Video Games, Dead Magnolias and Fire!

Wow. That's a lot of Sims2 games. All of that got me $24 for trade in. That might be able to buy me one of these games new, but oh well. I just added it to the store credit I already had. This has been an eventful few days recently. First, I discovered that there might be a baking/cooking competition at my unit. That sent me diving into my baking books to see what I could make to win. I have a few ideas, but I'm not allowed to share (yet). I'll keep you posted on how that goes. But I'm pretty excited about it. Apparently, the person who brought the contest to my attention has decided to have a throw down with me on who will do better. Another thing is that our Magnolia tree might not be doing to well. We think it is suffering from heat stress. It looks pretty dead to me though. Actually, most of our flowers aren't doing too well. Anyway, I had Friday off and that was spent working around the house. I was finally able to put my "new" lawn mower to good use and it works wonderfully! That night though, I refilled the little gas cans and placed them in our garage for the night. Well, I forgot to move them to the shed after I was done mowing the rest of the Saturday morning (it's a big lawn. It takes me about 5-6 hours with my push mower to cut all of the grass). We went out for the day and came back to a house smelling like gas. After airing the house out, I moved all of the gas and equipment out to the shed. We went out later to try and find some shorts for Savannah (all she seems to have is skirts) and upon returning to our house, it still smelled of gas. Once again, we opened the windows to air the house out. Well, Cait jumped on the Internet (which reminds me, I need to stop her from looking at it when things aren't right. It just freaks her out even more) and found that one possible cause would be a build up of sewage gasses that could cause our house to explode. Well, that's not too good. I contacted Station 3 of the Camden County Fire & Rescue and ended up speaking with the station Chief. I presented my problem and requested that if possible could they send someone to check it out. All I was told was that someone would be there soon. 20 minutes (give or take) after that, Cait and I hear the low rumbles of diesel engines coming down the street.

Looking out the windows showed the ambulance and fire truck that you see in the picture. All we were looking for was someone in a county truck to come out. Definitely not emergency vehicles. Oh well, that's what you get for talking to the actual firehouse Chief. After a review of our air system and a tour of the house, the fire fighters stated that they believed it was the fumes from the 2 gas cans. However, they also believe that the fumes had become attached to the filters in our returns and that we should buy new filters. Following their advice, the next day there was no smell of gas in the house. Of course there was the obligatory FaceBook post (from Cait) stating that the magnolia tree was dead and the Fire Department had just left. Shortly after that post came the worried calls, texts, and responses from friends and family. Maybe we should have posted about the tree earlier...That's been the most exciting thing that happened recently. Mostly.

On another front, Cait is looking at starting her own bow making company. After spending too much money on some bows for Savannah, Cait found a simple way to make bows. Sunday afternoon was spent at Jo-Ann's obtaining all of the ribbon and stuff to make said bows. Although there is quite a bit of ribbon in the cart, the final total of items was a bit more (for the clips to keep the bows in the hair). I'll be creating a section on this blog dedicated to the bows that Cait has crafted. By the time I left for work this morning, she had crafted 3 bows and was planning on making more while I am at work. I can't wait to see what she has made. I've been told that her day has been filled with taking care of Savannah and making bows. Her page should be up in about a week or so. And with that, I leave you with a picture of Moog yelling.

- Brent