'97 Eagles!

This is a plug for the Skyline class of '97 reunion that's coming up. I know there are a lot of blog readers that are married to a 97 alumni and since it seems as though most husbands like to procrastinate, I'm encouraging all of you wives to RSVP for the reunion pronto! The price will go up by $10 per person on August 1st, so RSVP now. Think of it as a sale. Who doesn't love a good deal? You are SAVING $20 by registering now. Trust me, it will be loads of fun! (I hope) At the least, just come to support your poor friends Dave and Ashley who had to plan the thing!

RSVP now!

Floodapalooza

We're still drying out over here, but all is well! Let me explain how we got into this mess in the first place...

As I pulled into my driveway after a fun get together with my friends, I noticed water running out from the side of our house. Trouble I thought, but I was not expecting what I found inside. When I opened the door, I could hear the loud gushing of water and a beeping sound. Luckily Anna was asleep, so I put her in her room quickly and ran to figure out what was going on. Our kitchen was drenched and I pulled open the cupboards under our sink to find water spewing everywhere! I couldn't even tell where it was coming from it was coming out so forcefully. Not sure what to do, I just sat there for a second, staring at this dilemma, realizing that every second I sat there, the more wet my house was getting. Finally thinking that I should shut off the main water, I ran downstairs to the laundry room to find the lever that Dave had shown me at least 5 different times. As soon as I stepped on our carpet downstairs, there was a SQUISH under my feet that I was hoping not to hear. I didn't expect the water to be down there too! Our entire downstairs was soaked! When I walked to the laundry room, the water went above my ankles and our stuff was floating everywhere. We have an old house and our laundry room isn't finished and so all of the pipes are exposed. Water was dripping from every pipe, so I thought that I had a leak somewhere in there too. I tried turning knobs and switches, but I knew they weren't the right ones. Of course when I need to remember something important, I don't. Luckily Dave answered my 911 page and reminded me the water shut off was from behind the door. duh! Why couldn't I remember that! Anyway, I'm getting carried away with this description. This could take all day. Sorry! Let me sum it up. Basically one of the pipes under our sink that connects to the main water valve randomly popped off. Fluke thing. I was gone about 4 hours, so who knows how long water had been gushing. A plumber came over and fixed it and a disaster clean up crew came to help us dry things out. They come by every day to check on the status of everything and hopefully it will all be dry by tomorrow! Luckily, we didn't have any huge losses. Just some furniture, some memorabilia (yearbooks, letters, etc) and wet carpet and walls. They'll send a rebuilding team next week to get started on fixing things up again. And hopefully we'll be good as new!

Our house has been a little crazy this last week to say the least. It's full of literally dozens of fans and dehumidifiers (it was 130% humidity in our house last week!) and weird floor mats on our hardwoods. We can barely hear each other in the house, so sorry if you've tried to call and we didn't answer, we probably didn't hear the phone! When we're in our bedroom with the door shut, it just sounds like you're on an airplane, but when you're anywhere else in the house, it sounds like you are right under the engine of an airplane. Maybe the constant hum is soothing for Anna. It might be too quiet when they finally take it all away!

Although it's been a hassle and it is sad to see our house in such disarray, I've learned a lot from this and surprises in life like this sometimes make you realize how grateful you are for what you have and to be prepared for anything. Here's what I've learned:

• check the pipes under all your sinks and make sure they're not plastic! Steel is the way to go!
• cardboard boxes suck! Rubbermaid all the way!
• Dave is very calm in stressful situations. (This should come in handy for his future career)
• I seem to lose my brain in stressful situations. (Although the disaster crew complimented me on how well I was taking this. I guess most women are in hysteria. I guess I was just in shock.)
• We have a lot of stuff we don't need.
• Homeowners insurance is a lifesaver!
• I need to be better about accepting help from others.
• We have an awesome family that helped us out so much! (even with my refusals)

I didn't get great pics of the flood (a little busy at the time), but Dave took a few for our insurance that just don't quite do it justice, but here they are:

This is the huge puddle going into our laundry room. You can't really see how deep it is.

Wet carpets in our entire downstairs!

Saggy walls and ceilings. When I saw this, I knew it was bad.

Our house now...

This is our kitchen. Everything but our bedrooms and bathrooms are covered like this.

(at least I have a good reason not to cook!)

and our downstairs looks like this everywhere.

And here's a picture of how Anna has handled this all. Happy with her dolly and her twiner PJs.

FLOODED

For real. Yesterday. Our basement, our kitchen, and part of our living room. If you know how small our house is, you would realize that that is most of it! We are left with our bedroom, bathroom, and Anna's room thankfully. I want to run away and pretend it didn't happen, but that won't help. What a crappy day. Our house flooded, my sister-in-law got in a bad car accident with her kids, and a relative of Dave's died - all in one day! So I probably won't be blogging for awhile until we get the mess cleaned up! All I can say is that I'm glad we're "in good hands with Allstate!"

summertime fun

Summer time sure does go by fast doesn't it? I've neglected to blog about a lot of action that's been going on, so I'll just try to sum it up with pictures.

fun with cousins!

Anna is lucky to have so many fun cousins. My brother and his cute family came in town from Colorado and it was so good to see them. We miss those sweet boys so much! And we have lots of cousins from Dave's side in town right now for the Kelly family reunion this weekend. Unfortunately, we'll miss out on the reunion festivities because of Dave's schedule, but hopefully we'll still get to spend some fun times with them before they go! Anna met Nora Jayne for the first time last night, and Nora kept giving her big hugs. It was so cute, I wish I had my camera!

Anna and Caroline playing with their twiner toys

Anna trying to steal Matthew's bink

A little Boyack get together.

(Me and Anna, Ashley and Matthew, Darcie and Caroline,

and Michelle (my cousin) and her cute twins and the other baby Caroline)

Donut Falls

We took a little hike up to Donut Falls a few weekends ago. It was a fun hike that we haven't done for awhile. Anna loved being outside and the easy hike from the baby bjorn.

On the way up

Donut falls

Anna's trying to stop and smell the flowers

our green goblin

There's just something about messy babies that is so cute.

Lagoon
We went to Lagoon for a few hours last Saturday with our good friends the Barneys. Brandon's dad's office had their Lagoon Day, so we tagged along for the fun. We hadn't been there for years and I must say, it has changed a LOT! There are quite a few new rides and we actually had a lot of fun! I highly recommend the new rollercoaster Wicked. Pretty exciting 45 seconds! Anna was a good sport in the heat and she got a few thrills of her own. She LOVED the Merry-Go-Round. It was so fun to watch her experience everything and take it all in. You could see the wonder, the doubtfulness, and then finally the excitement in her eyes. Her expressions were priceless!

This is when she realized her horse was going up and down. If only you could see the smile behind that paci!
She's looking at me like, Are you sure this is okay Mom?

I just loved the look on her face in this one.

Pure excitement!

We got the back row on Puff. She wasn't so sure about this one.

There we go. Anna's next to me I promise.

Our last ride of the day. It was like a mini version of the Tidal Wave ride.

you never know...

when this site might come in handy. You can never find a photobooth these days when you need one!

I am having flashbacks of summer days at the Woolworth's in Cottonwood Mall with Heidi, Rebekah, Brianne, and Lindsay Tate. I wish I knew where all our picture strips went! I would upload one for sure. (This one is of random people that I don't know. They look like they're nice though) There were some classics. We'd take some silly pictures with random things we would find in Woolworth's, buy some Bubble Tape bubble gum, get some Idaho Fries at the Food Court, and call it a day. Oh, to be 12 again! I love those carefree summer days!

Star Spangled Day

Oh, the 4th of July! It's one of my favorite holidays! Not for any one particular reason, but for many small reasons. First of all, I'm very patriotic. I always have been. I usually can't make it through the national anthem without getting a little choked up. (yes, even at baseball games) I think it's because my parents did such a great job at teaching me about our country's history and how a lot of people sacrificed and worked so hard to establish this great country and our freedom. I'll never forget the trip to D.C. that just my mom and I went on in the summer after 5th grade. It was perfect timing because I had just finished studying US History in school. It was so incredible to me as an 11 year old to see history come alive in the historic places we visited. I hope to start this tradition with our children. Plus my brother and his family live in DC so we have a good reason to visit! OK, I didn't mean to go off on a tangent, back to why I love the 4th...

I just love the simple laziness and fun of the day. Everyone is so relaxed on the 4th. It's not like other holidays when everyone is frenzied trying to get presents wrapped or costumes ready and so on. (although I do love all holidays anyway) People just seem to be friendlier and happier on the 4th. I love sunny days and the 4th is almost always sunny. Kids run around the neighborhood and are so excited with the anticipation of fireworks. There's usually good food and friends and family and those are all my favorite things in life!

I was a little sad this 4th though because I realized that it might be our last one in this neighborhood. Our neighborhood is so fun. It's a tradition (16 years I think) to have a neighborhood parade followed by a potluck picnic. There's one street in our neighborhood that loops and there's lots of huge trees for shade, so it's the perfect setting. All the kids get so excited to decorate their bikes and wagons. I forgot to decorate Anna's stroller, so I just added some flags to it before we left. We took some pictures before we left, and I took my camera, but being the airhead I am, I didn't take any pictures at the actual event. Oh well. I didn't stay long because I felt guilty leaving Dave sick at home. Yes, he was sick on the 4th. He couldn't even talk actually. I felt so bad for him. Poor guy. He just started his first week of 4th year too, so it's bad timing. The good news is that he is getting better and he can actually talk today.

I felt so guilty about leaving him for the parade, that I left him again that afternoon and took Anna swimming with my family. My brother Morgan and his family are in town and it was so fun to see them and their cute boys! That night Dave rested while Anna and I watched the Boston Pops on TV. Then at the last minute, we decided to walk to 21st and watch the Sugarhouse fireworks since they were so close. I thought they might frighten Anna, but she loved them! After a fun filled day for me and Anna, and a not so fun filled day for Dave, we headed home and went to bed. And that sums up our simple, but fun Independence day celebrations.

Blog Tag

So I can't sleep and I thought I'd do some blogging and I found out that I've been tagged and I didn't even know it! Sorry, I've been out of it lately. So here goes...

4 Jobs I've held:
1. Subway sandwich artist
2. Nordstrom girl
3. Billing/secretary at doctor's office
4. Advertising Account Supervisor (still holding on to this one unfortunately)

4 Movies I can watch over and over:
1. Charlotte's Web
2. Napoleon Dynamite
3. Any Will Ferrell movie
4. Pride and Prejudice

4 Places I've Lived:
1. SLC
2. Hawaii
3. chi o house
4. Sugarhouse

4 Favorite TV shows:
1. 24
2. The Office
3. Grey's Anatomy
4. Seinfeld

4 (unique places) I've been to:
1. Slovenia/Croatia
2. Israel
3. Brazil
4. Tahiti

4 Favorite foods:
1. The Pub's french onion soup
2. any kind of cookie
3. Sno-cones and popsicles
4. Massaman Chicken

4 Favorite websites that I visit (almost) daily:
1. email
2. blogs
3. daily candy
4. bank

4 Places I'd rather be:
1. In bed asleep
2. Anywhere by the ocean
3. Disneyland
4. NYC

4 Blog Buddies that I want to tag:
1. All family members!
2. Everyone else!

OK. I think this made me tired enough to try to get some sleep again. Goodnight.

I'm back on the bloggin wagon!

OK. Sorry for the MIA for so long. Probably no one noticed besides my family, but I haven't been a blogger lately and I must admit, I've missed it! We went out of town and between the out of town prep and the craziness we arrived home too, I seriously haven't had a minute to blog. I haven't even had a chance to read all of your fun blogs! And I feel so out of it. I can't wait to catch up with all of you! And I'm warning you, since I was on a blogging drought, I have a lot to post, so it may get a little crazy this week. I just need to get our vacation post finished first. It's nice to be back!