Bountiful Handcart Days

Jon sang in the Bountiful Handcart Days for the fifth year in a row on Thursday.

It really kind of crept up on him, he wasn't sure he was going to do it. There were a couple people that mentioned to him "so you're singing again this year". He would say "I am?" They told him they saw him on the list for Thursday. Finally, about a week before, the people in charge got a hold of him and verified. Yes, they were planning on him singing. He had to work hard to get a program ready. While it wasn't as good as he is used to doing, he really did pretty good. He even had some nice compliments from the crowd as well as the sound guy.

He asked Melanie to sing a couple of songs. She sang her State solo and ensemble ( if you want to hear it again go to "Melanie sings") for one and the other one was "Cry".

While I was video taping the performance we realized we lost Tiffany. I had to choose between continuing to tape (because the camera happen to be in my hand instead of on the tripod at the time) or go find my other daughter before she gets too lost. No brainer. I took off, looking for Tiff. It didn't take us long to find her, I was frazzled but made my way back to the stage and picked up where they were. Oh well.

Unfortunately, the sound was a lot distorted this year, so it wasn't as good as it could of been, but I did get a few minutes on my digital camera. This is the last part of one of the songs he did at the end.

American Idol Auditions

Jon & Shawn have decided to audition for American Idol this year.

We went to the Energy Solutions Arena on Sunday morning to register. We only had to stand in line for about an hour and a half. They didn't even take names, The boys had to show two forms of ID and they gave them seat tickets and arms bands. We have to have both in order to audition tomorrow. The person they wanted to be there for the auditon had to be there for an arm band in order to have a seat.

Tomorrow is going to be the interesting day. We have to be back at the Energy Solutions Arena by 5am. They said to plan on being there all day.

I'm not sure what to pray for??? It's pretty much in Heavenly Father's hands.

Painting...

And you thought I was done painting! Well I am...for now anyway the girls room on the main floor needs some work. They have been peeling the wallpaper off the wall and it looks horrible! Anyway, here are a few pictures of the girls helping me paint.

I was experimenting with two toning or sponge painting. I started in the living room or I guess we should call it the family room downstairs. I painted all the panelling white. It looked great. I decided to try to add a little bit of color. So the girls picked out a soft yellow and we sponged the walls with it. We also painted the trim on top and bottom with it. I didn't like it, but tried to get used to it. After a couple of days, I started to panic that if I left it until after we moved the furniture back in, I wouldn't get the chance to fix it. So on Saturday at about 8:30 at night I repainted over the white parts, leaving the trims. No more yellow polka dots. I was so happy I did it. It looks much better.

The girls room is pretty wild looking. Bethanie wanted to have lime green walls with purple trim to match her bedspread. We compromised with white walls and sponge rollering with lime green so it wouldn't be a solid color. We were up until 2:30am on Thursday trying to get the white walls done. We did some practise boards so I would have an idea of what she wanted to do. When it came time to do it, we were sponging the wall, she didn't like it and kept adding to it. Then Doug said, if your going to put that much on, you should use the roller. So he got that out and started rollering the walls...the walls were getting greener by the minute. I was very worried. I ended up leaving for a little bit. That night I went to bed very worried that I wasn't going to be able to deal with it. I think between both rooms I was really not happy. The difference with her room, was that when I came down the next day, I seemed to be okay with it. Where as with the living room I still didn't like it after a couple of days. I still think it's crazy, but I seem to be okay with it.

The girls really had a lot of fun helping with the process!

The Carpets are Clean!

Well, as of this morning, the carpets are clean but I think we are far from "done"!!

We still have to get all that stuff out of the garage and back into the house. It's going to be a huge job, because I am refusing to let them just put it back. We have to go through all of it and clean out and organize it and only put back some of it.

The insurance is covering the carpet cleaning of the whole downstairs including the stairs coming up to the main floor. They did a square section at the top of the stairs and I was amazed at how much dirt actually came out of the carpet. It left a huge line in the middle of my hall way. Anyone who knows me, I just couldn't leave it there! So I had them clean the carpets in the main floor family room and hall around the kitchen too. It needed it so bad! But now we are stuck in the just a couple of rooms of the house until it dries!

They said we can start putting furniture back tomorrow! The kids can hardly wait to be back in their rooms!

I am Still Painting!

Sorry I haven't really been on here very much. Since the flood I have been busy trying to get the downstairs put back together.

I started painting the downstairs living room yesterday and will do the second coat of primer today. I can't believe how much work it is.

R&E kind of dropped the ball and forgot to call the drywaller last week. So I finally called them yesterday and asked if they forgot about me. They said they did and the drywaller called me this morning. He tried to push me back to Friday, which meant I wouldn't be able to paint that room until Monday. I whined a little and said you know this was supposed to be done last week. So they moved me up to tomorrow and then light sanding on Friday morning, which means I can paint Friday and Saturday. Maybe carpet cleaning first of next week.

Hopefully, if all goes well, we can start putting kids back in the rooms middle of next week. but only time will tell.

Well, gotta run, I'm back to painting!!

Cute Little Girls!

Here is a quick one...

I wanted to share this video of Tiffany and Natalie dancing. They both love to turn on the music and dance around the room. I'm not crazy about the song choice, these are songs Bethanie used to listen to once upon a time. The younger girls found this little tape player with songs when we emptied the room last week.

Real cute!

Ward Campout

Last weekend we went to Whitear Recreation Center for a ward camp out. Most of us, really are not the camping type of people, but we enjoy it sometimes. I thought it would be a good one to attend, because most of the work was done for me. I didn't have to pick the spot or bring the food!

Anyway, this one turned out to be pretty fun, at first, anyway. We got there at about 6pm. Lots of traffic, but it didn't take that long, about an hour or so. It was mostly a grassy area where we were to set up tents. We got that all figured out. It took us a couple hours that afernoon, at home, to put up all our tents to know which to bring. Some were old, some were fairly new, just zippers broken and such. We brought 3 tents (ours are the ones in the middle) for the 10 of us. Jon didn't get off work soon enough to come. Melanie and Beth stayed home with Nana.

There was a fun playground for the kids to play on, sand, swings, playhouse, they loved it. We got there in time to set up camp and eat dinner. They had a volleyball net set up so I knew that's where Doug would be. They got a game going after dinner. Some played basketball inside. They had a nice little recreation building where there were flush toilets, Nice.

We just played and visited until dark and then sat around the campfire and roasted marshmallows and told stories.

At about 10:30 we started to put kids to bed. It was surprisingly chilly when we went to sleep. That's when the fun really began. I kept waking up because I was freezing. I kept wondering how the kids were doing, but they were all asleep so I figured they must not be as cold as I was. Until about 3am when Natalie woke up. She was cold! Doug got her up and we put her in my bag with me to warm up. She liked that, she cuddled with me until she was warm. Then she wanted to get out of the bag, but it was too cold out of the bag. So back and forth, until she got tired of that and then started screaming. She was crying and crying for about an hour! My poor ward family! She didn't settle down until around 5 and really didn't fall asleep until 6am. Who would have thought that such a cute little thing could be so frustrating!? We tried all sorts of things. We tried to give her a bottle but it was too cold, so Doug put it in his sleeping bag to warm it up, that was slow, but it worked. I really didn't anticipate how cold it would be, I should have put her in warmer jammies and given her more blankets. I guess you live and learn!

Anyway, we had breakfast in the morning, my ward family was very understanding about all the screaming. They said they all felt bad for us. After breakfast we packed up, the kids played and played. They really didn't want to leave, but as they say, all good things must come to an end. All in all we did have a good time!

Painting, Painting and More Painting!!

Sorry I haven't been posting lately, I have been so busy trying to get these rooms done. On Monday, R&E Cleaning and Restoration came back to check the rooms. Ben and Steven's room was deemed dry, but Bethanie and Emily's room wall under the window was still wet. So they had to cut into the dry wall to get that to dry. So while we waited for that to dry we started in Ben's room. This room was an ugly brown that had to go!

I spent 5 hours cleaning and caulking the walls on Tuesday. That night I started priming. I got about half done by 10:30 at night. Then on Wednesday R&E came back to check Beth's room and it was deemed dry. They took all the equipment out. I decided to get rid of that yellow flower wallpaper (something we've wanted to do since we moved in). Both rooms needed this work done since we moved in, we figured since they were empty, now's the time to do it.

Anyway, so Wednesday I not only finished the first coat of primer, but the second coat as well. I had been painting for about 10 of twelve hours that day. I was bushed!

Today, Melanie helped me paint the latex coat. We were done by 3pm. I was so happy to be done and that I wasn't painting at 10 tonight!! Thanks Melanie!! Thanks to Mel, Beth, Steven and Emily for helping with the kids so I could paint. I really like the way Ben's room turned out. I wasn't sure how it would look, with the panelling, but the white walls take the room out of the basement! It's a nice room now!!

I'm far from finished though...Tonight I was just curious what was under the wall paper in Beth's room. I've heard some bad nightmares about taking wallpaper off. Should I do it, or should I let R&E do it? I started pulling it and it came off so easy, we just kept going. When I did the upstairs, I used the perforation tool, sprayed each sheet, and then pulled it off. Then I had to wash the walls down really good. This time it came off with very little effort, the whole room! I still have to wash the walls but, I was simply amazed!

Now I have to wait for R&E to come back and fix the dry wall so I can prime and paint that room. When it's all done they will come back and clean all the carpets down stairs, both bedrooms, the hall and stairs and the living room! I am excited about that.

Also, it looks like I'm finally going to get my downstairs living room painted.

Once I get started, there's no stopping me!

Flood, Flood!!!

What a Morning!!! I was up this morning at 6am to go for my morning walk/jog when Ben heard me upstairs and came up peeking over the gate to tell me there was water in his room! I knew exactly where the water was coming from, because as I was getting up this morning the thought occurred to me that I didn't recall turning the water off the vegetable garden last night. I was actually trying to hurry and get dressed to go turn it off when he came up.

I, of course, first went out to turn the water off, then down to see how bad. It was bad!! It had come through the window down the wall and into the carpet 3/4 of the way across the room. I went into Beth's room which is next door and it was full of water as well. I had to go up and get Doug out of bed. We went out to check the garden. The window wells were full of water up past the windows. So we had to get buckets down there and pull the water out as much as fast as we could. Then we had to empty the rooms. We got the kids up to help, because their rooms weren't that clean. Especially Ben and Stevens room. So, now my living room is once again full of stuff. We even had to put it in Shawn's old room, too!

I tried to call the insurance company to determine whether I needed to make a claim or not. My agent's office wasn't open yet, and the claims department didn't know what my policy actually covers. So I decided we were over our heads in clean up, I called a place out here in Centerville, close to us and they quoted full extraction and restoration anywhere from $3,000 to $5,000. I thought I better wait until I talked to my agent about what they will cover. After we had the rooms emptied, I went back to the phone book, said a little prayer and called the second place. I felt so much better just talking to this guy, Alan. He had a calming effect on me and explained the process. He said probably between $500 to $1,000. I went ahead and told him to come. Very nice man. They extracted the water, sprayed mildewcide,and put air dryers under and over the carpet, as well as dehumidifiers in each room to completely dry the carpet, pad and concrete underneath. We also had extension cords running all over as well as tubing from the dehumidifiers running into the bathroom sink and shower. He said they probably wouldn't have to replace the carpet or pad. The girls took right to Alan, and he took to them. Here he is doing his paper work at my table with both of them of his lap!

On Monday they will come back and check the walls. If they are still wet, they have to go into them and find out why and get them dry. So that's where we are for the weekend.

I got a hold of my insurance agent, he said they would cover it and don't worry about it. I just need to call and make the claim.

No Wii, DDR or movies down there for at least a week, because the room is full of their stuff. What are we going to do????

Oh, I read the paper on FAQ that Alan left me, it says don't say"I have a flood." That implies the water came from a river, stream or outside source. If it's from inside your home then you have suffered "water damage". Well, it did come from an outside source, So, I have had a Flood!!! But I guess because it was an accident, my agent said they would cover it anyway!!

I feel like such an idiot for forgetting to turn the water off. I guess I can try to look on the bright side...I wanted to deep clean those room this summer. Now that they're empty, we might as well paint and fix the walls like we wanted to. Not exactly how I wanted to go about it, but if I don't want to cry about it, I really have to find a silver lining!!

Happy 4th of July!!

Yesterday, we decided to celebrate the 4th of July by doing the usual..Play games, eat, and do fireworks. Earlier in the week Gina and I were talking and we kind of talked about her coming over as well. Then yesterday, she called me and told me that Jenn and her family and even Charlotte wanted to come, too. I said sure, the more the merrier!! She said she invited Dee and TJ, too, but I guess they didn't want to come, cause they never did show up. They each brought more food to add to my meager offering and before we knew it, we had quite the banquet! I'm not sure why the group picture turned out blurry, but it did, and this is the best I got!

The kids had a blast playing together all afternoon and evening. We played Volleyball, DDR, Wii, Ping Pong, even a little bit of Cranium. Then outside for a bazillion of pop its. The kids had all out wars! We sat and watched the fireworks. Ben and Steven love to light them, must be a guy thing!!

Then again a bazillion sparklers, again the kids loved it. Thanks, Jenn for bringing them!

While we adults were bushed and ready to call it quits, the kids were crying because they were so tired, but they didn't want it to end!

My big kids actually didn't call it quits, they went to Jon's place and watched movies until 7am this morning! What nutcases, especially since 3 of them had to go to work today!!

Happy Birthday, America!!

We Love you!!

For more pics see Gina's blog!