Between basement planning/finishing, kid activities and just general life stuff, it can be hard to find time to just hang out and relax. Seems all of our friends feel the same way because, when I threw out the idea of a parents day out, 16 other people jumped on it pretty quickly!

So, two weekends ago, we packed 16 good friends (plus Me and Mathlete) into this awesome limo bus. 

Our destination: vineyards! 

Our first stop was Vintage Ridge for their premier pairing. 

Then, we climbed back onto our bus and headed to Three Fox where we did a tasting and had a picnic.

I’ll let some of the pictures do the talking here… 

It was such a great time that I am voting for a monthly parents’ day out! Who’s in?!

You know that dreaded feeling when you find a random pool of water on your basement floor?

Yeah, I was right there recently. Mathlete and I were down in the basement talking about lighting placement when I glanced over and saw this:

Our first order of business was the check the sump pump to make sure it was working properly. Thankfully it was because, at 10pm on a Sunday, I didn’t want to be searching for a sump pump replacement.

After checking the sump pump, we figured that there was a clog in the pipe somewhere. Mathlete figured out that there was something clogging the pipe between the outside drain and the drain next to the air conditioning unit {where the puddle was}. 

Our first attempt was to use a snake to try and unclog it. The curve of the pipe though made that pretty futile.

Insert sad face.

So, our next attempt was {maybe} a little unconventional but I figured it was worth a try. We grabbed Mathlete’s wet/dry vac. While he took the grate off the inside drain, I went outside to cover up the outside drain.

That way, we wouldn’t just be sucking in extra air. Once the drain outside was covered, he flipped on the vacuum. 

After a minute or two, we heard something get sucked up in the vacuum. We checked and the water level seems to regulate at each drain so we were good!

The water…not looking so good. Blech!

Ever had sump pump issues? How did you end up solving them?