So packed my point and shoot cameras when we started selling the house. My hope was that it would sell the first week. HA! anyway...let's not get into that and move onto my point. I am now relying on family members for pictures of our awesome moments together. Here is the only picture I have from Halloween of me and Aves as Cat in the Hat and Cindy Lou Who. Many thanks to my super neighbor and super awesome friend, Hilary, for the Cat in the Hat cosutme.
My brother-Ben lives in Washington and sent us this picture of his family at Halloween. YEAY for dressin up. Joshua and Joseph are such awesome ghosts! Who ya gunna call? GHOSTBUSTERS!

new boots!!!

So every year I see cute boots and almost buy them. I never have. They are always like $50 a pair. well I found a site that sells them at like $20 a pair. It took me almost a month to narrow down to 2 pair. One dressy, one for anyday. I almost got grey, but then fell in love with these blue ones. UM! fabulous. I decided that Winter has enough grey. I also got these awesome heels. Not sure if I will be able to walk in them hahaha but they are swingin.



yeay for shoe shopping

**Edited to add link***
As per your requests cutesy girl is the site that I ordered from. A WORD OF CAUTION. Their clothing line is like 98% skank, so if you're shopping online with your little girls, maybe avoid that area. Their lingerie link would make Victoria Secret blush. Their boots are endless and super cheap though!

putting it back together

The drywall guys are here fixing the office. The flooring company came to measure. Brandon Stanger went home teaching with Chris last night--they did both of their sets of families. Then he came over to check out our damage and let us know he does this kind of thing every day and could likely get us a better price on stuff. sweet! I don't really know him well, and am sad about that. He seems really cool and just a happy energetic person. From what I know of his gorgeous wifey, Connie, she seems the same. What a fun couple! So, we're getting put back together. I was a tad embarrassed though. I spent yesterday playing with Ava in my free time. We had a tea party and then got ready for trunk or treating and then had girls over for cocoa after--because HOLY CRAP IT WAS COLD! My kitchen was a NIGHT.MARE when Brandon and Chris came back-as I hadn't gotten to it yet. Well I'll post some photos soon of this mess and the journey of fixing it.

aaaaaaand....rant

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! I am being email stalked by a Listing Agent that we chose not to hire. Every week he sends me emails with something negative about my listing, and snooty commentary eluding to how we should have hired him, and then ends it with, "good luck" or..."just trying to help." It's kind of like bashing someone and then ending with "bless his heart!" Hey, insulting me on a bi-weekly status doesn't make me regret NOT hiring you. It really just reaffirms that following my gut was right, because you're jerkier than I thought! GA!

*end rant*

3rd time's a charm

So after 2 no shows, the buyers agent from Herriman finally came through, yesterday at 11:34. I hope we are able to get some feed back on what his clients thought.

Vic from Alpine said we're all dried out and took the fans. I wasn't going to go to church--as Simon and I usually end up in the smelly nursing lounge for most of church anyway. But we all packed up and went anyway. I figured if he needed to feed, I'd just come home. Well, we got there, and it turned out the special needs mutual was doing our sacrament meeting. It was so phenomenal. How amazing to have a mutual where they can meet, be accepted as who they are and have fun together. the whole time I wondered...how different life in PA would have been for my sister if she would have had a place to go like that every week. A place to shine. A place to be seen as the incredible girl she is. She's grown so incredibly much over the years. No one expected much of her at all, and now she's in her senior year of college, handling a work load that would give me nightmares. She talks about Masters degree soon too. Incredible. They sang this song called Someday, written by their YM president. It spoke of how someday they would see, speak, think and hear like "you" and how someday kneel at the Father's feet and be told well done. I couldn't hold in the tears. Ava was concerned that water was coming from my face...but I just held her tighter. Such wonderful happy people.

After church, we drove down to moms for October-birthdayfest. Pam, Russ and Mom all have October birthdays. It was great fun! We did a huge salad dinner--everyone brought their favortie salad stuff and we share. I love these dinners. You can eat multiple salads if you want, and not walk away feeling gross. You know that you're eating well. We got mom Nightmare Before Christmas, and ava insisted that she watch it RIGHT AWAY. After the movie we played Quiddler. FUN FUN GAME! must be a new cabin game for sure! The Godfreys would rock this game. i can only imagine Meesh and Eric battling it out.

Well I'd better get upstairs to meet senor adjuster--hopefully he's feeling generous.

i don't get the joke....

So right after I finished my update blog this morning on the progress of our flood clean up, Staceyroo-our Realtor, called to say that a buyers agent called to schedule to see our home and was excited to show his buyers around. She filled him in on our situation, and he was insistent that his buyers could look past the torn up kitchen and basement rooms. They set the appt for tonight between 6-7. I cried. I couldn't imagine having the house viewed in its current state. 1/2 the kitchen floor is gone, the carpet has a fan blowing under it, with 1/2 the pad gone...it looks like a wave pool...and the basement office is missing insulation and drywall. Chris got off work early, and Angie was amazing and took Ava. We spent the next 3 hours cleaning the house and rearranging furniture. All the living room stuff went back into the garage--no easy task I assure you. Those couches are sooooooooooooooo heavy! With the generosity of our neighbors, the home smelled of "Skinny Dippin" my favorite scentsy flavor, on every floor. Aside from the 'ride the wave' carpet, and 1/2 kitchen floor missing, the house was as set as it would be any day. washed windows, vacuumed floors, dusted every inch, blah blah blah. We went to Angies to wait out the clients coming by. 7,8,9...NOTHING. NO ONE. Stacey called the agent to find out what had happened and to give him an update on professional courtesy, but only got his voicemail. SERIOUSLY, I understand things happen in the real estate world...but you know my house has gone through hell, and yet you insisted on scheduling an appt. AT LEAST CALL TO CANCEL!!!!! What would Miss Manners say? At the end of the day Chris says "I EVEN VACUUMED THE STAIRS!" and "EH, at least our house is clean---considering." So, bring it on world. What else you got for me?

1 of many updates to come i'm sure

So...this morning Alpine Restoration came back to check on the progress of things. The fans and dehumidifiers have been running since about 11am yesterday. So far?
The vinyl needs ripped out of the kitchen. Which means it will be ripped out of the bathroom and hallway and laundry area too. The baseboards will come off as well. They are hoping that the walls will continue to dry upstairs.
Basement progress. The wall that the water ran down is an exterior wall=insulation. He's concerned about that. Insulation doesn't dry out as well as sheetrock and they may need to take out that wall to avoid it growing mold. YUCK! and the drop part of the ceiling in the basement is still wet, so they are going to put a fan under it to see if it'll dry out by tomorrow. if not that goes too. deep breathing. deep breathing.