February Update...

A fair amount of our time this week was spent working to remove wet drywall and insulation from our CV rental house and then keep it dry through intermittent rainy days.  We worked Monday and again on Valentine's day.  We drove back to SL on Tuesday as Steve had appointments in CO on Wed and Thursday which he drove to.  Between work appointments, I took a fruit smoothie to my friend, Cyndee, at her work to help her celebrate her birthday.  She had no time off for lunch.

While Steve was in CO, I was able to put a listing UC and show a prospective buyer.  I also had my CRS breakfast and class on Friday morning.  Then we drove north to CV to work on the house again.

The tenants moved out Friday so we didn't get into the house until late but Saturday, we pretty much spent the day working and planning the repairs and fix up.

Steve woke up at 4:30 Sunday morning worrying about the heater he had left on to help dry things out so he drove down to the house in the pouring rain and checked things out.  Everything seemed to be okay.  After church on Sunday, we got a call from the local police department.  The neighbor was complaining that water was gushing out of a pipe in the back of the house and was threatening to flood his yard.  Steve had a home teaching appointment so I rushed down to assess the situation.

Sure enough the pipe from the sump pump had become disconnected.  I was able to push it back together and fix another seam too.  I left thinking all was well.

Back home, I finished preparations for Jenna's birthday dinner with us.  We had a brief window about 5:15 between home teaching and Bishop appointments to have our dinner/party.  Jenna will be 14 this week but we will be in Texas visiting Tiffany's family, so we celebrated early.  No one objected to two parties--especially not Jameson.

 Everyone loved the banana splits we had for dessert with fresh strawberries and hot fudge sauce.  I will admit, they were yummy!

We had a few moments of a spectacular sunset.  Jenna really does a great job taking photos off our deck so I handed her my phone.  Aren't these beautiful pictures?  Great job, Jenna!

 After dinner and meeting with our home teachers, we drove back to the rental to make sure everything was okay.  Little did I know that when I shut the gate, I disturbed another one of the connections on the pipe.  The original pipe was okay but a side pipe had been gushing for the past 3+ hours.  We had a huge puddle of water seeping down the side of the house now.  With a broom, a broken dustpan, a piece of wood and a cup from the garbage can, we removed most of the water, duct taped some of the seams, and propped up the pipe to keep it in place.  McGuiver would have been proud. Then Steve had to remove the toilet in the basement bathroom so he could cut out sheetrock and insulation from behind it.

 He then redirected our fans, heaters and dehumidifier in an attempt to keep the basement dry in spite of the water that had been draining down the exterior walls all day.  It feels like we take one step forward and two steps back all too often.  We definitely had our ox in the mire on Sunday.

 The sump pump was working constantly again and this is the photo we took in the dark of the water gushing through our pipeline to the street gutter.

This morning, Steve went to Home Depot for supplies, including clamps, more duct tape, etc.  Since the tenants were now gone, we spent the morning securing all of the connections and working to make sure everything was getting dry and staying dry.  Steve rigged up a hose to the dehumidifier so it will drain in the tub during our absence this next week.  We let the fans and heater run all morning and stopped by to turn them off on our way out of town.  We have asked the neighbors to check on the piping this week during our absence.  Steve put many shovels full of dirt and sand to block water from getting next to the foundation walls. I changed light bulbs and washed walls in preparation for painting and more work next week.
We are feeling a little better about things in the light of day and hope we have finally made the necessary corrections to keep the basement dry.  There is more rain and snow is in the forecast this week but we are hoping for the best.

On the lighter side of today, my cousin Bob, emailed me this picture that he discovered when he was digitizing his photo slides at Rootstech last Saturday.  I am not sure where it was taken, but I'm pretty sure it was when I was pregnant with Tiffany, probably in Provo.  That was the year, they gave female students the option to wear slacks to class.  However, since I was employed on campus, I had to wear a dress every day to class and work.  Some changes are nice.  I look very young.  Where did the time go?  Thanks to my cousin.  I had never seen this photo before.