What a week--!! The crew looks like they did a perfect clean up job on the pool, no easy feat I'm sure. I hope that's the last time you get hit with something like this again, as enough is enough.

Words!? Who needs words? You have 12 pix here. They're worth 12,000 words!

Lauren, thanks so much for sharing all this trauma and hard work. Your OS friends truly love you and it's good for us to share this a little bit with you. Wish we could have done something more that just long distance support and affection.

I am so sorry you had to go through this...what a mess...looking better, though!

When that pool is full, you deserve a nice relaxing float on your back. For at least an hour or so... maybe you will see a bunny in the clouds...

(Were those bloated frog bodies...God! I thought the things in your yard were horrifying before.)

Yup, each basket contained about nine bloated frogs, plus the ones still in the pool, and the myriad of tadpoles trying to metamorphosize in the ooze and the slime and the mud (my father used to tell a ghost story when we were camping about Igor and a mad scientist which ended with those words, the ooze and the slime and the mud but that's another post). The thing is, we initally thought they were Colorado toads but found out they were indeed frogs, not indigenous to our area, and we have no idea how they got in our pool.

Wasn't that one of the curses of the Pharaoh? Raining frogs? Or was that just in a campy movie with a cute guy?

BTW, that was a very small sampling of the critters we found. It was, in valley girl speak, gagful.

Oh, and designanator, besides the landscaping that needs to be replaced and placed, we are building a secondary defense wall a few feet behind and partially around the sides of the pool. It will mirror the shape of the waterfall step-up (if you didn't know what that thing with planters on it is, it is indeed a waterfall; I hope it still works as I haven't tried it) and hopefully block any water that has the audacity to breach the berm.

Now to figure out a way to pay for it all... I'll think about that tomorrow, Katie Scarlett.

Yes, I'd say that's a pretty impressive makeover in just a week's time. I'll look forward to the pic of you kickin' it in the pool lounger with a tall glass of something non-alcoholic and refreshing. Bathing suit optional.

I've shared as many nekkid or semi-nekkid pictures I am going to with Sally and Priddy (who I apparently rendered speechless because I didn't hear a damned thing from her in response).

I haven't gone to my email today.

Yikes! and away....

I haven't gone to my email today.

Yikes! and away....

What an awful week...and at the end of it all, the boys can still have fun. Good luck getting everything back to normal, and thank whoever you wish to thank that it was mostly only stuff, and not people.

Very true, Procopius. We felt the same way after evacuating from the San Diego fires, although we didn't sustain much damage beyond layers of ash everywhere. We love our people.

You need a vacation, and none of this stay-cation nonsense. You two go off somewhere alone together, preferably a posh hotel with lots of amenities and for goodness' sake, don't answer the phone.

I know you've had a bad week, but you are making it look good over on my blog.

check your regular email

you must be exhausted when you go to bed and tired when you get up. take care of yourselves.

Thank you, Joe. You are correct on both accounts. The adrenaline wore off a few days ago and I am dragging like a cheap whore (sorry, I'm punchy and couldn't resist a little -very little- humor).