A tiny little update

Happy Superbowl Sunday! We're currently preparing our house for our party this afternoon. I baked chocolate chip cookies, which turned out decent..I've been struggling with high altitude baking techniques and as a result, I've had many batches of cookies come out looking flat as pancakes. Speaking of cooking..we like to use our broiler to make garlic bread. Unfortunately,our broiler doesn't work quite right. By that, I mean it explodes. Let me explain this better..Courtney turned on the broiler, and seconds later, an ear drum breaking sonic boom erupted from the stove and flames shot out. Everything on our fridge flew off, the grates flew off the stove..and I screamed at the top of my lungs. I half-way ran over to see if Courtney survived the explosion (I was convinced she was dead or on fire..seriously), saw that she was okay, then ran and paced back and forth screaming "what should we do? we need to get out of here!" Then I ran outside and found Ron, who came sprinting inside to help us. By that time, Courtney had already calmly put out the fire with some H2O like a pro. So, that was incident number one. The next broiler adventure happened while Court's dad was here (along with her Uncle John, Kevin Birky, and Joel Heim, who came to work on Ms. Roy's house). We were trying to make garlic bread.. and we thought we had fixed the problem with the stove. But, we were wrong. This time, Tom was standing in front of the stove after the broiler was turned on, and of course, it exploded again. First came the sound of the giant atom bomb, the oven door blew open and hit big Tommy, flames shot out, Uncle John yelled and ran away, and we all just stood in shock for a second. Looking back on it now, the whole situation is pretty funny..but at the time, I think all of us were scared to death. The moral of the story is..if your broiler blows up your oven once, don't try to use it again.

Like I mentioned above, Mr. Tom Gant, his brother John, Kevin Birky, and Joel Heim drove out last week to help Ms. Roy (the kindergarten teacher) with her house. By the time the week was over, Ms. Roy had electricity for the first time, broken windows replaced, a patched roof, and many other necessary things. Ms. Roy and her daughters, Jerrine and Leilani, were beyond excited and happy to have these guys help them out. We are so thankful that these guys were willing to come all the way out here to sacrifice time, energy, and money. We definitely enjoyed having them here..and they're hoping to make another trip out before we're home for good.

Not much else has happened lately..just busy at the school. My parents are coming next week, then Cari and Jordan a week later, and then for Spring Break Court and I are going to visit her grandparents in Florida!

Well..I've got to go vacuum and prepare for our guests! Expect another post in a week or so..


love,
Lauren and Court