Travel Log

We're back from vacation and attempting to now achieve some normalcy.

Two weeks ago the contractors finished at our house.  All of our floors are done, we've just got a lot of work to go.  The kitchen needs one more coat of paint on the walls, two more on the cabinets, and installation of cabinet doors.  Adam needs to stretch and tack down the carpet in each bedroom doorway and then all construction will be complete until something else breaks.

Last week we escaped the stress and headed out of town.  Our first stop was in Wichita, Kansas, where we stayed at Chris and Ashley Borniger's house and played with their new baby.  She is the perfect baby; fat and happy.  I enjoyed holding, feeding, and rocking her while we were there.  We've known Chris since just before we got married and he is Claire's godfather.  Here's a picture of the kids with beautiful Miss Elena.

Our next stop was St. Louis, Missouri.  We were able to stay at a nice hotel for a mere $65/night thanks to Priceline.com.  I didn't take any photos of the hotel's exterior, so here's one I stole off their website.  It's the Double Tree at St. Louis Union Station.

Our first day in St. Louis was cold and rainy.  Instead of souvenir t-shirts, we each picked out a St. Louis souvenir hoodie.  We headed to the zoo because in Fort Worth the best days to go are the rainy days.  No crowd and the animals are excited about the rain.  Because it wasn't crowded or possibly because she is so cute, Claire was selected to help in the sea lion show.  She threw raw fish at a sea lion named Nikki and even gave her a special treat of raw squid.  We've been teasing Claire that she ate the squid instead of feeding it to the sea lion.

The next day we went to the City Museum.  Anyone that visits St. Louis must go there because it is uncommon and unparalleled.  I'm not really sure why they call it a museum because it should be called the City Playground.  Tennis shoes should be a requirement for entrance here because you will be working out all day (or watching others).  The museum is full of tunnels, caves, slides, and countless places to climb.  The kids and Adam enjoyed sliding down the 10-story slide.  I enjoyed taking pictures of it.  More than once I looked at the roof to see the kids or Adam in the air.  I get motion sickness and slides aren't that appealing to me, so I mostly watched.  I tried to climb one of the wire tunnels but my knees let me know that was not an activity I would enjoy.  Adam and the kids were unstoppable, though, and I quickly got over my worrying about their safety.  They climbed to the top of a structure on top of the building; the 11 story building.

  I included this last photo to give some perspective on some of the climbing.  This is on the very top of the 11 story building.  It's a giant dome and the kids and Adam climbed to the top of it.  I don't even want to know how many hundreds of feet they were in the air, but they loved it.  The museum was designed by an artist and it's really indescribable.  Every inch of the place is a work of art, from the mosaic tile floor to the interior caverns to the organ that plays itself.

Admission is surprisingly only $12 a person.  I don't mean to be an advertisement for this place, but it is worth it.  There are even parkour-type ramps for kids and adults to run on.  Paul was a blur most of the day.

The next day was July 4 and we celebrated by visiting the Arch.  We road a boat down the Mississippi River and and elevator up to the top of the arch.  We stayed for fireworks, along with Adam estimates 200,000 other people.  It was crazy crowded and reminded me of that summer concert we went to all those years ago at Texas Motor Speedway.  

The next day we headed back to Texas and stopped in Texarkana to see Adam's godparents.  We spent the night there and then travelled to Tyler to see Adam's side of the family and celebrate July 4th with them.  Adam and his cousin always put on a fireworks display for us there.  Here's Claire shooting a bottle rocket.

We got home at 1 a.m. Sunday morning and yesterday was a blur or exhaustion and unpacking.  Today we are getting back in the routines.  First stop is the vet to pick up the dogs.

Thankful Things

Life has been stressful around here with all our construction.  We still don't have flooring in our home.  About March 1 we had an incident where the water line that goes to the ice-maker broke and the house flooded.  Since then we've been working to get the flooring in 3/4 of our home replaced.  We also got all new bottom cabinets in our kitchen.
This has been an all-consuming project.  I don't know about Adam, but I imagined that since we had contractors doing the work, that there wouldn't be much work for us to do.  I was wrong.  We pack up everything in one room and move it to the next.  Then we do it again.  We've packed up the kitchen and I cooked meals from food found in boxes.  Fortunately I have cabinets now, but Adam has had to take off the doors so we could paint them.  Selecting the paint on the cabinets led to an understanding that we also needed to paint the kitchen walls.  We are currently stuck in a labyrinth of home improvement.  I am hopeful we will see the light at the end of the tunnel by July, but am not sure there is ever an end because once you fix one thing then you realize another needs improvement.
I haven't been able to write much because every second of my time has been spent working...working for my job and working on the house.  Adam and I both have been consumed with this.  Luckily the kids are resilient and patient with us when we can't play with them because we have to work on the house.

To refocus, here is a list of a few blessings I'm thankful for today:

1.  The flooring is already paid for and sits in boxes in our living room.  Eventually we will be able to walk barefoot around the house again.
2.  Our kids washed both cars on Saturday, without any prompting, and for a mere $5 per kid.  That's $2.50 for a hand wash; a great bargain as well as great fun for two kids with swimsuits and a hose.
3.  I've been able to clean out and organize the kitchen and hope to do the rest of the house.
4.  I'm learning my work limits and that I really do need downtime.  Working from the moment my feet hit the ground to the moment my head hits the pillow is no fun and causes me to be a little bit emotional and overwhelmed.
5.  All the seeds that the kids and I planted in January have sprouted and are growing beautifully in pots or my tiny garden.
6.  Hugs.
7.  Our wonderful neighbors have been a great help to us by offering advice, lending a hand, and helping watch the house when I have to pick the kids up from school.
8.  This is Paul's last week of preschool, so next week we'll be able to help get this show on the road.  That will also free us both up to spend some quality time together before Claire gets out of school.
9.  A stop at Half Price Books on Sunday ended with a large stack of new books to read, motivation for me to take time to read them and not just work all the time.
10.  Our friend Rev. Nancy is retiring this week and we are so happy for her and grateful for the blessing she's been to our whole family.

Thank God for Home Depot

About two months ago, our refrigerator line broke and our house flooded.  Since then, we have been on an exciting and educational journey.  It started when a friend suggested we call the insurance company to help us with cleanup.  Immediately we were plunged into a world of fans and de-humidifiers.
Next we watched cleanup crews remove our parquet floors.  Adam and Paul put on work gloves and safety glasses and grabbed crow-bars and hammers and helped out.
We moved everything from the parquet floors but then had to move it back so we could remove the carpet in the living room.  Under the carpet was hideous linoleum.  We borrowed a tool and slowly chipped away at that until a neighbor informed us of a power tool that could do the job quicker.  So last weekend Adam took the kids camping and returned to finish the job of ripping up linoleum. 
Under the linoleum was black gunk.  I thought it was mildew, but we have been advised by several professionals that it is actually glue containing asbestos.  Yesterday a floor professional informed me that our neighborhood is famous for using asbestos in the glue.  I was initially paranoid about this, but everyone says that if we leave it alone, we'll all be fine.  The new flooring will be laid on top of it, so supposedly there's not a health hazard, unless we start trying to sand the asbestos.
In the kitchen we had vinyl squares, which we have also removed.  These came up easily.  Once these were removed, I thought we had mildew stains on the slab.  Nope, that's asbestos again.  Today I am going to mop the floors with bleach to kill any germs on them, but will leave the asbestos alone.
Yesterday Adam took our lower kitchen cabinets off the wall.  This involved disconnecting and reconnecting the sink, the garbage disposal, and the hot water tap.  Much sawing took place, but he was able to successfully remove the cabinets and then push them back against the wall so I can use them until the new ones are installed.
Currently our house is an obstacle course of cardboard boxes and furniture.  Our new cabinets were delivered yesterday, so the living room has all the normal furniture, plus cardboard boxes, plus 13 new cabinets and accessories.
Besides the bedrooms, where we'll keep our carpet, our flooring is currently concrete slab.
Through this whole process, we have been so grateful for the help we receive.
When the house flooded, our neighbors provided help and equipment to dry out the house.  The insurance company sent us professional to the  house to take care of it.  We had no idea about de-humidifiers or moisture sensors.  The restoration people educated us and took care of the job.  Then the insurance company sent out an adjuster, who wrote Adam a check to pay for repairs.
Adam called several contractors to bid on our repairs, but we just didn't know anything about this process, so ended up choosing Home Depot both for price and for customer service.  We walked into Home Depot at 5:30 p.m. on a Sunday night and said we wanted wood floor.  The employee working in the flooring department was kind enough to walk us through:  Wood or laminate?  Snap on or Glue down?  American wood or Chinese?  Eco-friendly or not?  Hand-scraped or other?  What color?  What about tile that looks like wood?
Later, Adam arrived in the cabinet department and told our new friend Frank that we needed cabinets.  Turns out that was like walking into flooring and saying "I want wood."  Thousands of options to solve our problem.  This particular part of the process has been the longest.  Adam has been eating lunch every day at the little food truck outside Home Depot.  Omar tries to save Adam chicken fajitas every day, but sometimes Adam has to settle for a hot dog.  Every week day, Adam takes up pictures of our kitchen and talks to Frank about what we need and how to get it done.  One day I went to see Frank to finalize cosmetic decisions about the kitchen.  New drawer handles and knobs.  Which faucet?  New sink or our old one?  New garbage disposal?  What color counter top?
I think the Home Depot employees should have name tags that say either "Ambassador" or "Tour Guide" because all of these decisions are like entering a foreign world.  Color of grout?  Who knew there was an entire palette of grout colors?  We spent about 30 seconds on that decision.
We are so grateful for each and every employee at Home Depot that has helped us.  None have laughed at our ignorance and all have provided essential information and patience.  I think we have at least another month before this is mostly done, but at least we have friendly tour guides to lead us through this mystifying world of home improvement.

The Great Flood of 2013

On Tuesday, we left for work and school as usual, about 8:30 a.m. When I returned after picking up Claire, our house was flooded.  I quickly found the source was a busted refrigerator line.

The culprit

I contacted neighbors and we had three shop vacs going within an hour.  Adam came home from work and one neighbor stayed and mopped the floor.  We realized to save the carpet, we'd have to remove the carpet pad.  So Adam ripped up the carpet and I hauled the soaked carpet pads out of the house.

We worked for two solid hours before someone mentioned calling the insurance company.  Adam called, and three hours later, we had professionals in the house.  Stanley Restoration came and pumped 100 gallons of water out of our home.  They also patiently answered questions posed by all four of us.  It was fascinating to watch them work with the water sensors and determine there was water in places we didn't even realize.  (The coat closet.  Who but a professional would have checked the floor in the coat closet?)

Each corner of half of our house looked like this.

I had to straddle fans to wash dishes and cook at the stove.

Woohoo!  Some of the fans were able to be removed.

Watching the work crew remove the parquet floor.

Our 1958 flooring is going bye bye!

They installed 18 industrial fans in our house and two giant dehumidifiers.  We had to move furniture around to get it off the wet floor.  They have been coming to our house daily to check the progress of the fans and test the moisture in the floors.  All conversations are conducted in yell-speak and the TV has to be turned on full-volume, so we just leave it off.

Currently, a work crew is using crowbars and mallets to remove the parquet floor in our back room.  One worker said the flooring was original to the house:  1958.

A few minutes ago I stood in the hallway to watch the workers and a piece of parquet hit me in the head.  Now I'm in the next room hiding.