The Angels

I debated about complaining anymore on here, but I think I would be an absolute jerk not to acknowledge the fact that during our week from HAIL we were also greeted by some pretty sweet ANGELS.

I need to first back up and say that things didn't get any better after the hail storm. Our entire crawl space completely flooded with about 4 inches of water! And we didn't realize it until Saturday morning. We checked the day of the storm and everything was fine, but the sump pump (the thing that drains any water down there) had broken in the meantime. We don't have a basement so our crawl space is the size of our entire downstairs. The flooding made for a LOT of mess and a lot of tears. I lost a few decorations and other random items, but the worst of it was that my baby book, Tom's mission journals, some pictures and other sentimental things got completely soaked! I guess we were kind of stupid in how we had it down there. We had lots of things in big plastic bins, but other things were just in big boxes. So learn a lesson from us so you don't end up with a garbage pile as big as this...

But let me move on to the happy part...the angels.

Becky: Tom's sister. She came to visit us for the weekend and we felt awful that we had to spend so much time working on house things for much of the time she was here. It really changed all our fun weekend plans with her. But at the same time, we were SO appreciative of her being here to help with the kids. She was so sweet and kept them completely entertained pretty much all Saturday. It would have been next to impossible to have gotten anything done without her.

The Ellis men: Our home-teachers. The last time our home-teachers left us with, "Is there anything we can do for you?" I'm sure they had no idea what they were in for. At first, just Tom and I were trying to clear everything out of the crawl space, but let's face it 1) I'm a wuss and can't lift all that much AND 2) we've accumulated a LOT of stuff during our 5 1/2 years in this house. Glen and Glenny so willingly came right over and helped get the entire crawl space cleared out. It was quite a project, but it would have taken us FOREVER to have done it alone.

Danny: our neighbor. Danny is a fantastic handy-man. When we first saw the flooding we talked to a couple companies and had one come out and give us an estimate of almost $600 to fix the problem. (Insurance doesn't cover our crawl space.) Remember, Tom and I have no clue how to do most home repairs. So I went over to talk to Danny and without even thinking about it, he came right over to help. He not only had an extra sump pump on hand (which we of course reimbursed him for later), but he spent the next few hours helping Tom replace it, pushing the water with brooms towards the pump, and clearing away the whole plastic moisture barrier. In the end he saved us about $450!

My mom: I'm 30 years old, but I still need my mommy. She's listened to me vent and cry several times during this past week and a half. She was the perfect balance of comforting me, giving me advice, but also telling me to suck it up (she of course didn't use those words :) ). I love having her to call whenever I need/want!

A few other things have happened since, but really nothing REALLY bad has happened, you know? It's just ALL of these things happening at the same time that has made me feel at my wits' end emotionally. But things are looking up and I am so very grateful for all the people that have helped us with all this craziness!