Basement Woes

Last Wednesday, around 9:15 I went downstairs to do a final check of doors and lights before going to bed.  As I rounded the preschool tables I sadly saw and stepped into a puddle of water on our carpet.  At the very same time there was quite a down pour going on outside so I really wasn't sure if the storm caused the water to come into our house or if there was a mechanical problem. As I stepped into the hallway I stepped into more water.  I followed the hallway around to see where else there was water and found a huge puddle in another section of the hallway, leaking into the "guest" room and the floor of the bathroom covered in at least an inch of water.  Fun times.  I opened the utility closet door and found more water.  I was still really not sure where the water was coming from. I really did not think it was pipes leaking as we replaced all our plumbing shortly after we moved in.  I quickly tried to look for any water spots on the walls and ceilings and saw none.  Still confused and very concerned I went upstairs to grab my phone and call Mark who was at the airport.  We talked for a bit and tried to trouble shoot the problem.  He suggested that maybe it was the water heater which in the end it did turn out to be.  Our water heater burst draining a whole lot of water into the basement.

We talked a little bit more and then I started laying out towels to try to clean up some of the water and block water from leaking into other places.  I called one clean up place to ask a few questions and they said they would call back in the morning which was fine.  There was no way I was going to clean up much with what resources I had so I did the best I could, turned off our water just in case it was something else and went to bed.  Before going to bed though I had to send an email canceling preschool.  I felt bad but really there was nothing I could do.  We could not have preschool down there and would not have any hot water for washing hands and what not. When Mark got off work around 1:00 (it was a really bad airport week, Monday night planes were delayed because of storms and he didn't get home until 3:00!!) his supervisor who has a plumbing background stopped by to check out the situation.  It was very kind of him.  He confirmed that yes it was our water heater and they turned off the breaker to the water heater.

This carpet was so squishy and it quickly spread to about half the carpet area of the basement.

First thing the next morning I contacted our Warranty company to file our claim.  Once I had a contact for a plumbing company I called them and then called a restoration company they recommended.  Both companies were were great to work with and were able to fit us in that afternoon. The restoration company got to our house around 9:45 to do the initial evaluation and the plumbing company arrived around 1:30.  They had told me between 3 and 5 so it was great they arrived earlier. While I was setting up the contract with the Restoration company my dear friend Laura came over and cleaned up most of the standing water. I was so embarrassed that she was down there doing it by herself while I talked to the Restoration rep but Laura is awesome and makes you feel good about any situation.  Julie kindly offered to pick Jared and Lydia up from school and have them over to play which was really sweet of her.  They had a great time. I'm so fortunate to have such truly caring, selfless people in my life.

I was really impressed with how quickly the plumbing people got our new water heater installed.  Because we have a warranty there was a chance we would have to wait on their decision.  When I talked to the plumbing guy and told him the model of our water heater (It was from 1996!) he said they had those on the truck (awesome) but sometimes the warranty people want you to use their products so you would have to A.  argue which I am not good at.  B  Wait a few days for them to locate a product and get it to you.  I mentioned my lack of arguing skills and asked if he was good at it and he said he was so I left it in his hands.  Once I told him I had an 8 and 6 year old and ran a preschool out of my house he reassured me I would have the water heater by the end of the day.  We got it even sooner.  By 3:00 we had the new heater installed and happily had hot water again.   The Restoration company arrived around 5:30 and didn't leave until 10:00.  They did a great job and came back to check on things Saturday and by then everything was dried out.  We feel really fortunate that we got connected with the people we did.

One drawback was the fact that our old water heater was so old it was not up to code and our warranty does not cover code upgrades.  Now had we known there was such a thing when we bought our warranty we may have looked into the upgrade since a lot of our major appliances are so old but we had no idea so instead of the 100 dollar deductible we had to pay 400.  That was obnoxious.  Thankfully now our water heater is in good shape.

The insurance people were really helpful too.  We talked to our adjuster Thursday and the inspector came out today.  He inspected everything, wrote up the estimate and handed me a check within an hour.  He was really kind and answered lots of questions.  He commented on how kind and calm I was being and how refreshing it was.  He had been dealing with storm damages all day and lots of people yelling.  We found out last week how high our deductible was so I had already had time to prepare myself and was expecting to not get very much money to cover the repairs and saw no need to take it on on him.  We feel like he was really generous with his estimate and are really grateful. I joked with Mark that maybe our estimate was a little better than it could have been because I was nice and calm.  Seriously just treat people how you want to be treated. I think it has to do with having been on the customer service side of an office at one time and taken a lot of crap from people when I truly had nothing to do with the problem.  We also were unaware of just how high our deductible was so that will be remedied soon also.

In reality this has turned out in our favor.  We knew our water heater would be breaking eventually (it was over 20 years old and people say you aren't supposed to get more than 10 years from one) when we bought the house so now its done and we don't really have to worry about that and wanted to update our basement if we could so now we can.  New paint in the main room, flooring in 3 rooms, new vanity in bathroom and some mold protection.  Even though we technically did pay for it because we have been paying for our insurance for all these years its nice that the money did not have to come directly out of our accounts.

The preschool families were really kind about it.  We had a make up day today and are meeting upstairs for this week.  I hope we can be downstairs for our last week of the year which is next week but we will see how quickly we get this work done. I am not holding my breath but we sure lucked out with everything so far.  Mark stopped by to visit the former Bishop of our ward to talk about some other things Sunday night and they were asking about the water heater situation.  Turns out that the Bishop before this family had a big basement problem and so did the previous bishop who Mark was visiting with, we are just following in their footsteps. I want to ask them what other things happened during their 5 years so maybe I can prepare myself!  Really I think it just has to do with the fact that it is a good amount of time so things are bound to happen but weird that it was the basement for all three families so far.  They all joked that they better not tell the next guy.  We are really grateful for how this all played out especially that we were home when it happened.  It would be so sad to come back from being out of town and walk into that.

So this month is turning out to be quite a bit more expensive than we expected.  We had our HVAC system serviced about 2 weeks ago and it was more than originally thought because it had been so long since it had been cleaned out and now our water heater.  Our HVAC is as old as the water heater so it will most likely be next. We sure hope things stay calm for awhile now.

EU passport day

A few years ago Mark heard about a really cool event in DC.  On the first Saturday of the month of May the International embassies in Washington DC hold open houses.  The following week the countries in the EU have open houses. They are free and open to the public.  We have wanted to go for at least 2 years but it just hasn't worked out.  This year things worked out and we were able to attend the open houses on EU Passport day.  It was a really fun event.  We did have to walk around a lot in fairly warm weather and there were some long lines but we had a great time and plan on going again next year.  Earlier in the week we read a few articles about the event, consulted maps to find which ones were close to each other and made a plan.  The Belgium Embassy was ranked as one of the best ones to attend so we decided we would go there first.  Finland is right next to Belgium so we planned on checking them out too. We noticed that Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Holland were all right next to each as well so we planned to go to Belgium and Finland and then head over to the last three.

The doors opened at 10:00 and the line for Belgium was incredibly long.  We decided I would wait in line for Belgium while Mark took Jared and Lydia to Finland.  They had a great time in Finland.  They had fish on crackers to taste (Mark tried it Jared and Lydia did not) and some Finnish cheese, paint to draw a Finnish flag on you, a balloon artist, and a photo booth.  I met some very nice people from North Carolina and enjoyed talking to them (they are big UVA fans).  Lydia was getting antsy so she and I decided to take a little walk and as we did a policeman with a K-9 dog said to me, "come with me you can go to the front of the line." I was so surprised and slightly confused.  I called Mark and told him to come meet us really quick so he and Jared could skip the line too. I didn't feel too bad about this as I had already waited in line for an hour and 20 minutes.  It was such a lifesaver.  We got into the embassy and were treated to all kinds of swag specifically lots of Belgium chocolate.  After getting the Finnish flag Jared and Lydia made a goal to get flags from each embassy so when they saw the woman with the stamp for the Belgium flag they were excited.  They handed out bags, chocolates, free beer, flags, and Smurf paraphernalia because the creator of Smurfs is apparently from Belgium. In the courtyard they had more alcohol (a large reason why this embassy was so popular) waffles, a soccer game going and screens with Belgian music.  It was well worth the wait.

After leaving Belgium we walked back to our car so we could head over to the other embassies.  We had parked at the National Cathedral which was close but still a decent walk.  It was getting pretty warm but Jared and Lydia did pretty well.  The embassies are located in a really nice neighborhood.  There were lots of pretty houses which happily all looked different from each other and had beautiful landscaping and mature trees.  It was so different from where we normally are in DC.  Even though it was hot and a long walk it was a pretty place for a walk.  I would love to go there another time.  Maybe even take bikes.

Mark found a place to park and then we walked over to the Czech Republic.  They had lots of traditional food for sale but we skipped it this time and enjoyed the live traditional music.  Jared, Mark and Lydia got their flags on their arms and then spent a few minutes in the bounce house.  Next to the bounce house were the reigning Czech/Slovak queen from Kansas and the 2nd runner up to the Ms. Czech/Slovak US.  It was fun to talk to them.  The 2nd runner up is actually a middle and high school history teacher so she and Mark enjoyed sharing stories.

After the Czech Republic we headed over to Hungary which was thankfully just around the corner.  They had lots of music and food and some fun kids activities.  Jared colored a Hungarian flag while Lydia watched a Hungarian cartoon.  I had read that they had dogs there so we went in search of them and found the funniest looking dog.  We are not dog people, but Jared was mesmerized by this one dog.  Its called a Komondor.  He loved it so much.

I love his face in these pictures, so much. 

Our last stop of the day was Holland.  It was not as close as we thought and we were all so hot and tired by the time we got there.  It also had a long line but it was definitely worth the wait.  It wasn't quite as long as Belgium but still long and at the end of a tiring day.  They had fun bags and in the bag were water bottles for which we were all so grateful.  Once inside we tried some cheese from Holland, it was delicious and some of their poffertjes or miniature pancakes. Their actual embassy was probably the nicest one we visited.  They had a fun painting activity and a "on location" photo op.

It turned out to be a really fun outing.  I was talking to a friend about it and she commented on how I was a really good mom and that I alway found the coolest things to do.  (It was the day before Mothers day after all) I replied "yes, I am really good at making my kids walk all over the place and stand in long lines."  But it really was worth it.  We are looking forward to going again next year.  The family I chatted with while waiting to get into Belgium  had gone last year and gave some tips of places to avoid and places to stop by.  Next year it looks like we will be stopping by Germany for sure.  Besides going in buildings you normally can't, learning little facts about places all over the world, and fun samples it was fun to be around other people who are interested in the world out there and being wiling to travel and go new places.  It was fun to try out things and visit with people.  And since we were driving back from DC we of course stopped at Moo Thru, always a good way to end a day in DC on a high note.  We do love living out here.

DC driving, but it shows most their "flags" (on his arm) 

Marathon in a month, kayaking, BYU Ballroom Dance Performance

We didn't intend for Saturday to be so filled with fun events but sometimes it just happens. We started the day with a very un fun event, weeding. Weeding is one of mine Jared and Lydia's least favorite tasks.  Its just that time of year where we have to get out and do it all the time.  One of the preschool families had dug out a lot of daffodil bulbs from their yard and brought them over to me.  From my experience daffodils are supposed to be planted in the Fall but she assured me that I could plant them now with the green stems still attached and they would be fine so we did it.  We weeded our fire pit area and planted lots of bulbs.  Work first play next.

Marathon in a month has been going strong and Saturday was the day for our final mile.  We met up with a few other families to run our last 1.2 miles.  The two days before were so hot I was so grateful for the perfect weather we ended up with. We met at 10:30, ran our mile and then celebrated with popsicles and a simple medal ceremony.  One day earlier in the week I asked Jared if he wanted to get up early and run 3 miles with me.  He didn't pause for a second but excitedly said "yes!" He did great.  I was proud of him. I'm glad we did it as the idea of going out running after school on those 90+ degree days sounded awful to me.  It was nice to get the last 3 miles in on one day even if that is not technically the way it is supposed to go.  He was happy for the challenge and I was happy to get to do it with him.  Lydia finished off the month with a lot of scooter riding and not much running but she did it.  On Saturday she ran with Mark.  After the first lap she was ready to quit but Mark convinced her to finish strong.  I had brought streamers for a finish line and everyone loved breaking through it.  Jared was thrilled that he finished before everyone else.  It was a fun event.

Also, Lydia pulled out her own tooth Friday. It had been wobbly for awhile and she got tired of waiting for Mark to get home from school so she just did it herself. The top 2 have come in about half way and she now has 2 holes on the bottom. 

After marathon in a month we headed home with the idea to lay low until our fiesta.  But after being out in the perfect weather we decided to get a quick paddle in on the lake.  Mark quickly mowed the lawn and then we got the racks on the car.  I had just showered so I ended up skipping out this time but the three of them had a great time.  We are looking forward to some good kayaking time this summer.

After our fiesta we headed out to the final event of the day, the BYU Ballroom Dance Company performance.  I love these performances so much.  I have such fond memories of attending their events in Yuba City and then our family hosting dancers.  It feels like groups came out to Yuba City pretty frequently.  This July marks 4 years for us here in Charlottesville and this was the first time they or any performing group has come out here to my knowledge.  Jared was not looking forward to the performance very much and Lydia was so excited to see it and then she was such a pill during their show.  Part of it was just being tired from a busy day so I could see why but it still drove me a little crazy.  Right after the first number she looked at me and said, "don't ask me which one was my favorite at the end."  Noted.  Jared on the other hand loved it.  He was really glad we went. They do some awesome flips and lots of lifts which both kids thought were amazing.  They have fun costumes and are really talented. Their opening number was really impressive.  Every time they did a cool lift Lydia would look at me to see if I saw it too. That part was super cute and fun. The opening number was a song from The Greatest Showman and Jared recognized the song even before I did.  That was another movie he watched on a flight (with permission) and he loved it.  He really likes musicals which I totally get.  Even with Lydia's shenanigans it was a fun event and worth the later night.

 

Theme dinners

If I had to pick between a fun dinner for Star Wars day or Cinco De Mayo, Cinco de Mayo would always win.  Its too bad Star Wars day will always be the day before Cinco De Mayo.  The being said we had have fun celebrating both days with fun dinners this year.  Jared is making good progress on the Star Wars books I brought back from California he is on book 8 in the series. That and the fact that he sneakily watched Star Wars 8 on one of our flights has made it to so Star Wars is on his mind more than other times.  Therefore he was very interested in celebrating Star Wars Day.  He helped me plan a fun dinner for the night and made sure we watched a Star Wars movie for family movie night.  We came up with:  Tie Fighter Fettuccine, X wing bread sticks, light saber grapes, and Star Wars Jello.  I attempted to make a Death Star brownie by simply cutting a brownie into a circle, frosting it and drawing lines in it.  It worked.   I also made some lightsaber pretzel rods to put in their lunches. We watched Return of the Jedi, my favorite Star Wars movie and had a good time.  The only down side was the fact that our house was 90 degrees during this time.  We don't have a traditional AC, its a heat pump system and we haven't had any real problems with it since living here.  Sadly last Thursday and Friday were 90+ degree days and our heat pump was not working.  We watched the movie in the basement but it was so hot upstairs as I made dinner that I couldn't even keep the brownie with frosting out, it was breaking down.  That was one of the most uncomfortable dinners I've cooked in a long time. It was so miserably hot.  We ended up having Jared and Lydia sleep in the basement that night.  They were happy with that arrangement, and we were happy that the hot weather went away on Saturday.

Earlier in the week I talked to some friends about the idea of getting together for a Cinco De Mayo fiesta.  We each made our favorite Mexican dish and the Carter's brought a piñata.  It was a huge hit.  Thankfully the weather was perfect and we ate outside and the rain held off until everyone was packing up to go home. We will miss the Carter's when they head out to Alaska this Summer.

Ice cream, outdoors and neighbors

Awhile back we stopped by Kohr's Brothers for their annual .5 cents cone day.  They host it every year on Tax day and we have made it the last 4 years.  This year we waited to go until Mark could go with us and I think it was the longest line we have had to wait in.  We got there around 4:15 and waited about 25 minutes.  They really have a good system down and we all enjoy going. We always run into people we know (most often members of the church), which makes us feel like real locals.   This year it was a friend from our current ward and a family from the 1st ward.  It was a little bit chilly that day but we are always up for ice cream.

Every now and then I remember that many of the activities I do with my preschool class are ones that Jared and Lydia would enjoy too.  In fact many of them I first did with Jared and Lydia when they were little. One of those is the classic, Fruit Loop rainbows, it was a great Spring time after school snack for them.  I was recently talking to a friend about how when I pictured myself as a mom I had this dream of making fresh cookies or brownies or banana bread for my kids for a snack after school.  They would sit at the snack bar and enjoy the delicious baking smell in their home and tell me all about their day.  I do not often give into the many "ideas" about good parenting but one that has gotten to me (even though you couldn't tell by the above two paragraphs) is that I should attempt to limit the sugar they, (really all of us,) eat.  I want to make the cookies and homemade treats but understand that I really shouldn't. At least not that often.  It makes me sad though.  A little dream unfulfilled.  Thats not to say I have never done it I have, but not nearly as much as I envisioned.  And fruit loops are not exactly sugar free but feel strangely better than a cookie?  Too bad all the healthy cookies recipes I have tried have been gross and not worth the ingredient cost.  Regardless it was fun and thematic one of my favorite things. 

After church on Earth day we went on a walk down our road and picked up trash.  Our road is a gravel, back road that runs somewhat parallel to the main highway in Charlottesville. When there is an accident or traffic is backed up on 29 our road becomes a lot busier.  Often we will be eating dinner and suddenly know something has happened on 29 because there is a steady stream of cars compared to the 1 that may go by while we are eating.  So being a back road it gets trash dumped on it a lot.  Not just garbage but mattress's, tires, old TV's.  Its really obnoxious.  As you continue down our road there are 2 one lane bridges.  The road connects to a large neighborhood but there are less than 10 houses on our actual road and they are pretty spaced out from each other. Since we live at the beginning of the road we have next to none of the trash, just all the dust but when we drive down the road and get past the houses it looks so bad.  Its really a bummer.  So we tried to go clean it up some.  Some people have tried to make a set of trails through the woods to connect to the neighborhood and even put a large trash can at the head of the trail but it seems to rarely get emptied and since its not covered I am sure animals love it. It is always messy right by the trash can so its a good idea that is not really working.  We were glad to help out some. 

After we got back from Texas, where they jumped on a trampoline a lot with David and Emma, Lydia and to some extent Jared, suddenly remembered that we have our own trampoline!  Lydia has been out jumping a lot which has been great.  Its kind of the worse when you buy your kids something they really want and set it up and then they don't use it.  Her favorite is to have Mark squirt her with the hose or a water gun when he gets home from school.  Lately though she is out in the rain or sun.  She is also loving her ballet class and looks forward to it each week.  Its really cute to watch her.  

The other day we were out enjoying a snack (popcorn (with coconut oil nonetheless) and pink lemonade not homemade cookies) on the porch and a car suddenly pulled into our driveway.  This car happened to be the same model as a good friend of ours so we were happy to have a surprise visit.  It turned out to actually be one of our neighbors that we had yet to meet.  She stopped and chatted with us for a good 15 minutes.  It was really nice.  They have been here around 10 years and homeschool their kids.  We have been here almost 4 so its a little embarrassing that we haven't met but they are down a good 5 houses and each house is 2 acres so not that close to each other. Neighbor is a loose word on this street. She had mentioned mentioned wanting to stop by quite a few times but when she tried to talk to the other "newer" neighbors closer to her she had gotten the cold shoulder so was a little gun shy.  Most of the people on our street have been here 20+ years, they have all raised their kids and are on their own now. It was really nice to chat with her.  Their kids are 16, 14, 12 and 10 so older than Jared and Lydia.  They apparently have lots of animals which was one reason why she stopped.  She wanted to see if Jared and Lydia would be interested in caring for their animals when they are out of town at the end of the month.  They have a bunny, 3 guinea pigs, 3 dogs, and 15 chickens. Jared and Lydia would love to. I'm not sure how I feel about it but would be willing to let them try it out.

Jared is loving going out in the woods.  He takes his walkie talkie, survival kit and heads out to explore.  Yesterday he went out and headed over to our neighbors tree fort.  Shortly after I hear his voice over the walkie talkie telling me that he sees a large black snake with a white belly right by the ladder on the tree fort.  We strangely rarely see snakes around here so I tried not to panic.  He quietly backed away and made it back home with no incidents. From his description I'm pretty sure it was either a Virginia Northern Black Racer, or Eastern rat snake. Both are native to Virginia and harmless but then today at preschool drop off one of the moms showed me a picture of a snake she and her daughter found at Chris Greene Lake and it didn't look quite as harmless.  Again why do so many people love Spring?  Sure its pretty and warmer weather is nice I guess but there are so many more things to deal with when it comes!   Jared has already gotten 2 ticks this year and has poison ivy in a few spots.  Hopefully he will be more careful with the poison ivy and we are back to checking for ticks every night before bed. He has also become quite the tree climber.  We met up with friends to ride bikes and play at the church and they climbed up quite high in one tree.  His friend Tyler is at the bottom, you can barely see Jared above him.  He's wearing brown pants so he really blends in with the trunk of the tree but he's pretty much right above Tyler.  Now that he is climbing higher I am paranoid about him falling but at the same time I love seeing him being outdoors and exploring and taking simple risks.