Rain, rain, go away

We love water. Swimming in lakes, pools, oceans... they are all great to us. Jay swam competitively in high school and I was a lifeguard for several years, so it's rare for a year to go by when we don't hit the pool. Addi loves the water too and will play in her pool as often as we let her. When it came time to bring it inside at summer's end, she cried, so we actually just put the empty pool in the basement so she could go down the slide and pretend to swim.

Addi and Jill, last summer

Last weekend we cleaned out our basement and deflated the pool but kept the slide at Addi's request. With the new play area set up (complete with carpet), it's definitely a great place for kids.

However.

When you open your basement door after being gone for the weekend and see the inflated slide float by the stairs, that spells trouble.

Yup. The sump pump broke, leaving about 3 inches of water in the entire basement. Jay got to spend all afternoon and night yesterday installing a new pump and Shop Vac-ing up the water. He came to bed about 11 p.m. last night and when I talked to him this morning his back was aching.

And remember that new carpet we JUST installed last weekend? It's drying out, as we speak. Luckily since we just cleaned the basement, we lost very little. Things could have been a lot worse and for that we are grateful.

Now, we still love water, mind you. But we prefer it be outdoors from now on.