The house

So, back in March, our town had a massive wind storm and 2 days later had 2 feet of snow dump in one day.  The wind storm day started innocently enough.  Hubby and I opened up the service panel of our hot tub we'd bought new last summer as it wasn't getting power.  We wanted to see if something looked wrong that might be an easy fix.  The wind started picking up, so we decided to put the panel back on after not finding anything with our limited knowledge.  I went back in to the house to wash my hands and looked out the kitchen window at the school next door.  Then I realized that our giant fir tree from the front yard was laying on the fence.  It took me a second to realize that it a) didn't belong there and b) hadn't been there that morning.  I ran outside calling to my husband and he was running around calling for me.

 

Then we noticed shingles all over the yard.

 

 

We called our insurance company.  From my cell phone since the tree had taken with it our electrical stack to our house.

 

As I tell you this story, please keep in mind that although it is frustrating and taking seemingly forever, everything that has been replaced has been replaced with better quality and is an improvement to the house. 

 

The insurance connected me with a lovely adjuster.  They also connected us with a company we will call Contractor #1

 

Contractor #1 got our electrical stack repaired and power restored within 2 days so that the heat was back on by the time the 2 feet of snow hit (while we have a gas furnace, the thermostat is electric).

 

 

Because the house is from the 1970s, the electrical box and stack had to be brought up to code, which means we now have a more modern electric box and stack.  The bad news is that when they replaced the box, it was bigger and they lowered it about 2 feet, leaving a big hole in the siding.  We assumed someone would be back soon to fix that, or cover it up, or something.

 

Someone came from Contractor #1 to do an estimate of siding repairs from the stack being pulled out, roof repairs, electrical and tree remove.  That person also used some 2x4 boards to nail tarps to our roof to cover the damage.

 

Contractor #1 sent out someone to cut up the tree off the fence.  It took a few more calls to get them to send someone to clean up said wood. 

 

About that time we were switched to another adjuster, Tina since there were so many claims from the storms, they had to redistribute  the work.  After 3 weeks and MULTIPLE calls and e-mails to Tina with NO response (to the point I started wondering if she even worked there anymore) we got out rakes to level the wood chips left and spread grass seed.  We never have heard if relandscaping was supposed to be part of the claim, only that they wouldn't replace the tree.

 

After 2 months of me calling Contractor #1 3 times a week with no response regarding when our roof will be repaired (I know they are busy, but an estimate would be good) they finally decided they were too busy to deal with it and sent out Roofer #1.  A young guy comes out to look at what is involved. Contractor #1 apparently had only sent him 2 of 4 pages of the estimate so I printed all pages out and he realized it was a much bigger job than he'd thought.  He says he can be out within a month.  The line by line estimate from Contractor #1 includes diagrams. Through confusion and the power of geometry we discover that the entire roof is to be replaced except for a very small patch at the back of the house.  Which seems strange to us that they are replacing the entire garage roof which was not damaged, but not this little patch, but whatever.  We figure out how much they are replacing and using algebra determine that the back portion should be roughly $400 and decide that's a cheap new roof. 

 

Well, Roofer #1 comes back and says it will be $2300 because TWO slopes of the roof are not included.  The diagram clearly shows damage on the slope he says is not covered and I do the geometry again to compare what the company says is being charged and it's clear that the slope is included.  We fire Roofer #1 who apparently can't do geometry which is a little concerning.

 

Around the time we are firing roofer #1, I'm out in WA with the kids and Paul's about to follow us out a week later and he discovers mold in my office.  See, the hole in the siding never did get covered and water has run down the wall and damaged drywall and flooring. The flooring runs through 1/3 of the basement.  I had been complaining of a weird musty scent for about 2 weeks.

 

We call insurance company and reopen our claim. I insist on a new adjuster and am given Stephanie who is much more helpful and communicative.  We also fire Contractor #1 now that we have additional damage due to their ignoring us.  Husband spends a week with us and makes calls to a sponsor of his baseball team, Miller Restoration and they agree to come out when he heads home after a week to look at the damage.

 

Husband gets home to discover mold on the ceiling of V & H's bedroom closet ceilings from the roof that after 5 months has still not been repaired.

 

 

Miller comes out and says to call the insurance company to work out living expenses because the kids can't sleep in their bedrooms.  They also start working up an estimate and tell insurance company a mold remediation specialist needs to come out and do samples.

 

The kids and I get home and go to stay directly with my inlaws.  We all stay with them for 4 weeks while the roof is redone and the mold is cut out, samples are taken, air cleaners are running, cleaners are wiping everything down and I do about 20 loads of laundry.

 

Staying with my inlaws was a total Godsend.  We looked into hotels in the Niagara area. They ran about $200 (yes insurance was paying, but we had to put the money out first and wait for reimbursement) and it was hard to find something.  Everything around here tourist wise is by Niagara Falls which is crowded and touristy and congested in the summer. I try to avoid the whole town all summer long.  Other nearby towns were all booked up.  My inlaws graciously moved down into their basement letting us having the upstairs bedrooms, we had a beautiful pool in the backyard, I barely cooked. All of us got along aside from my husband and my short tempers the last week as we got frustrated with the waiting the last week. 

 

My inlaws had just had their roof done by Parent Roofing and called the owner to see if they could find a way to help us out (no point in doing all the mold remediation if the roof was still leaking).  Within a few days they sent over their longest-running employee.  He worked alone for an entire week and that roof is amazing.  They did the entire roof for what Contractor #1 said they'd only do all sides but one for and it's way better than what we had originally.  He added vents to the roof (Miller was happy about that as our attic where they were doing mold remediation was an oven) and 3 vents to the garage where we had none.  One is even available to set up with a fan connected to the garage door opened that can run 10 minutes or so to let carbon monoxide out.

 

As soon as the mold was found, we were switched to Adjustor #4, G who is in the area and came out to take a closer look.  The gist of that conversation is that the insurance company is rightfully as unhappy as we are that Contractor #1, who they sent us, left us with even more damage than we started with and are approving what we need done with little argument.  He also wrote a check for living expenses for the first two weeks right away.

 

The siding repair is set to happen next weekend (9/16) though the check for that has apparently gone missing. Adjustor G is working on that.

 

Bob the Mold Guy came through and tested and sent a protocol to the insurance who hired him, then it went to Miller, that all took about 10 days , then a week of cutting drywall, air scrubbers, etc. then another 3 days of waiting again for results and being cleared to move back into the house.

 

Since we moved back in last Thursday (right before labor day weekend) we've cleaned more and realized nothing can make you into a Minimalist more than something like this.  We've gotten rid of V's dresser and bed (a 10 year old IKEA set), H's dresser (a put together kit from about 20 years ago that had moved 4 or 5 times).  Husband and I are sharing our small walk in closet and our dressers are now to V and H and the bunk beds are debunked and they each have one.  C is perfectly happy in the upstairs original master bedroom with a queen sized futon that while from husband's single days was a very nice purchase (high end with springs in the mattress, etc.) and a dresser we got last summer when husband's single days dresser became too small for his preteen sized clothing (that dresser also found a new home with a friend moving into her first home).

 

All 3 kids are back into their original rooms and we cleaned out the playroom to find really just the Lego Table and Nerf toys are jointly used-they are in a corner in the living room where they started along with the art desk that will move downstairs into my office (now art studio) when that room is repaired.  All other toys are distributed amongst the kids who play with them.  Books will be redistributed once the bedrooms are repaired.

 

The current estimate is that drywallers will come in 8-12 weeks (hopefully before Christmas).  Then paint and flooring.  A flooring person has come to do an estimate and we need to head to his shop to pick out new flooring.  As part of that, we think we are going to spring to replace the kids' dated (C & V have 1970s parquet; H has a very cheaply done laminate) flooring to carpet now that everyone's potty trained. So again, we'll end up with something nicer than we started with.  Because V's ceiling was damaged we'll get the texturing scraped off and her walls painted to match the new Pokemon bedding.

 

The biggest hassle now is that all my office/art stuff is spread out downstairs and not in my office and will be for the forseeable future.  The kids' bedrooms will have to be emptied or covered when the drywallers/carpet installers come but they are comfortable for now.

 

WA Trip-Part 3

The 2^nd day of our trip, after visiting my grandma, we had a day to chill out with friends (the kids and I have a family we are good friends with-mommas get along as do the kids), then I went out to dinner with some scrapbooking friends-2 of whom I knew from before, but 1 lives in TX and her daughter’s on her second internship with the company Husband used to work with, so it was good to finally meet her in person!

Saturday, we went out to Jetty Island, Sunday was spent visiting with my Mom’s family and making plans with an old friend as well as visiting another friend at Lake Stevens, where the kids played around with the string installation there….

Visiting my grandparents’ home without my grandmother there was very strange.  My grandfather joined in as best he could, but it’s still painfully obvious he’s feeling a bit lost without my grandma around.  They have a very large property.  I haven’t frolicked like I did as a kid through it in years, but many scenes there bring me back to my childhood.

My kids now play with my cousins under “The Big Tree” (the first place one knows to look for missing children). 

 

The creek is down below,

 the hen & chicks are growing in anything that doesn’t move (a relative once told me they forgot their boots at my grandma’s and they retrieved them as quickly as possible fearing a similar fate). 

Grandma also had her gnome garden, with the CDs hanging from fishing line to scare away the birds from the large tree that overhangs it.

 

the canning room is always stocked

 

String installation at Lake Stevens

 

The kids and I went to visit our former neighbors and the kids had a water fight while she and I caught up.  I got to have dinner with a former coworker on my way down to the airport to pick up Husband from his flight. 

That morning he’d awoken me with bad news-there was evidence of dampness in my office from the electrical box repair from the March storm that did not include fixing the siding damage from the updating the box.  My flooring is warped, there’s some suspicious dark stuff at the bottom of the wall and moisture found in the fusebox.  The next few days involved calls with the insurance company as well as the contractor they’d recommended to us.  The calls also involved getting a different adjuster (the first one would not call back for WEEKS or not have any information, not follow up with the contractor, etc.) as well as firing the contractor (3 calls in one week would get me an answer that they weren’t going to get to us yet) and firing the roofer (the subcontracted roofer was trying to charge us extra for covered work-I was a little concerned that the geometry necessary to figure this out seemed to be beyond his scope).

We spent the morning after Husband arrived at Alki beach with old friends playing in the sand and catching up.  The Wednesday was spent in Bellevue taking care of some business for my parents before they unmoored then playing at a splash park up in Bellingham to see a friend from High School church camp and her two kids, which was a treat as until last summer she’d been living in the Midwest and Louisiana.  Mom and I then left the menfolk to tend to the children (eat popcorn and watch Moana) while we checked out Everett Theater’s Dreamgirls production.  Wow.  Effie &  James had amazing voices-they probably didn’t need microphones in the small theater which was completely packed.      The singer who played James had an amazing voice range.

Thursday was a visit to a fellow MOPs mom with a surprise visit from her neighbor, another MOPs mom and another visiting MOPs mom all the way from Colorado!  I think we had 17 kids in the house, it was so much fun to see them all and the kiddos!  Our afternoon was spent visiting one more MOPs mom with kids the same age as my younger 2 kids.

The following weekend was our boat trip-see Part 2 for details and pictures. The night we got back, Husband went out to dinner with a former coworker who has left his former company and the kids and I had us some Red Robin.

V officially turned 7 on our trip.

 

Wednesday morning, we got to hang out at Wright Park in Tacoma which is great, it’s large, has a splash pad, play area, etc. and during the summer they give free lunch to all kids under 18.  They kids played on the play equipment then the splash pad and Paul showed off some mad ribbon twirling skills.  We met my grandma, aunt & two uncles there.

 

I then dropped Husband off at the airport and met a cousin at an amusement place that kept the kids busy while we caught up.

 

Thursday we hung out with friends including a friend of mine from BC, down for the scrapbook retreat we’d go to the next day.  We dropped the kids off with my parents and I took them to Scuttlebutt Brewery nearby where I tried the Graveyard burger (ham, bacon, 2 burgers, mushrooms, cheese….)  It was pretty big.

 

On the way out to the retreat Husband called with more bad news about the house-since it had now been almost 5 months without repairs to the roof, mold was forming in the younger kids’ bedroom closet ceilings.  Good thing I was on the way to a retreat. Husband totally rallied and with a few calls to ask for policy numbers ect that I keep on my computer, he got us all set up to have a new contractor deal with it Monday morning. 

That weekend I got to fill up my soul and play with pretty paper and craft with my scrapbook friends from WA and BC!  I did not have any pictures and just premade pages to add pictures later and make a whole shoebox of cards. 

Monday evening we caught up with my former coworker, turned neighbor & friend while my kids played with her younger son.

Our last full day was super fun at Wild Waves with friends.  They kids rode rides (H actually went on a roller coaster with little prodding and more times and before his older brother!) and really enjoyed the water park.  We got our money’s worth and headed home tired.

The smoke heading south from the BC fires made for some amazing sunsets, but we were glad we left before the air quality resembled Beijing, which it did the week after we left.

 

 

On our departure day, we fit in one more family of friends (a former coworker turned roommate turned mom friend) with breakfast at their house before heading to the airport-they’d been traveling themselves and it was the only time we could get together.  We actually did something similar last summer when  a childhood friend whose husband is in the military and stationed elsewhere and we all only crossed one day for our summer trips home-breakfast at IHOP!

Thursday morning when we arrived, we went to my inlaws as the mold had looked pretty serious and we wanted to get an insurance adjuster and mold specialist onsite before putting the kids in the house.  The bad news is that the mold is concerning enough that we are probably out of the house for an additional 2-3 weeks.  Not what you want to hear when you’ve been away from home for 3 weeks.  The good news is that Husband caught it and dealt with it and my inlaws are letting us stay with them. Do not underestimate the draw of Niagara Falls in the tourist season of summer-although the insurance authorized us to move into a hotel, finding a decent one for 5 people this time of year is a bit tricky, esp with no advance reservations.  The inlaws have more room to space out, cable TV, reliable WiFi and a pool in the backyard, so we are very thankfully staying with them and the insurance is paying us to save them money by doing so.

This weekend I’m off to another scrapbook weekend, this time with the pictures shared with you all from our trip.  When I’d first booked it I thought it was not wise to do so when it was so close after the WA retreat, however after the last few weeks? I’m pretty happy to have a weekend to chill and process the last month!

WA trip: Part 2-Boat Trip

 

 

Our first stop on our boat adventure was Anacortes.  There were deer everywhere! Just wandering the streets!  We played Pokemon Go as we walked to Washington Park.  On the way we found a little Free Library.

 

Next stop was anchoring in harbor at Stuart Island.  We explored the beach-Dad and C went in Kayaks-Dad was a bit surprised how fast C was in his!

We finally found a starfish-they were virtually wiped out several years ago, this is the first I’ve seen in awhile.

 

 

My parents took the kids back to the boat and Husband and I hiked up the hill to see the original schoolhouse and schoolteacher house and check out the great view.

Our last night was in a different part of Anacortes.  There were a ton of Pokemon stops there, so we got the kids to walk into town to collect them and enjoyed perusing the used bookstore and old train station/outdoor art instillation.

 

WA trip: Part 1

Our annual Washington State trip was a little earlier than usual this year due to my parents’ retirement and of course I didn’t want to miss my girl’s scrapbooking weekend away.  This meant we headed westward about 2 weeks after school was out.

We flew Southwest through Midway.  This really is the easiest and cheapest way to make the journey, especially since Southwest Airlines currently doesn’t fly directly from Buffalo to Seattle.  It could be worse.  Back when I went to university in Chicago there were not direct flights yet from Chicago to Seattle.  At least now, the flight is a pretty straight 6-8 hour journey.  Additionally, when we moved to Canada, there were only 2 flights each way a day, now there are 4 to choose from.

Unfortunately, we learned this time that Midway no longer has the looked forward to McDonald’s.  So we made the best of things and tried out the pub.   Very good, generous portions, just a little more expensive than I was expecting.

 

 

We stay on my parents’ boat.  It’s a 45 foot long Nordhaven Trawler.  Kind of tugboat looking.  My mom once told me it’s got 450 square feet of living space, so it’s like a NYC apartment.  For a tour, you can go to http://salishaire.blogspot.com/ and on the right hand side, under “our learning experiences” you can find a December 2016 tour video narrated by my dad.

For this trip, 1 kid usually slept in the living room, 2 kids up in the captain’s area (there are two bunks there) and the hubby and I (when he was onboard, which he was for 10 of the 21 days) get our own private guest room with double pull-out bunk (normally we have a kid sleeping above us, but the bunk above us was already filled with provisions for their inaugural retirement trip to Alaska).

We spend most of our time on board trying to figure out how to keep H off of the grab bar in the salon.

V spends most of her time on board with Jarvis the dog.

 

One nice perk of being moored at the Everett Marina is that we have easy access to Jetty Island park, a beachy, sandy park accessible usually only by ferry which has a long line in the summer or via dinghy for those lucky enough to be boat/dinghy owners.  We usually take 2 trips to get everyone across (though on our last weekend on the boat, my parents upgraded to another dinghy, so maybe future trips will only require one crossing).  The kids enjoy access to warm water that’s shallow for a very long way out and as much sand as they can possibly get their hands, feet, etc. on.

 

Now that I can squeeze into the 12 year old’s shirts, I can just put them on to keep them dry while he swims.

 

On our trips, we do a lot of driving trying to see everyone.  Where we live in Canada, most relatives are within a 10-20 minute drive, so it’s a little weird to drive up to 2 hours to visit someone and sit in this thing called traffic, which is everywhere in the Pacific Northwest and basically non-existent where we live (save summer bridge opening season, where 10-20 waits at a bridge are common while boats travel the canals between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie).

We started off our trip heading to Tacoma to surprise my grandma.  We stopped off at the Almond Roca Brown & Haley factory store where H remarked, "Your store looks very small from the outside, but you really fit a lot in here"

 

The kids did some arts & crafts while waiting for Grandma to return from the bank with my parents.  I believe V's was a note that said something to the effect of, "I'm glad you are alive for us to visit."

 

V waits outside for them to return.

 

The kids are learning navigation and steering.  My parents put up a kiddy run where the children can have their life jackets attached to a run line so they don’t fall off the boat and can play up on the bow.

 

 

While my husband was out, we took a 4 day trip to Anacortes and Stuart Island in the San Juan Islands.  We spent an hour or so waiting for a tide change on the way up and checked out the beach as well as what Pokemon we could find on Pokemon Go.

 

We found  lots of baby crabs under the rocks.

 

The kids tried fishing with a jig hook off the pier we were tied to and all were successful, they had to take turns and H was rewarded for waiting his turn with a double-catch.