new photos and a wet, empty basement

Greetings! We have been busy little bees lately. We have have had my mom here or a visit for the last 2 weeks, we went up to Mark's parents house for the weekend last week, we worked on our new house (weeding, taking down tin ceiling tiles, ect.), we had a birthday party for Luke with his cousins and extended family, we have had a flood in our basement, and we have moved some stuff up to the house due to said flood. In all this commotion I have been slacking in posting those photos I promised. Here are a few recent ones of the kids.

Here is Luke out front. He just turned 4!


I got Hannah to laugh and smile by having my mom pretending to sneeze behind me.


Here is David posing for me before his crazy hair day at school a few weeks ago.


The boys chasing a bubble out in our grass area in front of our apartment.


Hannah on our staircase looking more and more like a little girl and less like a baby.


So, in case you were wondering what happened to our basement here is the whole story:

We live in a 3 story apt. with a finished basement and over the weekend when we were out of town a strong storm came through (Friday night). Our drain on the patio (basement level) clogged and all the water rose out there until it came in to the house. We came home Sunday night and the whole basement carpet was soaked. It smelled bad too.

We had to get all the furniture out so we boxed up all the stuff that was down there and rented a uhaul truck. That evening DH and a few guys loaded up with the contents of the basement and he drove the 3 hours to our new house. He unloaded and then drove home. He got home at 2:30 am. We don't officially move into our new house till the end of July, but we didn't want to put the stuff back into the basement in case it flooded again.

The extraction company came and sucked the water out and left a fan. Last night we had another series of strong storms and the drain clogged again. Yep, more water. We are soaked again. Luckily all we had were a few book boxes left down there and we were able to move them in time (at 2 am no less). So, now I am waiting for the apartment people to unclog my drain and the carpet guy to come extract the water. We are supposed to get more storms this after noon and all week. The only good thing is that we don't have to pay for the clean up once the carpet is dry the kids will have a huge vacant room to play in for 2 months!

Moving right along

Yep, spring is getting going. May is here! It's actually warm outside! Luke is 4! We are 2.5 months away from moving into our new house! Yes! We got a house. We close on the 14th of this month, but can't move until Mark is done with his fellowship at the end of July. Everyone keeps joking that the kids and I will be moving up to the house as soon as school is out, but I wouldn't do that to Mark. LOL! Our house is just outside Elkhart in a new wooded subdivision. It's about 12 minutes to David's school and 7 minutes to Luke's school. It's a great location. The house itself is not anything we would have ever built, or ever pictured ourselves living in, but we love it. Here is the front view.



It sits on a small hill (perfect for sledding!) and has 3 flowering dogwood trees in front. The back yard has a large deck with a big grass area and a play structure. We would like to put in a hot tub and a fire pit sometime in the future.

For now we are slogging it out in Indy. Funny how knowing where you will be moving to (and that it's so much better than where you live) makes the wait even harder. Mark is working insane hours again and will be for the rest of May. It seem he is on call all the time. The kids really miss him and I need a vacation. My mom comes to visit for a few weeks the end of the month and I am so looking forward to having her here.

I have some fun photos of the kids I need to upload. I'll work on that this week!