I'm having a bad, bad day (think "Despicable Me")

Mark went by the pump station for the water upgrade system for the City of Richland.  This is the issue that continues to hold us up from building our new home.  All of the pipe has been laid, but the pump station needs to be expanded in order to meet demand.  The city engineer told Mark to go by the station and when he sees activity to give him a call and they would talk about when we could start building.  So, Mark has gone by almost daily for a couple of weeks.  There is an addition to the current pump station that we assumed was for our water project.  When Mark stopped by today the project manager was there.  Mark asked him when the project would be completed and the manager proceeded to tell him, "Oh, this pump is not for your neighborhood.  It is for a project in West Richland.  We haven't even started on yours yet.  It will be another couple of months."  BOOOOO!!!!  And later today we met another lot owner who will build right across the street from us.  He has a piece of paper from the city that says they hope to be completed by September 1.  Needless to say we are quite discouraged by this news.  Wish we could sell the lots and buy somewhere else, where we could start building now.  We will have to go out and re-bid everything now, which makes Mark pretty sad.  We have put up a "For Sale" sign on the second lot in that same neighbor hood.  If you know anyone who is interested it is a 1/2 acre lot in the Reata Ridge Development let me know.  It is in a cul-de-sac and you will never have neighbors to one side because of a small "valley" bordering the lot.  It has a horse trail behind the lot.  You will have a good looking house to one side (if we are ever able to build!).  Now I just pray that the little bit of sanity I have left doesn't disappear.  On the plus side...there is a pool at this complex!

Life has been BUSY!!

This is my boy...ready to play the Wii. He loves to be naked and even wears this helmet in the car. I guess you can never be too safe all strapped in a 3 point harness car seat!

Kehli participated in the 5th grade choral festival. It was fun to go and listen to her sing "oldies" like Lean on Me and It's My Life.

Kehli got back to WA just in time to complete the D.A.R.E. program with her first grade class. She was chosen to be the runner up from her class to read her essay out loud, but turned it down because she was too nervous to read it in front of everyone. At the assembly they gave the runners-up a medal so she was sad that she had turned it down. Oh well.

We took the kids up to see Grand Coulee Dam and stopped at Dry Falls on the way. The picture above is of everyone standing out on a ledge with the falls behind them. It doesn't look so big in the pic, but it is HUGE. Wikipedia says this about it:

"Dry Falls is a 3.5 mile long scalloped precipice in central Washington, on the opposite side of the Upper Grand Coulee from the Columbia River, and at the head of the Lower Grand Coulee. Ten times the size of Niagara, Dry Falls is thought to be the greatest known waterfall that ever existed. According to the current geological model, catastrophic flooding channeled water at 65 miles per hour through the Upper Grand Coulee and over this 400-foot (120 m) rock face at the end of the last ice age. At this time, it is estimated that the flow of the falls was ten times the current flow of all the rivers in the world combined."

It would be so cool to watch videos of the big floods that came down from Montana so many years ago. Mark says when he dies that is one that he is going to rent from the celestial video store. The picture below was taken in the visitor center at the dam.

We spent most of our Spring Break in Quincy at Mark's parents house. We did some yard work, rode dirtbikes & four-wheelers, relaxed, and ate like pigs! I think I gained 5 pounds in a few days. It was great to have somewhere to go that had space and the kids had a great time.

We celebrated Easter today and spent the weekend hunting eggs, decorating cookies, dyeing eggs, and wearing pretty new dresses!

We went to Chick Day at Basin Feed back in March and the kids had a great time. They got to hold the chicks and baby ducks, pet puppies and rabbits and have hot dogs for lunch. It was a great excuse to get out of the apartment for a couple of hours.