Tonight I attended Jack's winter concert. This was his first concert playing the cello. He did excellent! No surprise, given that he was recently awarded the first chair position. I took videos, sorry if they are blurry from the low lights.

We emerged from the school into our own snowy woods, with fat wet flakes falling fast. At home, Jack enjoyed a Blizzard ice cream that Ben brought him to celebrate the concert.

Last weekend we went to Salt Lake City to have a fun day with our friends, Nate and Miranda. No other reason, just that I missed them and asked for us all to get together for a short trip.

SLC is such a cute city. We went from cafe to shop to restaurant all day. Lots of catching up and laughter with good friends. I had a great time. Only it made me miss the days when we could hang out casually all the time.

The kids did very well taking care of themselves and the cats while we were gone for 48 hours. Amanda kindly stopped by to check on their health and safety, before taking them to throw axes and eat donuts. What a good aunt!

Continuing our streak of plumbing disasters, the morning after we returned from Seattle, Ben found a large puddle/mini floor in the basement.

We couldn't see an obvious source for the water. We always suspected there was a drain in the floor, so I started slashing away the carpet. Nothing. Just ancient vinyl and a concrete floor. I slashed farther, trying to find the dry borders. Not the walls, not the fridge, not the boiler-room...we had no idea where it came from. We set up fans to dry the room and puzzled on the source.

Later I showed the kids the problem and noticed a slightly raised portion after it had dried out. I dug into the spot and lo, a drain! Huzzah! The concrete had been blended into some kind of subfloor, maybe gypsum board, to make a level surface over the drain.

We had a plumber snake the drain, as well as the main line leaving the house. We decided to repair the floors ourselves. It took a long time, devoting an afternoon here, a morning there, to each step of the repairs.

I'm very happy to have the project done, 7 1/2 weeks after the flood. We're happy to have the drain uncovered and waterproof flooring around it. Curses to the previous homeowners who thought covering a drain is a good idea!! Idiots!