I love adventure! These past few months have been quite an adventure--but we're still surviving, so that's great! So shortly after my last post, we moved into a suite in the hotel. D had made friends with the manager, so he gave us a $250 suite for $50/night. SWEET! Finally, we had a door we could close, so we didn't all have to go to bed at the same time. It had been exceedingly difficult to get our munchkins to nap or go to sleep at night, so they'd stay up until we fell in bed exhausted at midnight, and then they were awake early in the morning and not getting good naps... well, how can anyone hope for good behavior under those circumstances? We were so grateful to have a bit more space, a mini-kitchen, a fridge, and two rooms. Ahhhh...
D and I were frantically looking for someplace, anyplace to live. D had started residency and we were homeless. We had lowered our expectations from hoping for a 3 bed/2 bath house with a garage and fenced yard for under $1,000 (and a short-term lease) to settling on a 2 bedroom apartment, maybe even a 1 bedroom place with no garage and no yard. Seriously, we were getting desperate. I was in contact with four different realtors and scouring Craigslist and calling local Mormons--basically trying every venue possible. Then one day a place fell into our laps. A 3 bed/2 bath house with a nice fenced yard and a garage, five minutes from the hospital AND a month-to-month lease!! For $1,100! Immediately available!! We moved in!!! D worked really hard the whole weekend (including on his birthday) heaving boxes around and helping me organize a bit. We were loving the stability!
The plot thickens... Less than a week later, we got our first houseguests. My sweet friend Chalene and her husband were in town looking for housing also. I had to apologize for not being more hospitable, but we hadn't unpacked more than the basics, so I didn't have a bed or even bedding for them--but I did have two clean towels! They knew ahead of time and brought an air mattress, etc. Chalene's husband Kelly then became our new roommate since he was starting his new job before the whole family could get into a house in the area.
The following week, we were sitting in the living room in the evening watching a wonderful rainstorm. Oh, how I love a good rainstorm! I was talking about it with the munchkins--I was in heaven! Se fue la luz (the power went out) and I was REALLY in heaven, remembering every day of my mission when we didn't have electricity. Then Kelly said, "Wow, it looks like there's about a foot of rain in the street in front of the house." "Neat!" I thought. Kelly said, "Hmm, your neighbor's pulling leaves and stuff out of the drain out there." "What a nice guy," I thought. Then I thought, "I wonder if the basement is flooding," because I've heard that happens here. I headed downstairs with Squirt on my hip. As soon as I stepped into the basement, my feet flew out from under me and I landed on my back, fortunately with my baby still in my arms. She was not hurt, but we were wet--four inches of water had come up through the drain in the basement. D was at work, but Kelly was able to help me get all of our important stuff (computer and many boxes) away from the water. And here's a miracle--Squeak and Pip stayed upstairs when I asked them to!! So when D got home that night, we set to work eating all the ice cream up so it wouldn't go to waste, but honestly, I thought the power would come back on sometime during the night. Nope! Nor did it come on the next day, or the next night! We went for over 50 hours without electricity IN THIS COUNTRY!! Can you believe it? All the while, the basement remained flooded, because the sump pump (which gets the water out) wouldn't work without power. It could've been so much worse though--nothing important got ruined, we hardly had any food in the fridge, so not much spoiled, and we still had running water. With little kids, if I had to choose, I'd take running water over electricity any day. AND we got to use D's awesome lantern at night.
So... after the power came back on, we cleaned up the mess and decided to organize things a bit differently--you know, only plastic bins on the floor, leave the computer tower and cords on the table, etc. We were planning not to unpack most of our stuff in this house because we want to buy a place in the next few months--D had fortunately suggested (before the flood) leaving a bunch of boxes upstairs in one of the bedrooms--so the situation was WAY better than it could've been. Then, the next week, we had to go for five days without internet/phone service because, despite my best efforts, the company went back on their word (told me it would be down for one day, not five).
The next week I checked up on a piece of mail we received that was intended for the owners of this house and found out some interesting information: this house is in forclosure--it was apparently filed in March and the redemption period ends September 2 at which point the bank owns the house and the tenants (that's us!) are evicted. Of course, the landlords did not disclose this info when we moved in and sent them the rent check. AWESOME!!! Needless to say, we are on the hunt for another place again, but now we're trying to get the loan poo in order so we can just buy a place and not have to move again for FOUR YEARS!
And here we are in the present. I am so thrilled to be alive and healthy! D enjoys his job! My babies are so fun! We are loving Michigan! We have many wonderful friends so far, including some Spanish-speakers (who would imagine that we'd find a little Latino community in Michigan!?)! We love running with the triple jogger! D found us a beautiful red microfiber couch for FREE! We love the parks here! There's a CVS around the corner! Life is great, really!
