Well, it's been an exciting couple of days...a little too exciting. Most of you have heard that we noticed last week that the hardwood floor outside the laundry room was warping. You could only see it from one direction so we debated whether it might have always been that way. However, by the time we returned from the football game in Seattle (very exciting game), the area had grown. I took the stuff out of the closet and Dad looked down in the hole of our crawl space to see if we could tell what was happening. (Do you notice the Dental Assistant set of mind...if you'll take the stuff out, I'll see what's going on!) Anyway, he found condensation all over the area down there...wet wood, wet insulation but no evident leak. The plumber came yesterday and after two hours was able to find a crack in the pipe that came from the hot water heater that had been continually leaking hot water for probably 6 months to a year. Couldn't hear it...couldn't see it! Like I said to him,it's not like you check your crawl space on a regular basis. (however the contractor that came today said that you should...when you change the batteries in your smoke alarms)

Back to the story, in order to fix it, he had to cut a hole in the laundry room floor. While doing that, he mentioned that I should call our homeowners insurance. So I went off to call USAA. They sent a woman in this morning to assess what needed to be done. The first stage is trying to dry everything out so that they can then assess the damage. That needs to be done as soon as possible so I've had to cancel my trip down to help Brooke unpack :~( We should have workman and fans in here by late today or tomorrow. Slow, slow, slow!!! I think the repairs may then take several months but at least after this initial stage we can schedule it when it is convenient to us.

I am still trying to get my mind around how this might affect my life. After prior construction projects, I know that it pretty much shackles you to the house. We may get some things done that we had not even thought we would have to...such as getting a new hot water heater and replacing our pipes with a more durable variety. Those will be pricey. However, some other things may get done such as perhaps new hardwood flooring which will be nice and allow us to change the style and not have to do the refinishing that we had planned for this spring.

So much for that....

Otherwise, things are going well. Dad did accept the manager position with Willamette so he is much busier at work...like he needed more to do. The additional salary will be helpful for all these repairs. We had a nice time in Seattle last weekend. On Thursday, Melody and John Sims spent the night on the way to the coast. We left Friday for Seattle stopping at the Seattle REI to look at kayaks. (all this home construction may put a hold on buying our own). That REI is quite spectacular with huge climbing walls, hiking paths etc, etc right in the middle of the city. We then went up to the north Seattle area for the night. In the morning we went to Green Lake and ran around it...or most of the way around it. I used to run it with my friend Shannon when Dad was going to dental school. I can't believe that was 25+ years ago! We drove by the Phinney Avenue house also. We then went to the BYU-UW game which was very exciting. When we got out of it, we found our car in the middle of post-game UW tailgaters which was a bit awkward. Although Dad took off his BYU shirt and put on his UW hat and showed them his split UW/BYU flag. They took a picture of us with them and then offered us a beer! Obviously, they don't put 2 and 2 together. Finally a van pulled out to let some other cars out so we escaped. Melody and John returned on Sunday on their way back to the coast and we had another nice evening with them out by the firepit in the back.

Noah is a darling baby...everything is getting much more settled and Buffy is being very creative on figuring out how to take care of him on crutches. I'll let Brent and Buffy write about the details...

I did reserve the Lake Almanor house for the last week of June (6/28-7/4) and put in a request to be first on the waiting list if the last week of July opens up. If that happens, it would probably be in January or February time frame that we would find out. So don't book anything else for either week.

Well, I need to focus on what I will do...now that I'm not going to go to Carmel that I can do while workmen are here. I'm sure I'll be doing our wash at Buffy and Brent's for the next few weeks!

Love you all.....and enjoy all of your postings! Mom