Clean Springing

Kevin and I have had a rough last few months, between having our house plans fall through, adjusting to Taylor coming back into the fold, the stress of my mom going into the hospital, and of course countless other smaller day to day issues that every couple faces.

But we used these last few days of the month to revisit the reasons we fell in love with each other and to talk through some of our issues. And we agreed to make an attempt to sort of start fresh as we head into June.

Taylor is moving up to Connecticut in just over a week. Riley will be finishing school in a few days. We're looking into some alternative options for moving into a new or used house either on our own land or possibly in a mobile home community.

We've got this!

On Saturday the 25th we had tentative plans with our friends Emily and Orlando that ended up falling through. But we decided it was time to get out of the apartment and get some fresh air anyway.

And we hadn't been to Dark Hollow Park in quite a while.

On our way there Kevin suggested we pop into Altomonte's Italian Market in Warminster and check it out. We had never been but he said his dad and Steve get meat there sometimes.

It's a nice place with a lot of variety. We ended up chatting with one of the owners for a few minutes and then got a turkey wrap and some iced tea for a quick lunch.

Then we headed over to the park:

We had been hoping it would be dry, especially when we thought Emily and Orlando would be joining us and visiting the park for the first time.

And things looked good! About as dry as it ever gets back here:

We eventually made it back to the power lines:

And then to what Kevin calls the "delta" where the creek splits three ways. Here's a panorama, which skews everything quite a bit:

Or you can watch this 360 video Kevin took instead:

As usual he handled the macro photography:

While I took care of the micro:

Above, and below:

While I photographed the frog, Kevin photographed pretty much everything else:

Then we continued on our way:

The creek bed back here was almost bone dry like it was the first time we ever came here.

There were just a few pools of water here and there. And they were FILLED with tadpoles:

And still more tadpoles:

And tadpoles in future tense:

Finally we came to the peninsula, which is as far as we could go (without being up for climbing the mountain):

We saw some minnows:

And got a video of the cliff:

And then it was time to head back:

But that was fine since there was plenty to see that we hadn't seen on our way in:

We even glimpsed this real life BMW owner who was too good to park in the parking lot with the rest of us!

We stopped in to see Kevin's parents for a few minutes on our way home.

Our garden is still young but doing pretty well:

Then we stopped at Rita's and grabbed some water ice for ourselves and Riley.

Meanwhile Taylor had reached out to ask if she could come over to take a shower because Ahlina and her brother Christian were coming the next day to load their car up with as much of Taylor's stuff as they could pack and take back up to Connecticut.

When I went over to pick her up, my mom's neighbor's kids were battling each other while dressed as a hotdog and a slice of pizza.

This is the best picture I managed to get :(

Kevin and I finally recently found out how to remove the front grill from the in-wall air conditioner in our bedroom so we could open it and clean out the black mold that has been building up for more than a decade.

So after Taylor got out of the shower, we tackled that together and hit the inside with soapy water followed by alcohol. Then we left it to dry for 24 hours to hopefully avoid damaging any of the components.

We had a big argument later that night though after Taylor realized she had forgot her engagement ring in our bathroom when she took it off to shower:

I will admit she has a knack for forgetting things at our apartment or in my car and not realizing it until I've already taken her home. And then often times she expects me to turn around and drive back to my mom's again right that second to drop off whatever it was she forgot, which is only another 15 to 20 minutes round trip but it drives Kevin crazy.

I knew we would be heading over that way to go to his parents' house for dinner the next day anyway, so I told Taylor we would drop off the ring sometime tomorrow.

On Sunday we had chicken for dinner at Catherine and Ron's after Kevin and Steve helped Ron open the pool. Kevin's parents were kind enough to let us do two loads of laundry there as well, which saved us about $17 :)

I also had a good talk with Kelly about some of the problems Kevin and I have been dealing with lately, which was immensely helpful.

Dinner was delicious and Kelly and Steve brought brownies, cookies, and chocolate covered pretzels for dessert.

On our way home later, we stopped to drop off Taylor's ring. She begged me to come inside so she could show me all the work she's done: She cleaned up a lot of the mess since my mom hasn't been there to protest for a month, and she and Ahlina and Christian managed to get a ton of her stuff into the car to go up to Connecticut.

Then Kevin and I flipped on our AC when we got home. It spewed some flakes of dried mold for the first couple minutes but then it worked great.

On Tuesday the 28th I stopped at Kevin's parents on my way home from work to pick up Taylor's prom dress that I had shipped there to make sure it wouldn't get damaged or stolen on my mom's porch.

Catherine and I talked for about two hours. She is such an amazing listener. I have come to think of her as the mom I never had, which is wonderful and terrible at the same time.

On Wednesday night Kevin made tacos for dinner and we watched A Handmaid's Tale before bed.

Then on Thursday Taylor told me that the plan for her prom and graduation next weekend is for Ahlina to drive down from Connecticut on Thursday afternoon so she can take Taylor to prom Friday night and then to graduation on Saturday.

(I'll also be going to her graduation but I will drive separately since Ahlina doesn't exactly have the best track record with our family.)

Kevin took the opportunity to point out all the things that could go wrong with that plan, not least of which is that it seems Ahlina will be driving down by herself this time instead of bringing her brother along again to qualify as a licensed adult since Ahlina still only has her permit.

We got into an argument over dinner about it because I thought he was gloating that once again she and Taylor were doing something he considers stupid. But he said later that he was mentioning it out loud because if for any reason she gets pulled over on her way here then Taylor will be falling back on me to drive her to prom and graduation. And if they get pulled over on their way to or from either of those events together, Taylor will be calling me for a ride because the police won't let Ahlina drive without a licensed individual in the car with her.

And also he knows that Riley has really looked up to and sought to emulate both girls in the past, so he wanted her to hear it as well and perhaps understand that even their "grown up" plans are still quite fragile and somewhat ill advised. So not everything Taylor and Ahlina do is worthy of imitation, even when things do work out as planned.

And finally Friday was the last day of the month.

The four of us ordered Domino's for dinner and then Riley and I prepared to help Taylor try on her new dress for the first time.

But...

Stacey's Bridal absolutely BOTCHED it!

As soon as Taylor put it on we could see six inches of hoop skirt peeking out from the bottom of the fabric. The dress was WAY too short (even after Ahlina requested two extra inches). The sash in the back was uneven. The tulle fabric that goes over the satin was four inches too long on the lefthand side and an inch too short on the right. And for the cherry on top there was a four foot long train even though the dress wasn't supposed to have a train

It really just looks like there was no care at all taken when it was sewn. So we are definitely going to have to scramble to try to turn this into something Taylor can actually wear out in public :(

But later on after I took Taylor home, I asked Kevin to watch two talks with me that I had watched at work about how couples inadvertently get caught in patterns of miscommunication. So we watched them together and then had a really positive talk afterwards, and I think we both feel a lot better about where we're headed and what the future holds for us, possibly even in the short term.

We didn't amass a ton of cat pics this month, but we got a handful. Including this cute video Kevin got of Odin a few days ago:

And this picture of him judging us for not sharing our Burger King with him:

And a few others: