Happy Thanksweddingmas!

Sandwiched between Thanksgiving and Christmas, on 12/14/2013, Koby and Breanna exchanged vows. There was a short but very lovely ceremony, followed by a buffet and dancing.

During the reception, Koby came up to me with an "Oh crap I don't know what I'm gonna do" look on his face and said, "Mom, can I talk to you?" We went off into a small room and he said, "I didn't want to tell Bre but this morning the sewer system at my house exploded. My back yard is flooded with shit and we can't go home!"

Bre's mom stepped up and got them a hotel room for that night. The next morning they were leaving for a quick honeymoon trip to Cambria, so they'd at least have a good night's rest with functional indoor plumbing prior to their departure.

Since I had been assigned cat feeding duties, I had the key to their house. I got Clint over there on Sunday afternoon to take a look. Then I had to go to Tacoma for a two-day business trip. While I was gone, Steve gave Clint and his crew access to the yard and they started digging.

Koby's house was built by the military in the 1950s. It was typical at that time to dig a trench, lay in Orangeburg pipe (fiber pipe made from layers of wood pulp and pitch pressed together) for the sewer, throw in a little soil, then lay the water lines in the same trench and bury the whole thing. Fast forward to now and you have a mess. The Orangeburg pipe had collapsed and there were big holes in it as well as in the small amount of steel pipe leading to it.

Thanks to Sacramento hard pan, it took the crew two long nights of work and a jackhammer to get the trench re-trenched. By the time I got back from Tacoma they were installing new ABS pipe. Since the two water lines sat directly above the Orangeburg, they had to connect the ABS to the house via a couple of elbows so it could lay next to the old stuff. They worked six hours that night in the freezing cold to get the job done and make sure Koby and Bre had a functional bathroom when they returned from their honeymoon!