Our crawl space flooded at least five times in the last couple of years, and our half-basement itself flooded once or twice as well. It quickly became clear what was the cause: two downspouts of our gutters were gushing water straight into the foundation, which meant that our drainage system (already redone twice) was insufficient, clogged with roots, dirt, and who knows what. So earlier this year, I replaced the system with a temporary fix. An ugly fix. But it solved the problem. I knew I’d have to do it for a second time (the first time was done by a contractor before we moved in, part of our closing deal), but I as in no hurry.

“Your number one priority while we’re in Poland,” K clarified, though, “is to redo the drains in the front.” So for the last few days, I’ve been digging, tugging, leveling, and getting everything ready for a final fix. I knew it’d be overkill, but I also figured I’d rather not do it another time, so the replacement system is with three-inch schedule 40 PVC pipe. But before I could get everything set, the sky began to gray, and I decided I might need to reattach the old temporary system, just in case.

What followed was a storm unlike anything I’d seen here. “It would have been the perfect test,” I muttered to myself.

Yesterday and today, though, I was able to get back out, finish up the leveling, and finish up the project, by and large. I decided to include two clean-outs in the plan just in case: I do not want to do this yet again. I reattached the hose to the spigot, rammed it down it not the newly constructed system, and turned it on. Perfection.

“Now if I could only get a real test,” I thought. Wish granted: another storm blew through this afternoon and everything worked like a charm. All that’s left is packing a bit more gravel around it and replacing the mulch.

Job one, done. More or less.

But who cares about drains and rain when across the ocean there are snails and soccer games?

K took the kids and Babcia to visit A, K’s sister-in-law, and their kids, who live just outside of Krakow. There was soccer and silliness until L discovered a snail — “na prawda duzy slimak!” K assured me (though probably with better grammar) before I’d had a chance to see the pictures — and that entertained them for a couple of hours.

L has fallen back into Polish with no problem, K tells me. In fact, she’s eager to accompany her cousin S for a two-week camp up at the coast. The Boy, though, is a different story. Though K speaks almost exclusively in Polish, he’s still not really speaking that much Polish. I would imagine he feels a little left out as a result. “I translate for him a lot,” L explained today during our Skype time, but there’s something about this picture, his hands held in front of him as he watches, that makes me just want to hug him and assure him that he’ll be able to jabber away in no time as long as he makes a real effort. Or maybe there’s something else entirely going on with that picture. Maybe he’s just hungry, ready to head to the kitchen for some chicken and potatoes.

Or maybe not.