Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Our plan Monday night was to have a great evening hanging out as a family and cheering on the Blackhawks in game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals. The weather had other plans. We knew we had a place in our basement that sometimes leaks when it rains. We had lived here about two weeks when we first noticed some water coming in the basement after a few hours of rainfall. We had some guys come out and they dug up the ground outside where the water was coming in and sealed up the side of the house with tar and whatever else was needed to seal the outside wall.The weeks following them "fixing" the leak it rained several times and the first few times no leaks. The third time it rained we once again had water. It is not a lot of water and we can manage it by putting a towel down when it rains and once again it doesn't leak every time it rains. It is leaking at the downspout outside so Jeremy is going to try and reroute the water to see if that helps. Anyway, while we were gone this past weekend I guess it rained almost the entire time. We had a guy coming to the house to let Lucy out and he texted Sunday morning saying we had water. He cleaned it up for us and when we got home we continued to make sure that we kept a towel down. Monday is rained almost all day. Monday afternoon we had torrential rain and even tornado warnings! We kept checking the place in the basement and switching towels out as needed, but we were surprised at how little water was coming in compared to how bad it was raining. We had supper and then I went to the back door to let Lucy out to go to the bathroom. I noticed that our backyard looked like a swamp so I glanced  down toward the basement and noticed there was water near the laundry room. I rushed downstairs and noticed that the water was not from the leak across the room. I opened the laundry room door and there was over an inch of water covering the entire room and more water still running in under the washer and dryer. There is a drain in the laundry room so we start sweeping the water into the drain. I go to the storage room and see that water if running along the backside of that room and flowing into Samuel's closet. I open Samuel's closet and there is about two inches of water pooling in the corner of his closet. Everyone is rushing around gathering as many towels as possible. I am trying to move things out of the water but every time I moved an item the water would flow in all directions. It also became very clear that the towels were not doing any good. We would lay a towel down and instead of soaking anything up the water would just cover the towel. Jeremy rushed out to Home Depot to get a wetvac and he said it felt like Black Friday! There were over 30 people rushing to get a wetvac. He said people were talking about how they had never seen the water come in their basements so fast. We had the hockey game on, but it was a long night of cleaning up water and washing loads and loads of towels and rugs. There were lots of people in Chicago Monday night cleaning up water from their basements. Jeremy was reading tweets from people and my favorite of the night was someone who posted after the Blackhawks won (Yippee!) his tweet said, " Hey Blackhawks, how about letting us borrow your big, shiny cup to scoop the water out of our basements" :). After the trip and the Monday night stress I haven't had the strength to put my basement back together :(. When I went to bed Monday night I was praying I would be able to even get out of bed the next day.

Tuesday I went to the kid's school for Samuel's award ceremony. Samuel got an award for track, Honor Roll, and Perfect Attendance. This year his homework load has been insane and I am so proud of all of his hard work. Today I was at the girl's award ceremony. Emma got a spelling bee award and Super Honor Roll, which means she got straight A's the entire school year. Chloe got an award for Eagle Roll which is an award they give to students who have A's, B's and C's. I am just bursting with pride for all three kids. Emma worked so hard this school year and Chloe grew by leaps and bound in her behavior and academics. I just cannot believe that I will have a 6th grader and two 3rd graders in just a few days.

No word yet on Jeremy's job situation. Trying to trust and not panic. Prayers still needed.

These were from this morning :)