Leaky "faucet"

It was this past Thursday when Graham woke me up and said, "Momma, there's a leaky faucet."  Well, I didn't think of it too much - obviously just imagining the bathroom faucet with a small drip.  When I finally do get out of bed 10 minutes later, I check on this leaky faucet and Splosh! Splosh! All the bathroom rugs on the floor are completely soaked!!  What is Graham talking about here??!  I listen closely and I hear a drip, drip, drip... and it's coming from under the bathroom sink. Oh boy!!!

This leak wouldn't really be much of an issue but I had to get ready as I had my volunteer shift at Charlie's school this same morning. So, out went all the bathroom rugs onto the fence in the backyard (so glad we didn't get rid of this metal fence!) and looking for a huge bowl/bucket to collect the drippy water. I put Bobby in charge of emptying out this water while I was at school for the morning.

And oh, Charlie even had some time to put up a "Do Not Enter" sign.  LOL!!!

In the meantime, off to school! Charlie is looking lovely this morning for Picture Day!  I love how he is now able to tie up his hair in the mornings:

3 hours later - on the way home, the clouds are looking quite angry in the Pacific Ocean:

We are expecting some rain tonight.  As per usual, we could always use the rain!

 Looks like this is the culprit - it's the shut-off valve:

And since this outdoor faucet is dripping as well, I might as well undo that and get a new part too when I go to the store:

These things are nasty looking!!

Here goes!!!

Thankfully the shut-off valve to the house is an easy 1/4 turn.  Shiny new valves installed!

And these are also 1/4 turn shut-off valves which at first made me a bit confused.  The water pressure was really low so I thought that had something to do with it:

In the meantime, the outdoor faucet is looking nice and brand new too. I haven't tested this one yet, but can't imagine it would be causing any issues.  Guess I'll find out the next time I turn on the water for the sprinkler lines:

Ps. Also bought some new flowers while I was at the store :-)

I thought that maybe the old shut-off valves just needed a nice cleaning.  Maybe it was all that gunk from the hard water was causing it to leak:

After soaking these valves with water and vinegar, ta da!!!  Look how shiny and clean they look!

I figured I'd wait until the weekend to tackle this job again.  So on this Saturday morning, I had the boys help me out with the plumbing.  Graham was up first:

And then Charlie's turn.  Both complained about how sore and tired their arm was while having to turn those bolts.  Ha ha!

Well, if it was only that easy but we installed and uninstalled and re-installed and uninstalled again.  This reason being that water pressure - why is the water pressure suddenly so bad??!  And then, there was hot water but no cold water despite using the new valves?!

Bobby obviously had some suggestions... :-P

Well, come to find out, the old valves were defective.  And I had to unscrew another part of the plumbing, only to find a clogged mesh.  Yup, clogged mesh with sediments equals low and eventually blocked flow of water.  Simple as that! But man, took me forever to figure that out!

All good now!!!  Although my joints are not doing so great from all the kneeling and bending on that hard tile.  Ha!

Nature vs. Nurture?

I try so hard but I'm now wondering if Nature might do a better job than me trying to nurture these Monarch caterpillars.  Some are looking rather sickly... with a slight shade of black to their color.  I looked it up online and looks like it might be "Black Death", which is caused by a bacteria.  Noooo....!!

I noticed some sluggish caterpillars on the bottom of the butterfly cage.  I had spread out some newspapers at the bottom for easy clean-up. These things poop so much!

Another sickly looking one :-(

Just then, a Monarch butterfly flutters around.  Hope she will lay for eggs!

Here's a healthy-looking caterpillar munching away.  Hopefully we will have some survivors.  Supposedly the bacteria can spread to other caterpillars too:

I'm guessing that when I had the caterpillars in the cage, it was too hot and there was too much moisture which caused the bacteria to grow.  I think I'm going to just start leaving it to Mother Nature from now on.  I'll just have to keep providing the milkweed as food for these hungry caterpillars!  

It was just so much fun though for the boys to see the chrysalis and waiting for that opportunity to see the butterfly emerge.  We didn't get to see that last year but we did have our first butterfly hatch around this same time last year:  Our very first Monarch butterfly

What an exciting moment that was!

Natural History Museum and USC

It was the last few days for the Gems viewing so of course I had to drag the boys to the National History Museum :-)

Graham and Charlie never miss having to lift this truck every time we are near the NHM/Science Museum:

I was obviously too lazy to go over there to take a photo as the boys have done that so many times now.  And I obviously missed them pulling up on the car by the time I took this photo.  Ha!

Looks like there have some new animals on exhibit.  Graham is playing "What's the animal looking at?":

Of course, Charlie had to join in on it too:

The Dinosaur hall still amazes me:

I still can't believe these dinosaurs roamed the Earth once:

I mean, c'mon... seriously??!

Okay, time to get to the Gems Vault:

Graham is trying to find the stone that's the same as the one he is wearing:

Good luck at a place this massive with this many rocks and gems!!

Only a limited number of people are allowed in this vault at one time.  I looked up the name F.C. Hixon and didn't find anything on it.  It's soooooo strange!  I mean, you can find almost anything and everything on the internet!!

The gems in this vault are BEAUTIFUL...!!!

So amazing and pretty! Definitely one-of-a-kind:

And so SUPER HUGE!!! This gem almost looks like it's bigger than Charlie's nose!

I think these earrings were my favorite:

And ok, this "green" diamond (to the left) is also my favorite.  And okay, the ring to the right - I wouldn't mind it either :-D

Looks like I need to up my game on a new ruby ring next time ;-P

Bobby did say I can claim a new ring every time we sell a house.  He he...!!

Okay, well - that was that.  I'll just have to keep dreaming.  Off to the rotating display room next door.  I really love looking at these enlarged photographs of insects:

I mean, look at those details:

Especially when the insect is so so so tiny!  You can barely see it on that pin (in the bubble to the left):

This one is so furry.  Ha ha!

Hug time!!!

Looks like it's time to move on to the gift shop and then lunch.  That would be a "no" to the Giant Gummy bear for lunch:

How is it that we always let the boys buy something from the gift shop? We definitely spoil them:

Graham wants to check out these microscopes in another room before we leave:

Somehow, on the way to the restrooms - we find the exhibit for Jane Goodall.  So much for Daddy wanting to go home like right now!

The exhibit was pretty cool.  They even had a hologram of her!

And speaking of going home right now, we decided to head over to USC (University of Southern California) across the street.  Graham really wanted to get that "roti" we got last time when we were out this way after his x-ray.  Hi to Felix the Cat!

Some cool art of the building:

I think everyone is happy now... except Daddy who is more than ready to get home:

Daddy needs to be more chill like he is at the Seychelles.  It's only 3:45pm! 

On the way out after finishing up some "roti", I spotted a restaurant selling Spam Musubi.  Yummm... and of course, it would take them a few minutes to make it.  And so since we had to wait anyway, I decided to order some noodles to bring home for dinner too:

This Spam Musubi did not disappoint!  We may have to go back there again soon or I suppose we could just make it at home.  But doesn't something always taste better when someone else makes it??!  Maybe Bobby can learn to make it for me and Charlie??!  :-D

Random photos of Feb

It's March!  These months seem to fly by so fast somehow. Does that mean we are all having fun??! Here are some photos that I had missed to post in February.  There was also a trip to the Natural History Museum that I will have to update on as well.

Charlie loves singing "We don't talk about Bruno" from the animation "Encanto". Too cute!

And how is it that succulents like this one needs zero maintenance... and it's still surviving??! Look at those pretty flowers!

And oh, if you need Charlie to explain the different type of volcanoes to you, here it is:

How funny is that??!  I mean, he just started writing and drawing on the board one late afternoon when no one was really paying attention.  Ha ha!  At least he wrote/drew everything in between our daily schedule and reminders :-D

I was trying to fix the guitar string the other day.  I know,... with a bead (pink color, of course!).  It really didn't quite work out.  I just didn't have enough string to tie up the end properly:

Good news is I contacted the brand of the guitar and they are sending me some new strings for free. Woohoo!!  Speaking of free, I also called up Old Navy last week after Graham and Charlie's pairs of jean both tore in the same spot (somehow by the groin area?!) within weeks of each other.  I managed to score a coupon for a free pair of jeans up to $99.  Double Yay!!!

The flowers in the back garden are struggling a bit.  Time to move some things around: 

I took this off the Flamingo and put it in the ground instead:

And put some other plants on the Flamingoes instead.  I don't know... may have to rework this again:

Unfortunately, I also found a dead bird in our backyard.  Noooo...!!  I wonder what happened? It was still fully intact.  Poor thing :-(

And oh, here was my message to Bobby when he left the empty coffee jar by the sink instead of putting it into the recycling bin.  AND... the recycling bin was even right out there that day!!

Charlie suggested an impromptu game of Scrabble last weekend.  How is it that Graham and I ended up with two Ds at the very end of the game??!

With the help of my phone to validate words and find words that end with a specific letter, we finally finished the game!  Somehow I managed to get all those big letters like J, Q, W, X, Y, Z.  What??!

And this was the first time the boys wanted to play by counting scores:

Thank goodness for my "Joey" with a blank for the "Y".  That was worth 30 points!  Charlie was definitely getting the hang of using those double and triple points.  He is SO super competitive!

Last but not least, when the boys are not looking - here is Daddy snuggling with one of their pillows :-P

It was so crazy hot today for the first day of March. We are expecting some rain on Friday, which will be much needed!  And then, back to the 60s again.  Can't wait for that.  Although Graham is really wanting to go surfing so hopefully it won't be too cold. Brrr... that ocean is always so cold though.  LOL!!