Unfortunately, Christian's schedule for Spring Break was not going to be the same as the one our kids have. Christian had almost a week and a half off, shortly after he started, before our kids got out for their break. They got out of school as Christian had to return to his. Needless to say, we didn't get to really do anything of significance together. Christian spent the bulk of his break working on his TPA's for his certification.
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It's been an irritating month for dealing with our appliances. First, our washer started acting funny. The machine would start spinning before the water filled the washer and then it would give an extra spray of water before turning off so that all the clothes were soaking wet after the spin cycle. This happened once before, temporarily, about a year or so ago. But this time, it just seemed to get worse.
Christian had to finally take it apart and ended up adjusting a water pressure sensor on it and it started working normally again.
A few weeks later, our dryer started acting up. The heat would not come on and the stupid energy preferred accudry sensor would make the dryer tumble around with just air for hours on end because air alone would not dry the clothes. We had to dry the clothes the old fashioned way on the clothesline outside. Luckily, the weather was fairly nice out and the clothes dried pretty quickly...although, some of Caitlyn's jeans were a bit "crunchy" afterwards. Most of the other clothes had no problems though since most of the clothes these days are blended or pre-softened in some way.
Christian had to then take the dryer apart this time. He had to order some new solenoids for it, which, thankfully, solved the problem.
Luckily, Christian's new electronics hobby came into good use with everything breaking down around us. I think it started with the refrigerator a year or so ago. So Christian actually spent some of his Spring Break working on the dryer.
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We met up with my family for the Ching Ming Festival (Tombsweeping Day). The kids usually like it as they get to see the family and we usually get to go out to eat together afterwards. We got to see my dad's tombstone which was place recently.We also celebrated a belated birthday for my brother who turned 50 this year. His birthday was the week before, but we couldn't really get together and he was busy so I baked him a lemon and blueberry cake.
My brother and his kids came over the next day to put some grafts on my mulberry tree, which he originally gave me but nearly died in one of our great summer heat waves. He also grafted a couple of branches onto my loquat tree. His original graft on that one died as well but the stock was still alive and starting to fruit again. It is a little late in the year, but hopefully all the new grafts will take.
My mom decided to come out a visit since my brother was coming over. After working on the trees, we took them for a walk in the hills behind our house since the wildflowers were blooming nicely.
The flowers were even more vibrant a week before. Also, we headed up a little late in the day and some of the flowers were already starting to close up, especially the California poppies. It was still nice out though.
We pitched in to help Christian make us dinner afterwards. Well, my brother and I did. All the kids got to spend more time playing together. We had my mom sit back and relax. We had to call it a night shortly after dinner though as the kids had to go back to school the next day and my brother and Christian had to go to work.
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Other than that, the kids and I didn't do that much over their break. They did their organ practice. Caitlyn tried to catch up on her piano practice.
Marian took the day off and took us out to lunch and took the kids out for some shopping on one of the days. She also brought us some cap steaks for dinner. They were so tender, juicy and flavorful!
The kids took a little bit of their time and helped with a few things around the house. We worked together in the yard a bit and the girls washed and vacuumed up my car.
Emily was a little behind on her art projects for school, so she worked a little on that. Both did a little extra studying as finals are around the corner. Emily decided to brush up on her math for her SATs coming up by tutoring her sister in her math. Caitlyn's math teacher really sucks, so we are definitely grateful for any extra help that Emily gives to her sister who, once again, has a really bad math teacher. We took a break on one of the days, picked up some fast food and went out to the park for a picnic so that they can run around a bit. Emily wanted to get out and kick around the old soccer ball.
So, yeah, a week of busy nothings and it's over before we knew it.
