When it rains...

it pours. Quite literally. It didn't start raining here until this evening, but it's been raining solid since then. We don't have any warnings tonight, like we did the other night, but the wind is crazy out there. Two nights ago we knew the wind was going to be crazy and there were tons of warnings. On Tuesday we came home to find our basketball goal blown over backwards. Luckily it didn't hit anything, but when Keith picked it up, it crushed his finger. It was pretty nasty, but it wasn't broken. Well, just a few minutes ago we heard the basketball goal fall onto the van. Bummer. If we knew there was going to be wind like this, we would have moved the van or put the basketball goal down. Thankfully Keith was not injured this time, and we don't think the van suffered any major trauma. (major being something we would have to deal with tonight) Our insurance company is going to love us.

Another new floor!

This morning we had Greg, the owner of the restoration company, and Clint, the owner of the flooring company, come out to look at the floor. As soon as they walked in the front door, they could see the problem. It's hard to miss. At first they were talking about needing to replace parts of the floor, and I thought I had a fight on my hands. I know the pictures on here aren't really clear, but the floor looks bad. It's obvious that it's been repaired. You know the four dark boards that stand out? Well, that entire end of the hallway against the carpet is dark, but most of the other wood is lighter. Anyway, Keith and I had decided that the only way to fix it, is to rip it all up and start over. It's a major undertaking, as we already have witnessed, and someone is going to be out some money(not us)!! I mentioned that I don't think only replacing the hallway will look good. I think I would always be able to tell, and it would never look new. The longer they looked at the floor, they began to agree with us. I was pleasantly surprised that they agreed, and that we didn't have to argue about it. So now we're going to pick a new floor, because they aren't crazy about the product that we have, and we get another new floor. It's crazy that our house is only about seven months old, and we're getting our third new hardwood floor. I'm just glad it's all working out. Even with the frustrations that we've had, we've been very pleased with everyone we've dealt with. They all still seem to want it done right. It's very refreshing. We've dealt with a restoration company that was the exact opposite, and it was beyond frustrating!

I just want to say thank you for all the comments yesterday about the floor. I just needed to see if everyone else saw what we saw. I'm not one to back down about something that I feel this strongly about. I'm not willing to settle when I know it's not right. Thanks for the encouragement!

Our 'new' floor

Here's the picture of our new floor. They sent some different guys out today to fix the floor. They decided to rip up a portion of the hallway and redo it. My problem with that is now seems more like a repaired floor then a new one. I really need your help with this one. I'm posting this picture because I need your honest opinion about the floor. By this point Keith and I are being overly critical because we want it done right, but I'm interested to see what you all think. I can clearly see the new wood, and it really bothers me. Please tell me what you guys think. Should this pass for a brand new hardwood floor?
These aren't the best pictures, and the floor is obviously still dirty. I'm going to take a picture of the dining room today, which we love the way it turned out. I'll also get another picture of the hallway once the weights are out of the way. They kept weight on it last night to help it stay down. We're going to see if the owner of the restoration company will come out and look at the floor also. I really want to know what he thinks. He called us yesterday to see if we were happy with it, but they were still here, so we didn't say one way or the other. The guys were here working from about 7:30 to a little after 6:00. It was a long day upstairs.

Vegetarian or not?

I've really been thinking lately about eating chicken. This might not seem like a big deal to some of you, but if you know me, then you know it's a big deal. I stopped eating meat when I was in the ninth grade. That's about 17 years ago! That means I've been a vegetarian for over half of my life! (Wow, I'm old!) It's really part of who I am. Change is really hard for me, but if I don't change then I'm not really growing either. (No, I don't think I need to eat meat to grow. Just to clarify.) My life would be so much easier if I just ate chicken. I don't fix that much beef, and those meals are usually easy to make vegetarian. Anyway, this is something that's been on my mind for awhile now. It's nothing I feel pressured to do. If I was going to give into pressure, that would have happened years ago! When I started thinking about this, I was hesitant because of all those people who have tried to get me to eat meat. I thought somehow that it was a victory for them, and that's not what I wanted. This doesn't bother me anymore. I know that whether or not I eat meat again should be all about me. I should do it because it's what I want to do. Because I'm ready for a change. Because I think I'll like it. I'll consider it a victory for me, and really, if anyone else wants to consider it a victory, that's fine too. We can celebrate together! Actually, the celebrating can already begin, because on Saturday night, I fixed chicken taco soup for my family. I ate it too. Mostly I ate everything but chicken because my stomach was turning a little bit at the thought of eating it. After supper I lingered a bit in the kitchen with the excuse that I needed to clean up and put everything away, but really it was so I could eat it alone. I ate two chunks of chicken with as much other stuff as I could get on the spoon. It didn't blow me away in a good or bad way. I'm taking it slow for now. Who knows what I'll decide tomorrow, but for now there are a few things I would like to try. I don't plan on eating beef or pork(okay, maybe just one piece of bacon!!) but I'm not going to rule anything out.

Just a few words...(or many, either way)

You all should have known it was coming. I haven't ranted in a while, but the time has come. Before I start, I need to say a few things. Although I'm not glad that we had a frozen pipe that burst into our house, I have been really pleased with how things are going. The company that is taking care of everything is really great. They really seem to be sincere when they say that they want us to be happy with everything. I would definitely recommend them to anyone. Anyway, I'm saying all this because I'm a little frustrated now. I know that it will all work out, but I just need to get this out.

Here goes...the subcontractor that is doing our floors has been awesome as well. They were finishing the hardwood on Tuesday evening when a supervisor or someone stopped by to check on things and see how it turned out. The only thing I could see when I looked in the hallway, was that there was a large area of wood that was darker than the rest. It was very obvious to me, and as soon as I pointed it out, it was obvious to everyone else. I know that wood isn't all exactly the same color, and to me that's part of the charm, but it just looked really bad all in one spot. What I loved is that they didn't spend any time arguing with me about it, but went straight to fixing the problem. They removed several boards and replaced them with some lighter ones, and it looked much better. So, we thought the problem was solved, and that we were only days away from having the house all back together. Well, the next morning when we looked at the floor, there were several big areas that weren't even touching the foundation. You could walk on them and they would just pop back up. I don't know why they didn't stick, but they didn't. The owner of the company called to see if we were satisfied with the floors, and when I told him that we weren't, he sent them back out to check it out. They had no good explanation, but the decision was made to rip out the entire hallway, and do it again. He mentioned trying to inject some more glue under the wood, and put some weight on it to see if that would help. He didn't seem to think that would work, and I didn't like the idea of just repairing it. I don't want it to look repaired or patched. I want it to look as good as it did before any of this happened. Surely that's not unreasonable? So, they ordered more wood and said that they probably wouldn't be able to do anything until Monday. I was excited about three whole days without any construction going on in my house. I was also very excited about getting out of the house. For most of the past two weeks, I've stayed home so they could get this stuff done. We've pretty much lived upstairs during the day and even at night. Well, of course they called me this morning, to see if they could go ahead and rip the floor up, so next week they would be ready to put the new one down. I was fine with that because I knew it wouldn't take that long to do, and Chloe and I could still go out in the afternoon. So, they show up and decide that they want to try the whole weight thing first. I'm okay with that too. I'm really not an unreasonable person, most of the time, but I'm still wondering why he changed his mind about it. Who knows. I showed them a couple of boards that definitely do need to be replaced, so they had to go back to the shop to get the wood and everything else they would need to take care of it. They left my house around 10:15, and said they would be back in about an hour. I've learned over the past few weeks not to expect them right on time, but it is now almost one, and they have yet to return. I'm now officially frustrated!! Going anywhere is out of the question now. I'm glad to be here during the day to make scheduling easier, but I'm tired of them assuming that I'll be here whenever they get here. Just because I don't leave my house to work doesn't mean that I don't have things to do. My time is just as important as anyone else's time. Maybe from now on I'll give them a two hour window, and if they don't make it then it their problem.

Okay, now I feel much better. I figure it's better to get it all out on here, instead of taking it out on them if they ever do come back. Even with the minor problems we're having, I feel like there's still a good relationship and I don't want to mess that up. Thanks for letting me get that out!

Avery and Chloe

Last night Brady had basketball practice, so he and Keith were gone for a little bit. Avery and Chloe had so much fun playing together. First they played in Avery's room, and then with the tunnel. Then Avery had Chloe cracking up as he danced with her. She has fun dancing on her own, but she was laughing so hard at Avery. I took a video, but Avery made me promise not to put it on the blog, or he wasn't going to dance with her. Anyway, they had a good evening playing together, and then Avery put Chloe to bed. It's so cute to see him reading to her and tucking her into bed.

*Please notice in the first picture that you can see Chloe in the tunnel too. She's looking through the screen part.

Life goes on

We haven't had much going on this week, except getting our house put back together. It's getting there, but they still have to do the floors, hopefully this week. I'm a bit tired of having strange people in my house on a daily basis, but I see the end in sight.
After being sick for about two weeks, I finally went to the doctor on Friday. Of course they said it was probably a virus, but since it's gone on for a couple of weeks, they gave my an antibiotic. I'm thankful to be feeling better finally, but the antibiotic makes my stomach a little upset. It's definitely better than the cough I was living with though.
Anyway, we've had a great weekend so far. Yesterday was basketball practice for the boys, and just hanging out at home. I'm so excited about this long weekend. It is a much needed break for all of us.
Avery and I are at home this morning because he woke up around three with a fever. If I had to guess, I would say it's strep, but I guess we'll have to wait for the official word from the doctor. I think we'll hang out today, and hope that there's somewhere open tomorrow. Thankfully his fever came down easily with medicine, so he doesn't feel as bad. Now we just have to keep anyone else from getting sick!
So you can see why I haven't posted for almost a week. We don't have anything very interesting going on. Sorry for the incredibly boring post.

Pretty important phone call

Tonight we got a phone call that was quite humorous. The guy who's been in charge of getting our house put back together called to let us know that the subcontractor who was here painting today, accidentally left the hose connected outside. The temperature barely got above freezing today, and it's only going to get colder tonight. I'm so thankful that he remembered. I don't care who would be responsible for it. I just don't want to go through it again.

8 things about my kids

Carrie tagged me to share eight things about Avery, Brady and Chloe, so here goes.

We'll start with Avery.

1. He loves to read anything he can get his hands on. Reading and spelling are his strengths.
   
2. He loves to build things.
3. He likes things done his way, exactly his way!
4. He is very competitive.
5. He has the longest eyelashes I've ever seen. Seriously. He hates it when people notice that, and it happens quite often.
6. He loves to play sports.
7. He's very artistic.
8. He likes for his room to be pitch black when he goes to sleep.

Brady

1. He isn't afraid of anything.
2. He loves to play and watch sports.
3. He's very giving.
4. He is a math whiz.
5. He doesn't play well alone.
   
6. He loves to play in the dirt.
7. He can name just about any truck he sees.
8. He has a good sense of direction.

Chloe

1. She is very bossy.
2. She adores her brothers.
3. She doesn't like for anyone to mess with her hair, unless she's going to sleep.
4. She is very loud.
   
5. She doesn't like naps.
6. She likes to play rough with her daddy and brothers.
7. She loves broccoli, but won't touch green beans.
8. She is all girl!

So, I decided to come up with things for my kids, instead of asking them. I asked Brady, just to see what he came up with, and now I'm glad that I did it. The two things he told me were that he is fast, and he is an eater! Anyway, so now I guess we'll tag Hannah, the Worley's, the McKnatt's and the Ferguson's, and anyone else who would like to do it.

What do you think?

Keith and I found these shirts at Cracker Barrel for two dollars. It was just too good to pass up. This is how they went to school yesterday. I doubt their teachers even noticed, but I sure hope they did.

My advice to you...

I don't have tons of helpful advice for people normally, but today I have a good one. Don't leave your hose(or hose pipe as it's called 'round here in these parts) connected during the winter if you live somewhere that might have freezing temperatures, or your pipes might freeze! Apparently, we should have already known this, but we didn't. Now we do.

Here's the whole story. We were outside enjoying a very warm day, and Chloe wanted to use her watering can. So I decided to water the trees in between filling her up. I'm not sure how long I had been doing this before Avery went inside (because he was in trouble) and came right back out screaming that there was water everywhere inside. After running in and grabbing the phone, it occurred to me that I should probably turn the water off outside. (I think Brady was actually the one who thought of it.) Thank goodness for the boys, because almost as soon as I yelled to turn off the water, it was off. Thankfully, it stopped pouring into the house, and we were able to start cleaning up. It was a lot of water. It was seeping out under the walls on three different sides. Anyway, we did what we could, but the damage was already done. Thankfully, once we contacted our insurance agent, things started happening very quickly. They came today and ripped out most of our hardwood, some drywall and insulation. It was incredibly loud downstairs, but it wasn't bad upstairs, so that's where we were most of the day. We now have eight industrial fans, two dehumidifiers and an air scrubber in our dining room, kitchen and hallway. We also have an incredible amount of dust. The fans are quite loud and make it nearly impossible to have a conversation. It's pretty crazy!! I'm just very thankful that it's something so easily fixed. I'm also thankful for home owners insurance!!

We sprung a leak

This afternoon we had a small leak in our kitchen. Okay, really it wasn't so small, but it could have been much worse. The kitchen, dining room, hallway and part of the breakfast area were covered in a few inches of water. (There will be more to come on the "how and why" later.) Anyway, we got the water out as quickly as we could thanks to the shop vac, but the damage was already done. The hardwood is ruined, and I'm sure that's not all. Anyway, the whole reason I'm even posting about this is because of my kids. They really are amazing! They helped clean up willingly, even saying it was kind of fun. Chloe kept reassuring us that, "God will save us," and while Avery was on his hands and knees trying to dry the floor, he stopped to say a prayer. I really don't deserve such awesome kids, but I sure am thankful for them!

Boys love fire!

Cabin in Georgia

I don't know what the fascination is with fire, but most boys/men I know love it. I guess starting and maintaining a fire is manly. Maybe it's like my fascination with purses. I know men don't understand that! Anyway, Thad started a fire the night we got there, and from that moment on, it was the favorite activity for the guys. If my boys were allowed to be out there, then that's where they were. I think most everyone enjoyed it at least once. I regret that I didn't get a picture with all the guys out there, but at least I have this one.
This really is the last of our Christmas vacation. I just had to include this one, but I thought it deserved it's on post.

Christmas:part three (finally)

Well, I'm finally getting this on here. We had a great time with Keith's family in Georgia. The kids had a blast of course! They loved hanging out with everyone, and getting presents was a highlight too! My favorite part was sitting around playing games. We enjoyed horseback riding one day, some of us more than others. (Please notice whose horse, ok mule really, was out of line!!) Later that same day, we went on a hike. It was really pretty, but it was a bit of a challenge. There were over 500 steps to climb down, and then back up. Pops, now I know why you volunteered to stay with Chloe at the top!!
Chloe enjoyed playing with Kiley, one of her best friends! She also was fascinated with a set of coasters on the coffee table. She played with them the entire weekend!






Thad, Stephanie and Lacey...sorry you guys missed out on meeting Ms. Workman. It was interesting!! Maybe next year...

Oh my!

Chloe isn't much for naps these days, but I'm trying to enforce at least some kind of rest time. Today, she called me two different times during rest time. The first was to change her stinky diaper. I'm really thankful that she called me for that one because the second time I went to her room, she was only wearing her shirt, on her arms. She took everything off, but she couldn't get her shirt off of her arms. I've heard about kids doing this, but I had always hoped that it wouldn't be mine. Maybe we should do away with rest time too!

Part 3 is coming...really!

Blogging is frustrating me today. I keep losing pictures somehow, and I'm not in the mood to figure out how or why. I'm pretty sure that it's operator error, which makes it all the more frustrating. Anyway, I'm hoping to get pictures on here of our celebration with Keith's family either tonight or tomorrow. I have quite a few pictures, and I'm having trouble narrowing it down, so I'm just putting everything I want on there! That could be the problem also.