Highs and Lows

First the highs. Charlie and his family were over at the house late yesterday afternoon. They brought with them their kids, Emma (yes, confusion reigned) and Aaron--both wonderful children. They also brought with them their pet Samoyed, Moishe.

As you can see, Emma (the dog, not the daughter) played big sister to her new white friend . . .

. . . all the time keeping a watchful eye in case of competitiveness.

They also brought with them, Jeff Rennicke, an instructor, a writer, and a photographer, all of which he conducts with some fair renown--working for various publications, including Backpacker, and National Geographic Traveler. Some of his work can be seen here and here.

Charlie and Denise are having a television commercial produced promoting their construction business and announcing the opening of their new office in Boulder Junction. And Jef took scads of pictures in and around the house. I caught a glimpse of one of his shots on his viewfinder and I'm now hesitant to post any of my photos here. OK, I'm over that now. But his stuff is really good and I'm so looking forward to seeing the results.

So now the lows. Today was to have been appliance delivery and installation day. And it started out quite well. The guys from Jensen Akins arrived in plenty of time and went about their business methodically and professionally.

The washer and drier got put in in short order as well as the mini-fridge in the guest room. Then problems arose. It turns out that my special friends from the gas installation (more on that later, much more) did not install a shut off valve on any of the gas lines. To hook up the stove with out a shut off would have been illegal. So it's sort of half sitting as if it's about to be installed but isn't about to be installed.

And the refrigerator is hooked up, but not installed because the opening is too tight. And the microwave came with a dent. Ann tried to talk the guys into leaving it, but they would have none of that and left with it.

In mourning, we drove to Wausau to pick up some light fixtures that Ann had ordered, looked at some cafe tables/pub tables/bistro tables and headed back to our rental disappointed.