Tree's Up!

Usually this is one of my favorite times of the year, putting up and decorating the Christmas tree.  But for some reason this year I am just not in the mood.  Maye it is because I really wanted to put the tree in front of the window this year, but we kept the same tree we have had the past few years.  So once again it got stuck in the back corner of the room.  This year, I decided to tell Sarah and Alison they could be responsible for putting up the tree while I was doing other things, like getting out all the ornaments and cleaning out the space in the basement where all the Christmas stuff belongs.  Ali started and got it about halfway up before I came p and finished putting the tree together.  Then Alison tested out all the lights while I finished things downstairs.  Then it was time for the lights.

This year I started stringing the lights from the top of the tree and worked my way down.  I thought I was good when I was about 2/3 of the way done (if not more) and I was at 1000 lights.  Unfortunately, the lower 1/3 of the tree takes the most lights.  I ended up using all the lights I had, though I don't know if that was 1800 or 2000, I lost count.  Either way the lights were all on by the end of the day Friday.  

So today the girls put on the ornaments.  I told them I didn't care what ornaments went on because we are at the point where the tree is made up mostly of their ornaments.  They put on a few of ours, well I guess more than a few, but they put them all on and arranged them.  That's another reason I wanted to put it in front of the window, we would have had more room for ornaments that we have with the tree in the corner.  Oh well, maybe next year.  

So this year's Hahn Christmas tree is brought to you by Alison and Sarah. 

Indian Invite 2013

Saturday was the first cheer competition of the year.  And when I say competition, I mean performance because as the host school, the Falls was not able to actually compete.  Their routine was just an exhibition.  And it is a good thing.  More on that in a minute.

Alison went on first with the Jr. Indian cheer team.  It was the same routine they did at Jr. Indians night at the football game this year.  They had a couple of crash practices the week before to refresh their memories, and Alison actually had to miss their first one because she had pneumonia.  But they came out and did a pretty good routine.  I'd include the video here, but it was really bad.  I have come to realize that I must have some sort of setting wrong, because the camera is supposed to record in HD, but when I look at it, I can't believe it is HD video.  I think it is probably something relating to the light settings because everything looks really washed out.

So... on to Sarah's routine.  They had one fall, which wasn't bad.  Their routine was not very heavy on the tumbling, which is quite different from last year.  And speaking of last year, one of the other squads, the Falls' main rival in fact, pretty much stole the Falls' routine from last year.  It isn't 100% the same but I would say it is about 75%-80% identical.  Sarah said something about it to me and I had to say, there is a reason they stole it, it was a winner.  I think that Sarah's squad took 1st place in all but one competition last year.  But back to the critique of their routine...  It wasn't bad, but I don't think it is as good as last year.  If they actually were competing, I wouldn't have scored them very high.  Sarah told me that they would have been in the Small JV category, and I was comparing them to the Large JV category.  I didn't pay much attention to the other small JV teams so I can't really say where they would have finished, but I'll go out on a limb and say it wouldn't have been first.  Their team was also down two girls who were concussed and were not allowed to compete.  One of the girls got kicked in the head at practice by her flyer and was still dealing with the post concussion symptoms, and the other girl just fell and hit her head, if I remember what Sarah said.

The Varsity, however, is another story.  They were awful!  I think I counted them falling six times in addition to other flubs.  I was actually embarrassed to say I was from the Falls.  I shouldn't since it wasn't my daughter messing up, but I seriously felt horrible for them.  I hear things from Sarah that I won't go into because I don't know who might come across this review, but if what she says is true, it doesn't surprise me.

So now on to the next competition, which is Dec. 7th, the UCA qualifier.  Why they compete I don't know because even if they earn a bid to nationals, the JV team doesn't go.  From what Sarah told me last year, if they get a bid, the Varsity ends up taking it, which doesn't make sense to me.  But hopefully they'll perform well, and use the Indian Invite as a stepping stone to getting better.

Garage Door

This past summer we ran into a problem with our garage door.  For a couple of weeks the electric eye wasn't working.  So we were unable to close the garage door with the remotes.  It would close, but you had to hold the button in the garage until the door was all the way down.  The remotes still worked to open the door so I dealt with having to get out of the car to close it.  Well that lasted for about a week and a half or two weeks, and suddenly the electric eye started working again, so I just left it.

I want to say it was sometime around the end of September that the eye went out again.  After a week or two, I decided that the eye was broken and I needed to get a new one.  I did hit it last winter with the snowthrower so I figured that it just took that long for the thing to finally give out.  I pulled out the instruction manual to see if I could order spare parts (it is a Genie), and there was a section for doing that, however, the only part not included was the electric eye.  Seriously, why would I need to order a spare track for the door arm, but they don't feel it necessary to include the electric eye.  So I got the 800 number to call and see if I could get a replacement, and I couldn't even get past the automated messages unless I had the model number and serial number of the door (which is located behind some panel up on the motor.  I was calling during the day from work, so I had to wait until I got home to get it.  Unfortunately, I was busy with other things when I got home and I never got around to getting the ladder out and taking the panel off.

That was back in the middle of October, because I was still working at Krueger at the time.  With the cold weather that just got here, I decided I needed to get on it.  I thought I would try looking on the Genie website and seeing if I could just order it online.  Well they didn't even list my model on their site.  As a last resort I just searched replacement Genie garage door parts.  It took me about 60 seconds to find a place to order a replacement electric eye, and in all places, Amazon.  And it only cost me $15 + shipping.  The part got here last Friday and I took the old eye and receptor out and put the new ones in in about 10 minutes.  It's working as good as new now, which is nice because it would have really sucked having to get out of the car in the snow yesterday to close the garage door before going to work.  I could kick myself for not just searching for the part online first. 

Plumbing Woes

When it comes to doing home improvement projects there are certain things that I just cannot stand doing, mainly because I suck at them.  Number one would be electrical work, either because I am afraid I'll shock myself, or I will end up wiring something wrong and end up causing a fire.  But a close second would be plumbing work, which was the main reason I hired someone to redo out bathroom.

However, Sunday morning Kris called me to the bathroom after she was done with her shower.  The tub was probably a good 3 to 4 inches deep in standing water.  I immediately thought that the girls had not put the hair strainer  in place and there was a big hair clog in there.  I tried snaking it a little bit but I didn't get anything up, so at 9:30 Sunday morning I had to go to Home Depot to look for Drano.  I was hesitant to pour it in, because if it didn't work, I was going to have a tub full of caustic chemicals.  But I did it anyway.  And as expected, it didn't work.  So I was forced to take the access panel off and take the trap apart.

I had to reach in and close the drain to keep the tub from draining while I cleaned out the pipes.  Well, unfortunately, there was no clog in the trap.  So I went from the trap back to the drain, also no clog.  So I determined that the clog was past the trap which required taking even more pipes apart to snake them. 

This was all a result (in my opinion) of the contractor not doing what I wanted with the drain.  We had a fixed, pop-up drain previously that I hated because the drain would always get clogged with the girls' hair, and I could never snake it.  And because of the pop-up drain, I couldn't use one of those plastic hair strainers.  I had asked for just a plain, flat drain, but Kris had also asked to get a drain that matched the bath fixtures so we ended up with another pop-up drain.  At least I was able to find a tub strainer, but the slits in it are bigger than I would like and I think a lot of hair still goes down the drain.

Anyway, having the access panel off at least also allowed me to finally fix another flaw that the contractor left us, that being he did not seal the bathtub overflow pipe.  Shortly after he finished We ended up with water all over because the overflow pipe leaked.  So since September no one had been able to take a bath.  I found this out all by mistake though as I was trying to fix the clog in the tub.  I was trying to go though the overflow pipe to snake the drain so I had to take the cover off which is when I found out that there was no gasket around it.  

At least now, the pipes are all clean and sealed, and it only took me 5 hours.  And at least it was less painful than watching the Packers game yesterday.

Halloween Update

Sarah finally gave me pictures if their cheer practice so if you want to see what she did for Halloween, go back and check out the Halloween post.

First Illness of the Season

November is only half over and we already have our first illness of the winter.  Alison came down with a cold earlier in the week on Tuesday.  She had testing that day as well as having it be her first day of phy ed for the semester which meant she was getting her locker assignment.  Against my better judgement I let her just take some ibuprofen and go to school.  By the end of the day she had a fever of almost 102.  So she stayed home Wednesday and Thursday.  

When Kris got home from work Thursday afternoon, Ali's temperature was over 104, so Kris called the doctor.  She was able to get the last appointment of the day at around 7:40 PM.  Her doctor said he heard her coughing in the waiting area and that she didn't sound good.  He listened extra long to her lungs and ordered a chest x-ray because he thought he heard a touch of pneumonia and wanted to make sure.  He looked at the x-ray and said it looked suspicious, but he couldn't tell for sure and the x-ray tech had gone home for the day and wouldn't be able to read the film until morning.  

Kris got the call the next day that Alison did indeed have pneumonia again.  I think that is the 4th time in the last five years she has developed pneumonia.  One other thing the doctor said was that he thought he heard a touch of asthma in Ali's breathing, and that it isn't uncommon to develop it because of the pneumonia scarring the lungs a little bit.  So that is something we will have to keep an eye on.  The tech that Kris talked to also told her that unfortunately the more you get pneumonia, the more susceptible you are to it.  So now we'll have to be very careful every time that Alison gets a cold to make sure it doesn't develop into pneumonia again.

As of this morning, though, her fever is gone and she is feeling much better after having a couple of days of antibiotics in her system.  She still has a cough, but hopefully the inhaler and antibiotics will help clear that up quickly.

Cheer Preview

Thursday night after Sarah's cheerleading practice we had a special preview of the girls' routine.  Their first "competition" of the year is this coming Saturday.  it isn't an actual competition because it is their own competition (the Indian Invite) so they can only perform as an exhibition.  The coaches asked the parents to come see their routine and learn the cheers so that we can help by cheering along.  Apparently the judges award points based on crowd participation so obviously we are going to want to help out be cheering along.

I have to say that from what I saw, they are going to need our help this year.  Their routine, in my opinion, leaves a little to be desired.  Last year's routine was much better.  This year there is less tumbling, their cheer doesn't have a lot of rhythm to it, and their dance routine is sort of simplistic.  Sarah said they have adjusted it already from what it originally was, and they will probably tweak it a little more before their first actual competition, but I don't think they'll have the same amount of success as they had last year, unfortunately.  I hope they can improve things enough to at least be respectable.