foster own a skybox and the person in charge passes them out to various people. It seems that MaryJo invited Dave and I because Dave has been doing so well at work and I guess she wanted to show her appreciation. It was a nice gesture and I was so proud of David for doing so well at work. So, the Orioles were playing the Toronto Blue Jays and just before the game, they played the national anthems of Canada and then the States. As they were singing our anthem, it occured to me that we were standing not a half mile from where our national anthem was written during a British attack on Ft. McHenry in 1814. I don't tend to be overly patriotic, but as I was listening to that song and thought about the historical significance of the area, I almost got emotional... maybe it was that time of the month or something. ;) Well, since the Orioles suck, we naturally lost 4 to 6, but it was a good game and time well spent.

There's a first for everything...

Well, I was so impressed by my friend Ryan's (& Emma's) blog and realized what a great idea it was great way to keep family members and friends in the know about what's going on in your life...especially if you rarely get to see them. Ryan & Emma live out in Portland Oregon, so pretty much as far as you can go from Dave and I, without landing in the Pacific Ocean. :) So, where to start?
Most of you already know that David and I recently built a house in a new single family home development. We really love our new place and I'm really looking forward to filling up all the free space outside with my gardening. It's going to take a lot of work, but it's well worth it to sit out on a nice cool evening, seeing all the flowers blooming, the birds chirping, the dogs running on the grass and hanging out with good friends.
So... rewind back to the present time. :( We're still getting used to our place and it's getting used to us too. Much as we like this place, I'm starting to think that next time... if there is a next time, we're buying a pre-existing home. The builders have had to come by and fix so many things... most of the time, making it worse than it was before they started fixing it. Case and point... it just recently started getting hot enough to turn on the a/c in the house. The house is dual-zone cooling and heating, meaning that there's a unit up in the attic and one in the basement. Well, we turned on the air over the weekend while we went up to Erie, PA for Dave's sister's wedding since we knew that the dogsitters were going to be staying here. When we got back, we noticed that on the main floor, in the office, the paint was blistered from the ceiling 3/4 of the way down to the floor. I felt the blister and it was full of water! Turns out the condensation pipe for the upstairs unit, which travels through the wall, was leaking. So, we can only turn on the downstairs unit. Nevermind that hot air rises... So, we have the a/c guy come out and he can't reach the pipe from where he's busted the wall in, but he thinks he's isolated the leak. He can't reach it because he would have to bust in the wall of our tiled shower. *sigh* So, they're coming on Wednesday and of course, Dave has to take off... again. Hopefully it gets fixed this time because we're having a full house this weekend.
Dave's Mom, nephew Ethan, sister Laurie and her husband Mike are coming for David's other twin nephew's 4th birthday. It'll be a good time and fun will be had by all, to be sure.