Rain In Our Kitchen

     I got up in the middle of the night to get Ella some water and noticed that the floor in our kitchen was all wet.  I didn't even think to look up, as there were no dripping sounds (and I was groggy and it was 3:00am), but I looked under and all around our sink, trying to find the source.  When I didn't find anything, I just chalked it up to something I hadn't noticed before bed and went back to bed.

     This morning the kids and I were in the living room and all of a sudden we heard the sound of rain- coming down in our kitchen!  I grabbed some buckets and towels and cleaned up the mess.  Ike loved moving the buckets around when I wasn't looking.  (I really got the sense that he was trying to be helpful.  One he put back in the closet where it belongs and the other he dumped out into the bathtub.  But... NOT helpful!)  Just when I was about to go to the upstairs neighbors it stopped, so we went outside to play.  But shortly after we returned it started again!   This time we went to the neighbors.  Leif is gone on a fishing trip this week, so things like this take on a new flavor when it's just me and three little ones!  I'm sure we were quite the funny sight at their door!  The neighbors were really nice and said they'd look around.  It was good for awhile until it started POURING from our ceiling.  Back I went and the lady showed me how she'd totally cleaned out from under her sink and it was bone dry.  She gave me the number for a professional to come in.  I asked her if she would mind calling for me and explaining, and she kindly did so.

     In the meantime, the kids and I were stuck at home.  Our downstairs neighbor came to say that his kitchen was flooded, too, and that it had totally ruined their wallpaper.  We played karaoke on this great new player that our friends Kadie and Josh sent the girls.  And we watched a Tinkerbell movie.  And did our own little school, learning about "over/under/left/right, etc".  And we listened to a couple of chapters of The Secret Garden.  All the while Isaac played in the taisek (we like to say this, as the Russian word for basin is "taisek" and it happens to rhyme with Isaac.  When our hot water is out, we give Isaac a bath in the taisek, and it really seems like he likes it when we say "Isaac in the taisek").  And when I wasn't looking, he dumped a liter of milk into one of the basins.

     When the masters arrived, they first said they'd have to tear down our wall.  Then, as if a second thought, they said they'd check in on something upstairs.  They didn't come back, and we heard a lot of pounding and banging up there.  When the sounds stopped, I we went upstairs to see what was going on.  They'd opened up our neigbor's wall instead and had found a broken pipe that was down into our wall.   They showed me the pipe, and said the masters would come back tomorrow and put in a new one.

     By then it was 6:30pm, but we had cabin fever.  So we invited ourselves over to Nina's house and had a great time!  She fed us rice cereal, potatoes and liver, grapefruit, and ice cream.   Ike vacuumed her floor, and the kids got to play with her dog and cat, and Ike and Ella ate part of her plant, and she put curlers in the girls' hair.  We got home at 9:30 and five minutes later, Leif surprised us by coming home early!  A great end to the day, I'd say!

     Earlier on, when the masters said that they'd have to tear down our wall, Anneka was really worried.  I was able to share with her about how God is so good and He had a good plan and that He works all things together for good for those who love Him!  It was cool to see her face light up as she thought about it.  We reflected on how we got to meet two Buryat families in our building that we hadn't yet met.   And who knows what other good things God will bring out of this??  =)