It's been a long time since our last post..... our apologies. As you can imagine, a lot has happened since December. First, WE'RE EXPECTING baby #3! (aka "chopper") Everything should go fine this time. Wahoo for good news! I'm due October 20th so let the countdown begin! =) I'm 19 weeks along so our ultrasound is just around the corner. Keeping with tradition, we're not going to find out if the baby is a boy or a girl until he/she is born so you can await the good news with us! We'll post pictures after the ultrasound for you all to see.
Casey's business is growing... another big Wahoo! We have a sales team this summer. We also started a smaller second business, Osprey Advertising. We have a vision of where we want to go with that, but for now it's a one-man, or rather one-woman, job run by yours truly. Hopefully diversifying will grant us greater stability in this economy and help us towards future ventures.
Earlier this month, we moved into a beautiful home. It's in the same ward, yeah! In fact, it's only 1/3 of a block down the street from our last place. But it's almost twice a big, with beautiful landscaping, PAINTED WALLS, and a garden.... all for the same deal (utilities included) we were getting annually at the other house. (I have to say, there are some real perks for renters in this economy) Our friends own the home and are moving to St. Anthony, Idaho where they bought a dental practice. But in this market, they couldn't sell their home, so they are renting to us! Another Wahoo! Here are some photos:
Outside... isn't it pretty?!
Our fireplace.
Piano wall. The pink at the top is insulation from a heat duct... explanation to follow.
View of the dining room and kitchen from the living room.
Our kitchen! I LOVE my fridge and gas and gas stove!
The pink room... perfect for a nursery. I hope we have a girl so we can keep the pink! In the meantime, this is my sewing room.
Kade and Ethan's Polka-dot room.
The Guest bedroom... I love this room the most. It has really neat angles that you can't get in a picture, plus a big walk-in closet! If we stay over a year or buy the house, we'll paint the walls to match Casey's hunting pictures.
Half of the Master bedroom.
Master bathroom, plus a toilet closet you can't see to the left.
Casey's side of the master closet/room.
My side of the master closet/room plus extra storage because it's so big!!!!
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Well, after my next bit of news you may wonder where all of the enthusiasm is from. All I can say is that despite our trials, we have been looked out for. And yes, it always could have been worse. So, with that grand introduction, I give you THE FLOOD:
They always say that we need to apply the scriptures in our lives. Well, last night after a rather uneventful Memorial Day weekend, we had a flood in our upstairs bathroom. I can now relate to Noah. We had Jeremy and Jennie's family over for a bbq when their daughter Kenidi noticed water dripping from the living room ceiling. YIKES! PANIC! All of the adults rushed upstairs to find the bathroom under 2 inches of water. Somehow, the sink had been plugged with toilet paper and then turned on.... If this brings back images of the Wet Bandits from "Home Alone", you have it about right. We used every towel in the house and many blankets to clean up the floor. Every big pot and bowl were also employed as water catchers downstairs when the second and biggest leak revealed itself. After the water was maintained upstairs, Jennie changed Ethan's soaked clothes (he thought that mom and dad were cool enough to build a swimming pool inside and was drenched), put him to bed, and took Kade and her girls to her house. Jeremy pulled down the wet sheetrock and we were abel to locate the sources: under the cabinet(following the pipes) and through the bathroom heat vent. We had to shop vac the vent because it was filled with water and leaking where the vent met the insulated hose. It wasn't easy to watch the hole getting bigger as we found where the water was. But we knew that leaving it would only increase the area damaged. It was always a relief whenever Jer found where it was dry again. =) When it was all said and done, we had about a 6' circle chunked out of our ceiling. But on the up side of things, the hardwood floor was not damaged, the water never reached any electrical outlets or fixtures (though it came close), and we didn't get any water in the walls. Blessings, blessings, blessings! It was at that point that we realized this was a fixable accident and we hadn't totally ruined this home. All that's left to be done is to dry it out completely, re-sheetrock, hire someone to match the spackle on the ceiling so the spot "disappears", and paint. --Relatively easy. Below is a picture of the holes (2 of them) after they were cut to best fit the sheetrock and meet up with existing seems and beams.
It looks a lot bigger because it is. In some ways, it looks better now because it has clean squared off edges. It almost looks intentional instead of like an accident. (I'm going to use that if someone comes to the door... "Oh, we're just remodeling") --Little do they know. =)
When Casey called our friends this morning to tell them what happened to their house, we were again blessed because they took it really well. This was our biggest worry after our 4 am long-haul last night. Drostan was at work so Casey had to call Jenn who LOVES this home, so I was even more worried how she would take the news. To our shock, she even asked if we might like some extra can lights in the living room since the ceiling was already down. Who thinks of that in a time of crisis? Thankfully, Jenn does. Maybe we can just kill two birds with one stone here and add some cool upgrades while we're at it. --Holy cow, we are so lucky! They're coming over tonight to take a look at it. Honestly, I think we did a good job and there should be no future problems after the final patch is done. Until then... the word of the day is "EVAPORATION". :0)
So, for everyone who thought we dropped off the map because our blog has been void of new info, I hope we've redeemed ourselves somewhat. Hopefully I"ll stay up-to-date and it won't take a huge catastrophe to get we blogging again. Love all of you!
