Oh, dear faithful readers. I'm so sorry to have offended you by my negligence for ten whole days. I'm certain that this has caused a drop in readership from the three of you to just two now. Uuurgh. Guess I'm going to have to think of something racy to get you back!

So, where have I been these 10 days? No where really. I mean I was busy deceiving the home study lady into believing that I've mastered the art of housekeeping, and we did take our beautiful little African love to A's work's family picnic where the guy dressed up as a fuzzy shark (really--who ever heard of hair on a shark?! must be a new mammalian species...) scared the living daylights out of her, and I have begun work on the great room curtains which are turning out better than I'd envisioned (thanks to the sage advice of my much more experienced twin!), and we finally decided that we had decided to hitch our wagon to "church #1" and will soon begin attending a life group there, and we finally resolved our issues with Lumber Liquidators, and we attended a preschool-mate's birthday party, but, ya know, nothing worthy of keeping me from you, my adoring public, and the future-versions of my loving children.

Speaking of my loving children, Pea has another beyond-cute language adaptation: gamana and it's cousin gamana bread. :) Just typing it in makes the corners of my lips twitch.

And, speaking of church things, yes, we're putting our roots down. There was something more than just "style" issues that just wasn't jiving with us in "church #2." Both A and I feel very comfortable in "our" church and there is definitely potential for growing friendships there--and for growing spiritually. A had a good talk with the pastor the other day and, while I think there may not have been a "right" and a "wrong" way to go in this, I'm glad we are where we are.

Regarding Lumber Liquidators... Aaaah! The saga! I'm just glad it's over and I feel it was settled reasonably. I didn't want to share about the situation until it was over, ever wishing that it would somehow get better, which it sorta did. So, ya know, like at least 50% of our main floor is the beautiful teak laminate that we bought from LL. Well, A installed some of it before we brought the kids home and after Punk had driven some of his multudinous cars all over it, we discovered "tracks" or skid marks or whatever, everywhere his toys had been. I did try to clean them (contrary to my normal method of not mopping until absolutely necessary), but to no avail. Then, we noticed the same thing happening under my desk chair. Now, silly me, I somehow (advertising?) got the crazy idea that laminate was impervious to such damage, making it the preferred product (vs. actual wooden wood) for those with kids or pets or kids that act like pets or pets that act like kids. So. I was severely disappointed in the performance of my brand new, incompletely installed LL laminate flooring. So, we did what any reasonable consumer does; we called Customer Service. They assured us that they would send someone out to check and see if the damage was covered by the warranty. And, we waited. And, we waited. And, we waited. And no one called or came to look at our poor scarred floor. And, meanwhile, we put no more floor down, lest we have to take it back up. Finally we decided they weren't coming, and anyway, a flooring guy in town (without seeing it) said he figured it was normal and not covered by the warranty. So, we installed the rest of the flooring, choosing to believe the marks aren't that bad and that it was just the surface, blah, blah, blah. Upon completion of the floor, we celebrated! And, we celebrated that we had piles of unopened leftover boxes to return for a much-needed refund.

And, thus begun the second disappointment in Lumber Liquidators service. We, all four of us, drove the two hours to the LL store, weighed down with nigh-a-ton of flooring in our "fuel-sipping" mini-van, only to discover that it had been more than a surely-generous 30 days since we had bought the stuff and no return would be possible! They keep this flooring in stock! It's a very popular choice! They'd have no trouble reselling it, whereas we, humble engineer and adoption consultant that we are, would have much trouble finding a buyer for it. But, no. 30 days. That's all you get, bub.

Needless to say, we called Customer Service from the parking lot. Unfortunately, it happened to be a Saturday and the only person on the planet who could approve such a break of the rules wouldn't be able to get back to us until Monday or Tuesday, necessitating another 4-hour-round-trip at a later date--IF she waved her magic wand. Now, let me ask you why it took us more than 30 days to install the crummy stuff? Yes, that's right, because LL never got back to us to send their "inspector" to see my scars. Grrrrrrr.

Well, after several conversations with A, the refund fairy did decide that they could humbly take back our pile, and she even waived the 20% restocking fee we would have had to pay if we were inside the teensy-weeny 30 day window. Phew. I don't know what more they could have done to make me feel better, but I won't be using their services again. And, I have the scars to prove it.

In order to end on a more positive note, let me tell you about the birthday party. Punk has developed a deep affection for a little girl in his class whom we shall call M. M happens to have a dear little sis, whom we shall call H, that happens to be in Pea's class. Pea was very slow in warming up to her classmates, but when she came out of her shell, it was apparent that she'd grown fond of H. What could be more perfect?! So, I mentioned to M and H's mom last week that my two adore her two and at the next drop-off, she brought an invite to H's birthday party! I tried to keep this a secret because (1) I hate to build up anticipation if something might not happen (A was wanting to return the LL surplus the day of the party and we only have the one vehicle) and (2) no other classmates were invited and I didn't want to create a problem at school. But, Punk found the invite. I was already hearing all about how we needed to get their phone number and get together and go to their house and on and on. Then, it was how many days til the party, how many days til we go to M's house... :) Well, they had a blast and we're doing a picnic at the park Friday after school. How great is it that my two found a pair of sisters to be friends with? I love it!