More pictures of "the flood"

 Yes, those are muddy foot prints in the water - well, foot prints in the muddy water to be more exact.

This is when we knew it was way more water than we could deal with and needed to call in the professionals.

Nathan took this one of "Old Faithful" while we were trying to get it turned off.  He was a little shaky too.

We've had 16 industrial fans and 2 de-humidifiers going since last Wednesday.  The house is going to be sooooo quiet when they take them.  I am getting used to the hum and having to talk really loud.

But thankfully, it is all drying out and the damage wasn't nearly as bad as they first thought.
I am just praying that this isn't an indication of how this year is going to go.

The great flood of 2011

2011 decided to start of with a bang!  Actually it more "gushed" in great waves.  On January 5th our main sprinkler pipe broke and was playing Old Faithful and gushed geysers of water into our window well.  It must have been going for several hours because when I finally heard the water, it was about 2 inches deep throughout the basement.  I have always considered myself a relatively calm person, able to handle things in life as they come.  Well, apparently not so much when 300 gallons of muddy water are in my basement.  I panicked and called Greg - hysterical is a mild understatement.  He rushed home and got the water turned off. (I really did try to get it off but only ended up shutting off the water to the house, not the sprinklers.) Then got the water out of the window well while I tried getting it out of the basement with a shop vac.  We realized we just couldn't do it on our own, so we called a disaster clean up company to come and deal with it.  They got the water out, tore up the carpet and pads and set up 16 industrial fans and a de-humidifier.  We are waiting for everything to dry out and the insurance adjuster is coming tomorrow.  I took a million pictures on my camera and still need to download them.  But here is what i have from my phone.

Here you can see the muddy water mark on the window where it was full of water.  Thankfully the window didn't shatter.

This is where it poured into the basement.

The mud.......

And more mud - the pictures don't do it justice.

Thankfully, we weren't storing any one's "stuff" at the time.  Just our junk.  It has been 5 days and we are still drying out.

Happy New Year!!

Well 2011 is finally here!  It has already been an eventful year for us, but I will get to that later.
The week of Christmas, Greg had the week off and we played and really enjoyed having him home.
I "documented" our Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. 

I really enjoyed Christmas eve.  We slept in (yeah!!!) and then went to the church to fly helicopters and race remote controlled cars.

Only a few minor crashes.......

Lunch!  Thank you McDonalds!  And yes, that is a ginormous Diet Coke for me.

It wouldn't be right if there wasn't at least a little tv time at the Sill house.  But the puzzle table was up all week and we  (mostly Greg and Nathan) got several puzzles done.

We searched for Santa throughout the day and evening

He is much more high tech than he used to be.

 And I spent the afternoon making a home cooked Christmas dinner.  Ham, real mashed potatoes and gravy, bread, cheese and celery, veggies, and pumpkin pie.  An early Christmas present for Greg.  The boys decided this should be a new tradition instead of the finger food we usually have.

Candles and a tablecloth.  I thought Greg was going to pass out from shock.  Surprises are good.

We spent a while talking about the birth of our Savior and the true meaning of Christmas and the significance of that amazing event.

The boys have decided that they needed to make a "night before Christmas" video.  They did this last year and we watched the video while Greg was setting up for the morning.  They went wild and worked off some of the sugar they ate with our Christmas Eve "treats" while we read the Christmas story.
It was around 9:30 before we got them in bed.  Greg and I were gearing up for a long winters night.  Which unfortunately didn't include much sleep.
The boys love music and have done great with piano lessons.  So Greg felt they were ready for the next step.

So he spent a few hours getting "the band" ready.  Nathan got a bass (with the big amp) and Nicholas got an electric guitar.  Noah got an acoustic guitar and he and Greg got a drum set.  Little did we realize that the drums had to be put together before your could actually set them up together.  It was a long night.  Greg put it all up and together and we decided to wrap up the room instead of the individual gifts.

Nathan was having a hard time getting to sleep, so Greg was so excited he brought Nathan down and showed him the "present" room.  It was a cruel thing to do.  I don't think Nathan got any sleep wondering what could be in the room.  I told him it was a hippo - he didn't buy it.
We finally got to bed about 1:30 a.m.

Greg could hardly wait, so we quickly opened up the other presents and finally let the kids into the room.  It has been a jam session at the Sill house ever since.

The "after math".  Nathan had to take a break and put his Lego's together.

And then my favorite part of Christmas morning - Greg and the boys making me breakfast while I rest on the couch and play with my new toys!

Omelets and "Clue" with Nathan.  Yup - a great morning!!!

The boys all got their Lacrosse gear this year.  Noah wore his pretty much all day.

We lounged around and played and did puzzles all day.  It was great!!!

The week of New Years was so cold.  Greg and I went grocer shopping and I thought the temp gauge on the car was broken - nope.  It was just really that cold.

7 degrees at 5 pm.  Too cold for me!  And it got colder from there.

News Year Eve was low key and thankfully uneventful.  We stayed up till 10 pm and watched the ball drop in New York and called it a year and went to bed!

This was our New Years Eve indulgence.  I was evil and was craving chocolate brownies, marshmallows and coconut.  And this is what it turned into.  Brownies with marshmallow cream and coconut pecan frosting..... DELICIOUS!!  Yes, we ate it right out of the pan.  MMMmmmm.....

I will post our New Year events soon.

Merry Christmas to all!!!