The hoser...

My kids love to play in the hose and get wet. The other day, Maxine wanted to play in the hose and Jules joined in. For whatever reason, our hose in the front yard has had the end cut off so I can't attach a sprinkler to it. However, Juliet still thinks it's fun to get a drink and becomes quite possesive about who's holding the hose. Maxine leaned over to take a swig and Jules looked up at me as if to say, "Aren't you going to do something about this??"
It's still fun to see her facination with water.

We went swimming the other evening at the new community center and I'd never been there before. We all thought it was fun and were completely worn out from all the swimming.

And if you'd like to feel smarter, read on: About 3 weeks ago, we took the boat out and as per usual fashion, Merril backed the trailer in and I sat in the boat, ready to drive. So the boat started to float away from the trailer and I tried to trim down the boat propeller but it wouldn't work. Merril parked the trailer and walked down to the dock and noticed I was drifting away. I yelled, "IT WON'T TRIM DOWN!!" He had me try a few things but ultimately had to swim out to the boat. Then he tried a few things but the trim motor didn't seem to be working. We finally ended up disconnecting a tube from the trim motor and I manually pushed the outboard half-way down with my feet. (Not all the way down because we couldn't get the propeller back up either. That could cause damage on the way home to have the propeller dragging on the pavement.) So we slowly got back to the dock and pulled out the boat and went home. Merril theorized, "I think the trim motor's burned out." Discouraged, we let it sit.

I looked at trim motors online and they were anywhere from $200 to $500. During this time, Merril had his 50-mile hike and school was starting, blah, blah, blah. So last Friday I say to Merril, "So are we ever going to look at this thing or what?" Merril jumps in the boat and gets out his voltage meter and checks wires and some other stuff. He gets out his wiring schematic and thinks and looks a little more and says, "There's a 50-amp voltage breaker somewhere on the engine." After nosing around, he finds the button and pushes on it. Like any breaker that's been tripped, it makes the distinctive, "click." He reaches over and tries the trim button and TA DA!!! Works like a charm! We felt silly that a breaker kept the boat out of the water for 3 weeks but at least it was cheap!! Have a great weekend!