And for those who weren’t sure, that was me doing the harmony with John Denver on the 2nd verse, and both melody and harmony on the last verse of the Father Daughter dance. And the DJ totally talked right over the end, which was probably a good thing 🙂
Listen to it here
Dexter dancing with the bride.
The hot tub is up and running as of Thursday evening.
Christmas morning, Elif finally got a chance to try the hot tub. At some point right before or soon after she got it, the locking ring on the filter split, spraying water all over the area under the hot tub. GFI worked and tripped the breaker.
Luckily Justin was around and had most of the water vacuumed up by the time I got back from 10:30 Mass.
I couldn’t find the exact locking ring online so I had to wait until Tuesday morning. I called an online spa parts place out in OK and talked to the support person. I mistakenly thought the filter parts diagram they had was showing a model very close to mine so I ordered it.
It showed up on Thursday and, sure enough, it did not fit. In a last resort moment, I drove down to Feeley’s and as soon as Mark saw the broken ring, he said, “That’s a Rainbow. I think I have one left in the back.” And he did, and it fit and it was $15.
Mission accomplished.
Here are some pictures Justin took after the failure.
The line between the idea and the successful implementation of a culinary thought is pretty thin. WHDH’s The Dish segment last week had a cheddar fondue served in a pumpkin that looked delicious. I tried it Sunday. 
First I used too much garlic (4 cloves instead of 2); not sure why. It smelled really good carmelizing in the butter. Then I didn’t have any Oktoberfest beer in the house so I improvised with some seasonings and water. Last, my hands got tired shredding the pound of premium white cheddar so I bailed after about 2/3 and threw in some already shredded 4 cheese blend.
It was definitely too garlicky but it was edible. And I just couldn’t get over using the pumpkin simply as a bowl. Maybe it was the garlic but it didn’t seem to pick up any hint of pumpkin.
I guess it is good to have one of these that goes on the list NOT to make again.
Today was a perfect burn day. It rained pretty heavily on Wednesday. It was cool (around 40) and cloudy.
Here was the start of the larger of the two piles.
Art was burning too and while he and Greg Michaud were talking, this hawk swooped down, grabbed something and then it looked like it dropped it and flew to Andrew’s swing set. 
We hit a new low for trick or treaters this year, tying the all time low: 1 group of 2 kids.
Lot of candy left over.
The good news is that I got a lot of leaves raked Saturday and Sunday. There is an impressive leaf jumping pile in front of the cabana already.
Also the Media center migrated to its winter location:
Saturday we went over to Borders for Adam Tocci’s book signing. Here’s Betsy with the slightly larger than life sized Adam that Kim surprised him with:
Yep – the pool is still leaking. So my options are:
1 – spend another $225 at least to have the diver come back to try and find more pin holes. No guarantee.
2 – let the water drain, forget about closing the pool and just keep the bulk of the leaves out. In the spring, drain it all the way and see if I can find/patch the holes.
3 – If 2 or 1 didn’t work, the big hammer would be to replace the liner. It is only 12 years old and is supposedly a 25 year liner. I think it was around 3K when it was done in 1998.
Cars
The Sebring has had the oil light on for several months. Hopefully all it needs is a new oil sending switch. George noted that it was leaking a little oil last time.
Tyler brought the Focus back last week and it turns out the Check Engine light has been on for a while.
The Olds’ steering started acting funny on Friday and then it was making creaking noises at low speed. Took this to George first. Turns out I was a good bump in the road away from losing the whole engine/transmission.
Here is a picture of the bottom of the frame. The back is usually connected to the rest of the frame with 4 bolts that have a rubber cup around them that acts as a vibration damper. All 4 cups rotted away. The hole the bolt goes through rusted out on the 2 left side bolts and basically the frame dropped on that side. In the picture you can see that the support arm dropped about 4 or 5 inches. George is saving it though so it should be all better by tomorrow.
Engine/Transmission support separated from the frame
What it looks like fixed
Woody looked on with mixed feelings as the Brooklyn bunch helped out with the 2010 burning. And then he had his first washing machine experience when I left him in my jeans pocket.
Also, this spring was so wet and so early that these tulips bloomed for the first time since we I planted them (probably upside down) some 15-20 years ago.
Tulips finally bloom
Link to pics
Well we got about 7 or 8 inches of snow last night and this morning. It was light and fluffy and the Ariens had no problem at all with it.
They were predicting anywhere from 4 to 12 for us so we made sure we had all the ingredients for goodie http://laparkan.com/buy-tadalafil/ plates for various Christmas gifts.
So yesterday and today we made Chocolate Mint Squares (Grace DeMore’s recipe), Oreo balls (Alisa’s recipe except we didn’t have any sprinkles.), and the perennial favorite chocolate dipped apricots, and this we added banana chips, pineapple, mango, and papaya.
Christmas goodies