Another weekend gone by.....

Saturday I went into work (still need to get in 5 hours of overtime a week) and the insurance adjuster came out to take pictures and all the other crap they do. He still had no answers for us, so we are still waiting to figure out if insurance is going to cover anything. At this point, we don't think they will but we'll be happy if we get anything out of this. We are also filing a claim with the city of Urbandale and with FEMA, maybe one of them will pan out.
Saturday night we headed down to Creston for a doggy funeral. :( Brandon's dog Buddy Maximus, who he has had for over 10 years, past away last weekend and we all got together to 'remember' Buddy and to support Brandon (we knew he was having a tough time dealing with this loss). Brandon put together a slide show and had a nice 'eulogy', it actually brought tears to my eyes! Dog-people understand.

This morning we headed down to the Iowa State Fair, we got down there right at 9 am when they opened to beat the heat and the crowds. Presley was not impressed. She wasn't real happy with anything, which made it a fairly quick trip for us. The most amazing thing I saw was when they had the National Anthem at 10 am. They announced it and had a girl singing.....and EVERYONE stopped, took their hats off and listened. It was awesome to see thousands of people take a minute to stop. I was impressed (impressed probably b/c at the fair you get used to seeing mullets and muffin tops).
We spent the afternoon doing laundry and cleaning. Steve worked some more in the garage and basement, trying to get stuff organized and back in the basement where it belongs. I made our weekly trip to Target and the grocery store, and then we spent the evening just hanging out and playing with Presley! Another busy weekend, followed by another busy week and weekend ahead of us. Hope you all have a great week and enjoy the nice weather ahead of us! :)

Tough little cookie

It feels good as a parent to know (or think you know) when something is wrong with your child. I think I mentioned that Presley did not take a nap on Sunday afternoon....that was the first sign. Then Monday night she woke up at 2 am....and would scream if we laid her back down. We would rock her until she fell back asleep and the second you laid her down..wahhhhhhhhhh. Then Tuesday night she woke up at 4 am. We brought her into bed with us, she laid there for the most part but I don't think she actually slept. Every time I looked at her, she was just laying there with her eyes wide open. Lovely.
Presley always sleeps.....except when she has an ear infection. But she never 'acts' sick, doesn't have a fever, nothing. So on a hunch we made her a doctors appt for Wednesday morning, luckily my mom was able to take her so we didn't have to miss more work. I was almost hoping she DID have an ear infection so I didn't send my mom to the doctor for nothing!....and she did! She is also working on 3 teeth. Teething normally doesn't bother her though, my mom usually lets us know when P's gums are getting red or swollen otherwise we would have no idea she was even teething! And she loves the teething tablets we give her, she thinks they are candy (but I think they just taste like chalk?!). Weird kid.

The power of positive thinking!

Please keep thinking and praying for our friend Lane, who went in for brain surgery on Friday to remove more of his tumor. So far, so good! We are waiting to hear another update on his recovery. You can read their story and updates on their blog listed on my blog list.

My sister Samantha is due to have her baby soon! Her feet are so swollen, but other than that she seems to be doing good. They are very excited and are getting the last couple things in order for baby boy. She's gained more weight than I did, so that makes me happy! haha!

Let's try again.

So a week ago is when all this crap started, I'm hoping this week is a little better. However, Presley hasn't been feeling that good today and didn't take a nap so I'm not holding my breath for that to happen.
Steve missed a bachelor party this weekend so that he could stay home and do more cleaning and get things back to 'normal'. Presley and I stayed with my parents on Friday night, I was hoping she would sleep in like she had done for my mom ALL week. She had a different plan for me, 6:10 am.....you have got to be kidding me! This child has it out for me! I didn't want to wake my parents up so we snuck out and headed home to wake up Steve! Since it had been so hot all week P didn't get to spend hardly any time outside so I decided to take her to the downtown farmers market with Aunt Holly. The weather was perfect and it wasn't too crowded! That afternoon I went home to help Steve with more cleaning and Presley, once again, took a nice long nap for my mom.

Today Steve and his brother Matt got our new hot water heater installed and we purchased a new washer and dryer! The furnace is still working!!!! and so is my treadmill (guess I have no excuses not to use it now!) Presley did not take a nap all day and screamed and cried when we put her down tonight! Not a good sign! I'm sure she'll sleep good for my mom tomorrow though! :)

I'm just tired and my stress level is starting to go down, but I know with our work schedules and all the stuff we still need to get done around here that it'll rise back up in no time. The insurance adjustor is coming Saturday, so maybe that will help relieve some of my worries!

The battle against Mother Nature

So Monday night it poured again, at least all of our stuff had been cleared out and moved to higher ground b/c the water came pouring back UP into our basement. Another 12 inches. I went to work late so I could be on sump pump watch and then Steve got off work early to start the clean up AGAIN.
I packed some bags and Presley and I headed to my mom's for the night while Steve prepared for the third night of storms and rain. He was prepared this time, 3 pumps, 2 dehumidifires and 2 large fans. He was up most of the night waiting for the water to come and when it did he was ready for 'battle'! :) and he did great! He was able to keep the pumps going to keep up with the water coming in and he contained it to only one room!
We started our bleaching fun last night, Steve got his future 'man-room' all clean (since that is the room furthest from the drain!) and hopefully we can get the other rooms under control this weekend, get our house back to normal and get some answers with our insurance and functionality of our furnace and hot water heater.
Tonight I'm going to try out our washer and dryer to see if they are still in working order, keep your fingers crossed that something works!

It has been a long ass day!

So we knew there were storms coming. But we were not prepared for 4 hours of storms, rain, wind and more rain. The thunder was out of control and it was hard to sleep (except if you were under the age of 2, then you didn't hear anything and slept the night away!). We've never had water problems in our basement, a trickle here or there but nothing like our neighbors have had in the past! About 2 am, Steve took a look downstairs. He didn't even have to take a step down and he saw water, we knew it was trouble. The water was coming up the sewer drain and there was no stopping it!
This is our main basement area, that we had started to finish....thank goodness this is all the farther we got!
less than 10 minutes later, it just kept coming in.

This is our laundry/bath/storage room, where the drain was located. We had the most water back here, it was easily over 12 inches high by morning.

This is the last time I actually got into the water. The sump pump was running, the sewer was still pumping water into our basement and then our furnace started making noise so we had to turn the air conditioner off (with 90 degree weather all week, I was worried!)

I took Presley to my mom's about 8 and Steve and I started in with our clean up. The neighborhood was buzzing! Everyone was outside, pumping water, talking about what to do. The lady across the street had 4 FEET of water in her basement!!!!

We had a lot of things in plastic bins and were able to get most of them to higher ground without getting ruined. But we lost a lot of things too, makes me sad but it always could've been worse!

I should be able to talk to a claims adjuster tomorrow to figure out what insurance will cover, we took pictures of everything we threw away just in case we are able to claim it.

The air conditioner is on, but we will be having it checked anyway. We'll probably need a new hot water heater and dryer (I had to shopvac water out of the inside of the dryer!) Right now, the washing machine looks promiseable if we can get hot water!

All the water is out and everything is trashed or drying out in the garage. We still need to bleach everything and get it all dryed out before we move anything back in. Hopefully tomorrow will provide us with more answers. I shouldn't complain, this is really the first 'bad' thing to happen to our home in the time we have lived here.

Thanks to Jordan, Derek (sorry about your toe!), and Jared for coming over to help!!! We couldn't have done it without you!

Thanks to my parents for watching Presley extra late and letting us borrow whatever we needed!

It's 9 and I'm ready for bed. Steve finally stopped working in the basement and just left for Wal-mart. I think we'll both sleep good tonight!...now if only I can get Presley to sleep! :)

I know, I know!!!!!!!

The last thing we need is more pictures!
But look, we got a family picture! A good one, finally!
She was not as willing to smile and sit still as she was for her 12 month pictures but we still got a couple cute ones.

This was Daddy's outfit choice! Her Aerosmith shirt and her pink converse shoes!