So I'm working on a 2017 highlight post like I did for 2016, but I just wanted to share a bit of the crazy we're dealing with this week. We sold our condo and purchased a tri-level single family home in November. Our house was built in 1963, but was flipped before we purchased it. The interior is very on-trend with dark floors, greige walls, and white cabinets. I thought it was a great find. But oh man, I am definitely seeing the value of renovating yourself or buying new lately. They did a pretty extensive renovation from what we can tell, but when you do such an extensive reno, you're supposed to bring stuff up to code. We know that didn't happen and pretty sure they did bare minimums to get it sold. And now we get to deal with it! Wahoo!

I must say, when we first chatted with our home warranty, I was a bit disappointed at what wasn't covered. We went ahead and used our pre-paid service to re-key the house, but all of our appliances are new so I wasn't seeing the value in this warranty. Until the last week or so. I've had 3 more service requests. First, our heater stopped heating. Art of Ace heating and cooling was great and came out on a Saturday. Unfortunately, the circuit board needed replacing and we couldn't get that until Monday. So Matt bought a space heater for us so we wouldn't freeze during the storm this weekend. Art came back Monday and fixed it for us. He discovered that when the (pretty new) heater was installed, the power switch wasn't grounded. He fixed that. He also found the fan speed was set to Medium-High, when it should have been set to Medium-Low. He fixed that. (Why are there settings if it is supposed to be one way? I don't know.) Regardless, we paid our $59 service fee and have a working heater again. Yay!

Next, we discovered a leak under our bathroom sink. I had heating pads and braces under the leak that I discovered were all moldy when looking for Tylenol for Henlie. We called Elevate Home Warranty and set up another service request for a plumber. While we were in the business of setting things up, we set up a second service request to have someone come look at our appliances. Awhile ago, Matt was cooking on our electric stove and there was a flash. The stove and oven still work, but the ON indicator light just stays on.... Also, our fridge temperature is reading (hopefully) incorrectly. It says it's about 50 degrees. Things are still staying cold, but they're going to look at both of those on Friday.

As for our leak, Admiral Plumbing Heating and Cooling came out this morning and fixed our leak issues. They also quoted us to change our water shut off because there is no handle on it. In order to fix that, they have to put a whole new shut off in. Also, since there is no pressure regulator valve (PRV), they would be required to bring it up to code by installing a PRV. Total cost if we do that? $600. They also looked at our (cheap) kitchen faucet that has had terrible water pressure since day 1. He cleaned the actuator some and took a look at the regulator. Currently I have awesome water pressure in there. I coudln't be happier. I just hope it stays that way! Another $59 service fee to them and I am pleased with the outcome.

We also finally were on the schedule to fix our crawlspace this week. We are cleaning it out, insulating, and sealing it. The boys from Utah Basement Systems came and took a look and started removing debris when they discovered a rather extensive rodent issue. Not sure if we currently have live rodents or not, but they found nests and bones in some buckets left in our crawlspace and the insulation that has fallen from the floor joists is soaked in urine. We knew there had been some rodents at some time because their boss mentioned he saw some droppings but he didn't think it was an active issue. However, with the extent of mess they found today, they had to pull out. They are helping us get a company over to look at it and clean up that mess (Truly Nolen - most pest control places won't clean up, turns out.) so we will have them come tomorrow and quote us a price to take care of that. They also said it looked like there were some fairly recent rat bombs in there, so the seller was probably aware of the issue and didn't bother to actually take care of it. Yay. Hopefully we can get the rodent issue taken care of quickly without too much added expense and we can finish getting our crawlspace taken care of. Just in time for Spring haha.

Basically, I've had a lot of contractors coming this week and to think of it all stresses me out a bit. On top of that, the kids have been sick and both ended up with ear infections. We also found out Henlie didn't make it into the dual language immersion program for next year, so Mama gets to keep working to afford 1/2 day kindergarten tuition at Kids Village and we will try again for 1st grade. Stressful times. Hopefully in the end it makes it all worth it. Hopefully :)

Ta-da! I'm back! At least for now ;) So to bring us up-to-speed here in 2018, I'm bringing you some highlights from 2016, post-Andrew's birthday. Enjoy!