Sunday, August 11, 2013

The Crazy Month that was July!

Holy smokes! July was CrAzY! My house has looked about how my brain works and how this post is going to be: scattered.

1. We had the C family reunion! I can't access my pictures because my computer crashed but just imagine a ton of nice people in blue shirts sitting on the steps of the historic Manti temple. I can now put on my resume that I cooked dinner for 70 people. We stayed in cabins, played games, went swimming (my favorite), had a ladies lunch, music video night starring each family (my other favorite) and lots of food and devotionals in between.  On the other side of the family....

2. Our WA cousins (boy age 13 and girl age 11) came to Utah to stay with us as their part of the '"cousins" exchange. We got to play tourist every day for 2 weeks and when I am a tourist I am in my element!  They experienced some of our everyday country fun like floating down the canal in an inner tube. And some not so everyday things for us like horseback riding and river rafting. We took them on our favorite local hike to Bullion Falls, our favorite campground, Maple Grove. We had shaved ice at least a couple of times, Took a trip to Seven Peaks water park and played some mini golf at the Fun Center. We couldn't leave out  the nitty gritty of our life which meant morning and evening jobs and the occasional moments of me losing my sanity and screaming for everyone to get to bed already! We took introduced them to In-n-Out Burger and Cafe Rio. I taught them to make Kettle Corn right on the stovetop and how to assemble taquitos.  They got to join in our regular routine which was not so routine to them to do things like church,  family prayer and scriptures. Church for 3 hours? They couldn't believe it they and they couldn't believe they survived it. All that fun but what they will probably remember the most?....

3. The FLOOD. What a doozy. The main water line to our house decided to bust not 2 days after our visitors arrived and sent water gushing into the basement. Could it have picked a better time? At least we were home and caught it early--if you can call 3 inches deep of water in the basement, early. The neighborhood volunteer brigade was called in stat and went right to work moving furniture and ripping up carpet. The worst part? All the boxes of photos and papers I inherited when my mom died. My "to do" pile suddenly became like a salvage pile. We painstakingly dried them by individual sheets all over the upstairs. Maybe that was my mom's way of getting me to go through her stuff.  On a good note it was heartwarming to read all those old family letters back when people used to write letters. The bad note? well that's a big list starting with the smell of wet paper and ending with Insurance agents. Lessons learned??

4. Store your stuff in plastic people! And make sure you have good homeowners insurance. I can't say they have been fun to deal with but they are sending a check for carpet and repairs.

5. The resulting flood has had us all sleeping upstairs. Sleeping bags have taken over the living room. The kids are literally living out of suitcases. It's like being in a hotel--except one that I have to clean. Also it doesn't have a pool:(  The TV has been moved upstairs and we are watching way too much of it. It's come to this...

6. I CAN'T WAIT FOR SCHOOL TO START!!!!!!!!!!!!!!