SNOW IN TEXAS!!!

I can't believe I just typed that!! Yes, folks, it snowed and it was COLD!!!
Yesterday, the 29th, we had a high temperature of 80 degrees. The low last night was 36 degrees. That is the largest temperature range, since we have moved here. Very crazy. Today the high was 36 degrees and tonight it is 29 degrees. It isn't supposed to be this cold!!! This is TEXAS!!! It doesn't snow in Texas! :-(
Now it feels like Christmas time.

Our first Texas Thanksgiving

It has been a tradition for the last 9 years....I cook Thanksgiving dinner. Well, this year was no different...well, sort of. Instead of "family", we had "friends" family. The Snider's, Kiter's, Kalish's, Krissy, Chuck, and Josh came over to our place for dinner. There were FIVE dogs!!! Sugar, of course, was the hostess...Joe-Paw (Kris), Miller (Kalish), Lucia and Nicholas (Kiter) had a fun time running around and then eventually tiring out. They even got their own turkey dinner, compliments of Mighty Dog. :-)
We had the traditional 16 pound turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, brocolli, and cranberry sauce. Su made latkes. Wow, I liked those. I hope she makes them again. (hint, hint) Gretchen made an awesome Sweet Potatoe casserole with marshmallows on top. Oh my stars. Loved it!!! I am hoping she makes that again. (hint, hint) :-D Then we had pumpkin pie and homemade apple pie for dessert, with ice cream, of course. Yummy!!!
After dinner, Mickey and Mike set up the Wii and the 'boys' played for awhile. Tennis, Baseball, Boxing and some shooting game. They seemed to enjoy themselves. Then Winston, Josh, Chuck, and I sat down to play some good ole fashioned Texas holdem. Yee Haw.
I missed seeing Mary, Dad, Fran, Rich, Tim, Gwen, Tina, Phil, Jenn, Adrienne, Aunt Ellen, and of course Baxter and Kaiser and this would have been the first year with our little niece Allie. It helped having good friends to share a holiday.

I love Robots!!

Tee Hee.

A few weeks ago I mentioned something to Mike about Roombas and Scoobas (the little round robotic vacuum cleaner and floor scrubber) being on sale at Kohl's. He checks on the 'Woot' web site everyday and apprarently finds a Roomba for $150. Well that is a substantial savings, since they sell for $300 or more. He bought it! I didn't know this at first. I had a home demonstration one Sunday and he is working in the garage and outside and after the demo, he says he has a surprise for me. I go to the garage and find the Roomba charging. WOO!!! I got excited, I wanted to use it right away. Since the livingroom is stripped to the bare foundation, we had to shut it in our bedroom. It was awesome. We just stood there and watched it go. When it bounces into a wall or something, it turns around and goes the other way. It runs for about 90 minutes. I love the fact that it has never been so clean UNDER the bed. An upright vacuum can not clean under a bed.
Then the next day, he finds the Scooba on Woot. He gets that too. So, I have been having a good time with these new toys. My bedroom and bathroom and closet have never been so clean. :-)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING.

Love Mike, Elaine, & Sugar

Flooding part tre

The clean up people that the home insurance folks sent, showed up on Monday. They sucked up the rest of the water and set up air blowers and dehumidifiers. There must have been about 22 air blowers and 4 dehumidifiers in the kitchen, powder room, bedrooms, bathroom, and livingroom. They pulled off the floor boards and some of the door frames. They cut a large hole in the ceiling in the kitchen to allow the upstairs floor to dry. They drilled small holes in the walls where the floor boards were so that when they set up the air blowers, they would be able to get the air into the walls to assist with the drying. It was VERY loud in the house. With all the dryers going, it was too loud to watch tv in the livingroom, that we stayed in the bedroom most of the night. It was also very hot. The air conditioning didn't help, since we had so many machines running. But it remained cool in the bedroom. We got to the point that we had a card table in the bedroom so that we would be able to eat dinner in peace.
After about 3 days, they took all the dryers and dehumidifiers away. Unfortunately, we still have all the floor boards off and laying to the side. We still have the kitchen table in the diningroom, but we have tried to make the most of everything. We put the sofa back and my chair and Mike's end table. We didn't put the table back in the kitchen, since they will have to work in there for the largest part of the time.
We didn't hear back from Rick, so we ended up calling State Farm to send a contractor. That contractor now has to send his estimate to State Farm and then hopefully, we will soon get started.

Flooding part deux

Saturday morning...The contractor called and was heading to the house. Mike ran the shop-vac to clean up the water while we waited. When Rick, the contractor, got here, we took him on the tour of the damage. He helped us pull up the carpet in the bedrooms and pulled up the padding. We put the padding in the bathtub and it looks like a wet seal. We moved everything out of the front bedroom, which I just got done decorating (figures).
Rick left and told us to continue to soak up the water and to remove the carpets and padding. We cut up the carpet in the living room and now we are on bare slab. Good thing we are in Texas and it doesn't get too cold or we would be freezing. (Sugar is not liking the fact that the carpet is missing.)
We walked around and took more pictures of the damage. I went to Walmart and got two box fans to help with the drying process. After the clean up, there really wasn't a whole lot left to do. In the evening we went to Kris's house and played poker. It was nice to take our minds off of the events.

Who needs rain for flooding?

It was a Friday night, October 27th to be exact; we left work and went to dinner. No different than any other Friday night. Except tonight was going to change our lives.

We arrived home around 6:30 or 7 pm. We are still on daylight savings time, so it was still a bit light out. I walked over to the garden side of the house, to take in the lovely site of weeds not flowers, and I notice that the bottom of the house is wet. I said to Mike, why would the foundation be wet? He and I assumed that the bug guy had showed up and put something around the foundation. (remember..to assume is not a good thing, it really does make an a## of 'u' and 'me'). We go in the front door and immediately hear water running, like it was raining in the house. We didn't even have to go much further in to notice the water on the floor in the dining room coming from the kitchen. "OH MY GOD" is all I could say.

As we get closer, we noticed water RAINING from the kitchen ceiling, a 2 foot hole in the ceiling, water seepage into the livingroom in the carpet, water in the powder room and laundry room. The water was going out the backdoor onto the patio, because it was a half inch high. We went upstairs, since that is where the water is coming from...the toilet in the Jack'n'Jill bathroom is running and water is flowing out of the tank. The floor is a lake. The carpet in each bedroom is soaked. Mike turns off the valve to the toilet, which apparently is not working since it is allowing water to continue to flow even though the tank is full. All we could say was, "OH MY GOD".

Mike called State Farm, but the woman that answered wasn't much help. All she did was give us a claim number and said someone will be in touch. (Well...no one was in touch until Monday! We were so mad and disappointed.) After talking to her, he called his boss to see if he knew of a contractor, since we got no help from State Farm, and he put us in touch with a nice man. He told us to pop the water bubbles in all the rooms that had bubbles. That is what we did. ----- Saturdays update to come.....

Our Anniversary

Mike and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary October 25th. We went out to eat after work at our favorite restaurant, Saltgrass Steakhouse. Nothing fancy, but really good steak. We splurged and shared a piece of cheese cake. ;-)

He sent flowers to work. He is such a sweet husband.

Poor Joey

Our friend Kris dressed up her Boston Terrier, Joey. Check out his toes!!! :-)