In Hot Water

Hello everyone!  Hope you all are finding this to be a relaxing week as we gear up for Thanksgiving!  I've been meaning to write a post for a week now about two events this month, but after more than a week, I'm just now getting to it! (I think all my posts start off like this.)

Let's just say the week did NOT start off well.  I got the "blue screen of death" on my work computer and that ended up being a major hurtle to being productive.  Luckily, my work is pretty awesome and got me a new computer pronto (the old one had been on computer life support).

Last weekend, Jordan and I had the opportunity to go to a Texas Tech football game with my parents.  TTU started the season off very well, but unfortunately we seem to have lost every game that matters since our 7-0 streak.  We may not bounce back this season, but we always will root for our Red Raiders.

The game we decided to attend was at the AT&T Stadium (aka Cowboys Stadium) against Baylor (ranked #4 at the time). 

If you've never been to the AT&T Stadium, it is quite an experience.  Be sure to bring plenty of cash for parking, but despite the outrageous parking fee ($30) you'll still have to walk a long way to get to the stadium.  Jerry Jones must have realized what a long walk it would be for folks and had the forethought to put port-potties in the parking lot on the way in.  You may think you don't need to "go" but after passing 2 or 3 porta-potties (and joking as you walk by) you suddenly feel the need to stop and utilize the "facilities".  So we did. ;)  

As we got closer to the stadium we saw so many people tailgating!  It really made Jordan and I reminisce about our college days and the fun we would have before every home game at Raider Gate.  Red Raiders are a special breed of fans and find cool ways to support our school (tortilla throwing at kick off just to name one).  We saw a custom made game of washers that students had designed themselves.  It was very cool so I had to snap a picture.
The stadium was rather impressive and much larger than I expected.  


Top: Stadium entrance.  Pretty fancy!
Bottom: While trying to find our seats we ran into our friend, Jenn!  It was great to see her and I got this super cute picture of Mom and Jenn with some Red Raider glasses!
Right: Mom and Dad in front of the dome!


Jordan and me on our way in!


We finally found our seats and though we had nose bleed tickets, the view really wasn't too bad!  Mom and I both wore our cowboy boots and sported them proudly!  We'll have to plan a dance night soon!
Top: Our tickets waaayy up in section 451!
Middle: Our boots!  Mine are brown and Mom has the black (perfect for swapping back and forth you might say.)
Bottom: The team just after they entered the stadium.











The Goin' Band from Raiderland, rocking the double T!

Sunday morning, despite being tired from the game, Mom and Dad graciously came to help Jordan and I with our latest project.  For a week or so, our hot water heater had been leaking excessively from a pipe on the outside of our house.  While that wasn't a huge deal, it made us nervous with the holidays coming up and the amount of water we might have been wasting.  Jordan took and look and deduced that we needed to replace the pressure relief valve, but we also realized that our hot water heater was from 1998. Yowzas!  Anyhoo, we thought it would be best to replace the whole thing rather than wait for it to break (and potentially cost us much more in the long run).

I think Mom and I had the best strategy for helping Jordan and Dad with the water heater, we left the house and went shopping.  Totally logical of course.  While we were getting an early start on our Christmas shopping, the boys did an amazing job installing the new water heater.
Old hot water heater!

True to their engineer minds, here is a scrap paper of their design, list of supplies needed, and drain instructions.

Old pipe connections and Jordan sweating an old copper pipe to pull off a fitting. (at least that's what he tells me; it just looks like a dirty closet to me.)
There was an unforeseen challenge that they discovered.  The water shut off valve was on the hot water instead of the cold water inlet.  Very unusual. (or so I'm told)

Top Left: The work bench (aka my dryer).  Thankfully Jordan put a towel on the dryer to protect it from scratching. Such a brilliant man!
Top Right: Sweating more copper (aka using a cool torch)
Bottom Left: New water heater, minus the gas connection
Bottom Middle: Ignition viewing window of new hot water heater.  Jordan says "I have made fire!
Bottom Right: Pressure relief valve check outside the house.

And there you have it!  The boys did a great job and I was so grateful to have hot water restored!  How did people live without hot showers?  It was wonderful to see my parents and I had so much fun shopping with my Mom.  By the end of the shopping trip, we'd discovered the max shopping bag capacity of my little car. ;)  Jordan learned so much from Dad and we are thankful to have them in our lives!

Thank you all for reading and have a blessed Thanksgiving holiday!



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