Sickie

Delaney and then Matt had pretty good colds at the beginning/middle of December, but I thought I’d beaten it. I guess the stress of the basement plus being wet and freezing all day Tuesday have brought me to full cold’dom. I’m taking advantage of having nothing on my plate today to do nothing. This was formerly a cookie baking day and will still be a hot chocolate stand day - thankfully I was extra prepared and mixed up all the hot chocolate weeks ago. 

Yesterday I organized the staging areas, got girls to vacuum carpet fluff from the basement and driveway (I went in after and got the rest), and then the girls and I went through all the art desk stuff and organized, recycled, donated, and threw away. Our art desk went through the last flood with us and now it’s seen its last flood. It’s warped and gross, so it’s gone. And yay for us, we get to figure out something new. 

Delaney and friends set up a gift exchange at church and were planning to swap gifts on Christmas Eve, but since not everyone was included we thought it was better to get them together ahead of time. This was supposed to happen Tuesday, but flood. Anyways, Frankie had a scavenger hunt planned for them and they couldn’t mess up the basement any more than it was already messed up, so we had everyone come over. And I took one picture. I had finally laid down for a nap about an hour before everyone came over so during drop offs I was tired and disoriented. 🤣 Anyways, they are cute and had a good time. 

My 50 lb. bag of rice got wet and started getting stinky. I debated using the top 1/2 of it, but decided just to toss the whole thing to be safe. Darkness. Sadness. 

Today I’ve napped off and on. I’ve given my family hot chocolate stand instructions and I’m planning on sitting with them like the Queen of Sheba. It’s hard to do when there are things to be done, but I don’t want to get anyone sick. Even though everyone’s kind of passing everything around anyway we’ve already got $20 heading into hot chocolate night, so we’re excited!

The good, the bad, and the ugly

The bad. 

• We came home from our fun weekend away to find our basement flooded. Again. 

The good. 

• It happened this year and not last year when we were gone for 3 weeks at Christmas. That would have been a sad homecoming. 
• I am 100% ready for Christmas fairly early for the first time probably ever. I had wanted to have merry holiday fun with the girls this week and not be dealing with a flood, but still, I’m not scrambling to be ready for Christmas. 
• I had invited some of D’s friends over for a gift exchange, and when we found the leak I sent a quick text to cancel. That simple text activated our ward family and we’ve been so ministered to. 
• Steve H. brought over a fan and shop vac that night. We literally couldn’t handle anything, so after we picked up the few things that were on the floor and kind of stabilized everything, we went to bed. 
• Steve H. and boys came over first thing and he took over my shopvac duties while their boys and our girls and I brought up all our toy bins, decoration storage, food storage, and light furniture that we could carry. We made roughly a million trips. And no one complained once. 
• Tony came by between jobs and helped open up the sump pump. We had a hydraulic pump put in after the last flood and that sealed it off, but with Tony’s help we were able to drain it more easily. 
• We were able to get a plumber to come immediately and we now have a working sump pump again. 
• Fred B. came over with dehumidifiers and an offer to use his pickup truck for whatever we needed. Since Servpro never called us back and we knew we’d have a truck, we decided to tear out the carpet our own darn selves. Again. 
• Sarah popped over for a hug and chocolate delivery. Perfect youcandoit sustenance. 
• Rachael showed up and said “I heard you had a flood, now have some blizzards,” with burgers, fries, and blizzards. It was a perfect break and pre carpet removal treat. 
• Steve and Quinton showed up about halfway through carpet removal and things got moving much more quickly. Matt was cutting carpet pieces, but they had to be fairly small because they still had a lot of water and the girls and I were fairly tired from our million trips carting things upstairs. With Steve cutting too and Q helping transport, we saw the light at the end of the tunnel a lot faster. 
• About 10 minutes after we finished the carpet removal as I was asking Matt to text Fred about using his truck, Tony showed up with his dump trailer and helped us load all the carpet and padding and damaged furniture and because it’s a dump trailer it tips back so we didn’t have to unload it too. 
• About 10 minutes after our last shower, Debby showed up with a delicious dinner. Admittedly, I haven’t cooked a lot lately because we’ve been running around, but the girls acted like they’ve never seen homemade food before and we were all so excited. And it was so tasty. 
• Tracie and crew were able to fill in for us for our WARM dinner assignment, and then dropped off the leftovers for dinner tomorrow. I debated still serving there till lunchtime when we decided to remove the carpet ourselves. I thought it would be a nice distraction and also nice for perspective and also fun to be with our friends. I’m really glad we made that decision because we wouldn’t have been able to finish the carpet and Matt is working today. 
• Bishop Wiest and several friends checked in all throughout the day. 
• And finally, our insurance will cover the whole basement. We can handle anything as long as it’s paid for. 

The ugly. 

This was a tough flood because we’re as certain as we can be without 100% proof, which, in this situation I don’t even know if there is such a thing as 100% proof, that our new’ish neighbors caused this. Thanksgiving weekend we noticed their French drain that’s between our houses was constantly running, just water pouring out all the time. Matt went out to look at it and man neighbor came out too and said he didn’t know why it was doing that and was calling a plumber. It’s been a month, and other than when we went a week with no rain, there is constant water. We’re the only ones on our street with a constant flow of water. Then, just last week they had a company put in a giant, across their whole yard, fence-to-fence patio. We don’t think these 2 things plus our basement flood are coincidental. 

We want to be good neighbors and also this is a huge pain and will come at a big expense, even with insurance coverage. We debated going to the hoa, or an attorney, but decided to try to be neighborly. Said neighbor deserves an academy award with his “oh no, you flooded?! Where do you think the water came from?” As his French drain continues its steady flow between our houses. 😩

We kept things cordial and he agreed to split the cost of a real French drain, or some other drainage measure between our houses. If that actually happens we’ll be mollified. I know they didn’t mean for a flood to happen, and also they’ve been careless. And if they don’t split the cost then we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. 

You can see the water line where it leached up the curtains. 

So. Much. Water. 

My winter toes are not photo ready but I wanted to show how the water pooled around our feet as we squelched around. Also our feet were numb after a few minutes because it was so cold. 

Dozens of trips to empty dirty shopvac water. We loved our basement carpet, and at one point we were talking about the possibility of keeping it. But as soon as we cut the first swatch and saw how much water was on, in, and under the padding, we knew that was never a possibility. And in retrospect the water that came up was kind of gross. 

Staging area #1. 

Lunch of champions, from champions, for champions. 

Let’s go!

I recommend a summer basement flood. Winter flooding is coooold. It was fine when we were busy moving, but as soon as we stopped, especially after we’d started hauling carpet and were wet, it was so cold!

Lanes thought she could haul carpet with her skates. Makes sense to me. 

Our girls stepped up!

Moving fans all around. 

That giant hat still kills me. 

Strong baby bug!

Staging area #2

Wet carpet/furniture dumping ground. 

😩

And finally these 2 exhausted, sad, but will be fine grownups promptly fell asleep about 10 minutes into Elf with full tummies and full hearts. It was a hard day but good, just like so many learning days are. 

Polar Express

I think Delaney might finally be over a little bit of a preteen slump. Her teachers and leaders at church (she’s still grumpy at a lot of her teachers at school) have been so patient and good to her, and I’m hoping she’s on the up and up. She had her first interview with Bishop Wiest and got her first temple recommend, which a few months ago I didn’t know if it would happen. Anyways, she really likes a Christmas song that they’re singing in a round and Debby said she’s been helpful with the littles. So grateful!

I went to stake council from 7-9, and then we got out a little late so I couldn’t catch Capitol wards sacrament. I went home and finished packing, then grabbed the sacrament from LP at noon. Adi and Lily played their duet, which everyone agreed went ok. Matt actually said it was better than ok, but he recorded it for me and I agree - just ok. Which is a bummer because they worked hard. Anyways, after delaneys bishop interview we quickly packed the car and were off on a Christmas adventure. We drove about 3 hours up to Cumberland where we quickly hit the pool. 

The pool was warm and they also had a hot tub, so we spent like 2 hours there. It’s Frankie’s time of month, so she happily watched movies in the room. 

We left the pool and got showered and enjoyed our frozen dinners and then by 10pm we were all down for the count. 

This morning we enjoyed our hotel brekkie - hello cinnamon roll waffles - and then hit the pool again. We gave ourselves an hour so we’d have plenty of time for sightseeing around Cumberland. 

First stop was Surplus City. That store was weird as heck, they had everything from textiles to military gear to decor to hardware. We bought 3 plungers and I told the girls to grab one and pose. D has hers behind her back. 

It was cold and bright and snowed on us several times. 

Cumberland is like, almost cute, but then not quite. I don’t know, there were some cute parts. 

Delaney tried to jump up on that wall and hit her shin pretty good, so Matt gave her a lift. 

George Washington stayed at this site twice, so that’s pretty cool. 

We walked all around all around. 

And then we threw on our pj’s and it was time for our Polar Express train!

I’ve always wanted to do polar express and I thought I’d missed my chance with my own kids, but this summer I mentioned it and the girls were like, yes! That would be so fun! So we surprised them with a pre-Christmas trip. 

I forgot we were supposed to wear pajamas, so a few of us matched, and Frankie didn’t even bring jammies. 

And we’re off!

It was cute, the train went super slow and they had Christmas music playing. 

They served us hot chocolate and read The Polar Express. 

Lanes liked hers so much that she drank half of mine. 

❤️

They played that dumb hot hot hot song the whole time they served the hot chocolate. 🤣

We made it to the North Pole and got to wave at Santa. Only Adi was ready for a pic. 

Then D too. 

We stopped and picked Santa up and then started heading back to Cumberland. 

Santa came to hand out bells!

Adi did a cute time lapse video and I loved her “I Lov Christmas” message. 

Yay, we finally got a picture with Santa for 2023!

Then he had the girls stand up and lead the group in a “Merry Christmas!”

After Santa headed out we got our cookies and arrived back to the station. It was a great time!

A few more cute downtown Cumberland shots. 

Matt and Delaney actually made friends in the pool (Adi and I left first so we could shower) and they were in our same polar express train car, and then we took their arch pic and they took ours. 

I figured out how to set my phone camera timer for this one. 



We stopped by Pretzel and Pizza Creations in Hagerstown on Chelsea’s recommendation and got pretzel sandwiches and pretzel pizza for dinner and now are heading home. It’s been a good trip and we’re tired and ready to be home.