hot water.

appliance number three to need repairs in the johnson home this winter? the 16yo hot water heater. repairs in this case = full replacement. and relocation. and sooner rather than later.

well, cheers to our neighborhood plumber/mechanic/generous fellow who gave us the better part of our day to get us back up & running. and cheers to nj who labored beside him and is now versed in hot water heater installation. hopefully we can pay it forward someday & help someone else with an emergency water heater fix.

and really, when i start to think about all the other things that could fail in this house on a moment's notice, i am thankful it's only been three things this winter! and oh so thankful that we currently reside in a warm home, with hot water and cold food.

fridge.

daddy & kj had a big task this week: fixing the fridge. thanks to uncle dan's diagnostics, nj pinpointed the trouble at a broken heating element (part of the fridge's self-defrosting system). he replaced it, and wa-lah! we could bring our food back into the kitchen rather than storing it in a cooler on the deck (lucky for us we had zero degree weather to keep our food frozen! another plus to living in MN...). you can see in these pics that it was a small space for nj to work in, but just the right size for kj to utilize her handy little baby-sized pliers... thank goodness for helpful little girls!