Heir Gordon: Best Laid Plans, Dolphin Show, Photo Dump

We were supposed to "slow down" this summer since I had no freelance writing gigs at the moment, and enjoy these last couple of months before Libby starts pre-school and we lose her forever... (melodramatic, you say? Well, we saw Neil Diamond in concert this week, so it's kind of flowing right now.)

Last week ended with a visit from the plumber when I thought our downstairs toilet was leaking and we found out that it was actually a hot water pipe UNDER the slab on which our home rests. To reach the slab, our vanity had to be pulled out, along with the toilet, and the floor around it was damaged (and into the adjoining family room - this being how we discovered the leak in the first place). This required jackhammer and a good amount of Georgia red clay to be removed (and held for safe-keeping) in the corner of said bathroom.

So last week the insurance guy came out, the house restoration guy came out, etc. etc. We have fans and a big dehumidifier in the downstairs bath. I rushed out with my mom to pick some new tile, etc. for all the downstairs flooring that comes in contact with water (or potentially does) so we go ahead and replace those things along with some of the wood at once, while GiGi spent time with Libby.

Of course, one of those rooms is the kitchen, so we'll see just what all is involved as far as Libby's long-term needs and where she may need to stay and when. Good grief.

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Meanwhile, last weekend Michael had a golf get-away with his dad, so I had my mom spend Friday night and Mandy spent Saturday night with us! We had a gourmet meal outside on the patio with grilled mahi-mahi with a basil citrus pesto, french style potato salad and Mandy brought baked, zingy tasty squash and zucchini, key lime "summer freeze" graham ice cream sandwich. She also brought yummy berry coffee cake for breakfast!

We had a lovely weekend and made the best of a weekend without Daddy. We still missed him though and Libby was so excited to see him on Sunday night.

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On Monday, Libby and Daddy had a lot of special time together. His office held their annual "Spring Fling" at the Georgia Aquarium this year!

I received a text message with the photo below about an hour into the event. These are the garden eels and Libby really liked them the last time was was at the aquarium. She remembered them this time and they still held her interest. Michael said they'd already been examining them for 15 minutes and there was no end in sight.

Libby showed off her new ensemble from Aunt Mandy!

And she said this whale shark was "too big!"

And the touch pools were a hit as always.

Libby also saw her first dolphin show- live or otherwise. (We've watched a lot of them from SeaWorld online since Monday!) The show at the aquarium has lights, actors, animation, a storyline and everything, so there's constantly something going on. There are "scary" sea monsters (not much is show, just talked about) but Libby covered her eyes with her hand when they came on. No one has ever taught her that - she just did it - and we found it quite adorable. She had huge smiles on her face when the dolphins did their tricks and really seemed to love it. I know that she'll never remember it looking back on her childhood - but I'll never forget it. I may have cried a little from the joy of watching her experience it.

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On Wednesday night we got to go see Neil Diamond in concert! Michael gave me tickets for one of my Christmas gifts and I've really been looking forward to the experience. I loved the write-up from the first concert of this tour in Tampa, and you can read it here. I went in with that expectation and haven't stopped singing or listening to Neil Diamond all week. I've even looked up old performances on YouTube to watch! He sang more ballads than maybe he has at past concerts, but come on - the man is 71 years old and I think he deserves to sing what he wants to and we should just appreciate that he still does it live! He's earned the right to do what he likes after so many years of music-making and it was clear just how much he appreciated the audience and our support. I just loved it.

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Today was house stuff, pool-ing, grilling and talking to our contractor who's doing the fixes on our house. Tomorrow I get to go do some ordering of flooring, etc. and some of the work begins this week. Looks like we'll have to wait on the flooring installation for another two weeks, but that works out for the best on our schedule anyway. With the fixes and changes, we're hopefully making lemonade out of lemons.

And... another photo of Libby - playing driveway ball with her Daddy.