The Kassel Family Project Life 365

The new dishwasher is in and installed!  Yay!  And not a minute too soon…  The old one was in *bad* shape complete with leaks and scorch marks.

While working on cleaning and organizing under the kitchen sink, Laura and I discovered a leak coming from the garbage disposal.  I sent Laura to get Andy after I realized just how big of a leak it was.  We showed it to him and then put a bowl underneath it to catch the water so that we could at least use the kitchen sink.  As you probably already guessed, Andy’s plans for today changed to include buying and installing a new garbage disposal.  It took about two hours, but we are back in business with no water leaks.  Despite having to replace another kitchen “appliance,” I have to admit that I do love the new garbage disposal!

Today was a day of planning and preparation.  Laura has three Brownie badges to do on her own, so we spent most of the morning and part of the afternoon planning and preparing for the activities to complete the badges.  We took trips to Michaels, Home Depot, and Target to get all the supplies that we need to begin.  The activities start tomorrow!  First up, we clean and organize underneath our kitchen sink and, then, I get to teach her to cross stitch.

John is having a sleepover tonight with Brayden, one of our neighbors.  Lots of playing and Wii!  When I stopped the boys long enough to take a picture, Brayden asked, “Why?”  John said, “Oh, she just takes pictures.” Yes, yes, I do. It made me smile.

I cannot believe that the time has arrived.  It is Back to School Night.  We went to Ridgeway Elementary at 5:30 to see the kids’ classrooms, deliver school supplies, and complete paperwork.  Also, we signed John up for Cub Scouts!  There are just a few more days of summer left.  Where did the time go?

We took the kids floating down the Current River today.  We took the Cedar Grove to Akers Ferry route, which takes about 3-5 hours.

We arrived at Akers Ferry right about noon and checked in.  Once the bus dropped us off at Cedar Grove, we began our float.  It was the perfect day for floating as the weather was just about 80 degrees, the sky was as blue as could be, and there were very few others floating.  We stopped not too long after we began to eat lunch.  The kids ate quickly and could not wait to get in the water.

After loading back up in the canoe, we floated on down the river and stopped a couple of other times before arriving at Welsh Spring.  Laura decided that she wanted to walk across Welsh Spring despite the cold, cold water!  She and Andy headed off to the other side to check out the cave.

While we waited for Andy and Laura to return, I took a few pictures.

When Laura returned from the other side of the spring, she said, “I can’t feel my legs!”  We told her it was because the water was so cold that her legs were numb.  She thought that was pretty funny.

After Welsh Spring, we stopped one more time and arrived back at Akers Ferry just a little before 6 pm.  We cleaned up and headed back home, stopping for dinner in Rolla.  We got home at 10 pm and went straight to bed.  It was a long, exhausting day, but it was so worth it.  A fun day and a new experience for the kids!

Two days of birthday presents!  A big thank you to Uncle Ian, Aunt Amanda, and Jack for our awesome birthday presents from Amazon.com!  John got a Rock Crawler remote control car and Laura got a mini Isabelle doll from American Girl!