The $5,000 Christmas...

Sorry folks, this one is a short one today. This is my view from my front door this morning. I'm appropriately renaming it the "5,000 Christmas." $5,000 in plumbing problems. No big deal, right? It's actually fun for the little ones. My little boy had fun watching the excavators be dropped down by the backhoe into the giant 10 foot deep hole. He was glued to the front window watching all the fun equipment throughout the day. He even snuck outside a few times to catch all the action. Of course, the contractor convinced him there was in alligator in the hole and he at his young, naive age believed them. Everytime the backhoe brought up a new load of dirt, he curiously peeked in it to see if the alligator was on it. (I was excited about all the free rocks for my landscaping! Except that they probably aren't free since I'm paying for them.)


Of course, not only my child, but every child in the neighborhood wanted to peek into that hole. And the excavators and contractors graciously allowed them to. At one point and time we had a crowd of 10 kids and 4 adults peering into the hole in the ground. The lone excavator at the bottom of the hole must have had an eerie feeling as we peered at him from above.

It was also amazing to me how neighbors pull together. Neighbor after neighbor old and young stopped by to peer into the hole. They were just excited about the events happening. Almost as much as the kids! Most gave us words of encouragment and said they knew how we felt and just wanted us to know that they were thinking of us. It was great to know that we had support and love from a great set of neighbors and friends. It didn't matter our ages or circumstances--each one young and old knew what we were going through and offered their own words of help and encouragement. And at least to our face they didn't complain about the street being blocked off and the inconvience we caused. We are so lucky to live where we do.

This is only a small setback in the road of life. With a very large pricetag. And hole in the ground. And expensive toys to entertain the kids. How can we top this for Christmas?