My parents arrived mid-afternoon on Friday, and from the moment they stepped foot onto our property, they were either given responsibility in tending to one of the Walstonlings, or directed to the nearest waiting project. In less than 48 hours we did stuff we have only been able to dream about…

New backdoor:

Fountain repaired:

And the mother of all projects: the garage can, once again, fit two cars… AT ONCE!

Although it was exciting to get such high visibility projects taken care of, there was one project that stood out as important above all the rest: securing the toilet to the floor.

As you may or may not have noticed, my ability to keep you all updated on the various goings-on in our lives has lately been a bit spotty. For example, I never got around to telling you all the story about the evening I leaned over to throw something in the bathroom trashcan, lost my balance and fell against the toilet, SCOOTING IT SIX INCHES ACROSS THE FLOOR! Let me just tell you that, when it comes to moments in your life where the first words entering your mind are Oh Shit! this is one of them. (no pun intended.)

As it turns out, this whole episode wasn’t all that shocking to my father, who informed us that when the toilet was reinstalled after the new tile floor went in, the existing bolts weren’t really long enough anymore, and they think they may have gotten one of them to barely grab while tightening everything down. Um, I looked it up and “Toilet Not Securely Bolted to Floor” is definitely a need-to-know piece of information.

Naturally, the procedure to fix the toilet involved Steve crawling under the house so that he and Dad could secure it in such a way that the next homeowners will have to wonder what, exactly, we did in that bathroom. Two wax rings and about 25 flushes later, we have a toilet that – should our house ever be swept away by a tornado or hurricane – will remain standing along with the chimney and foundation.

As an extra bonus, when Steve was under the house he was able to do a quick survey to make sure those pesky rodents weren’t under there, and proceeded to go Medeival on that crawlspace entrance:

I am fully prepared to hear them out there with little jackhammers and reciprocating saws in the middle of the night.

A hearty Labor Day salute to the grandparents Anderson for the expertise, the tot wrangling and the old fashioned heavy lifting on this, one of the most productive weekends we have experienced in what seems an eternity.