A Good Storm

Living in South Texas you are required to take out hurricane insurance.  Kind of a duh thing to do, but regardless it is mandatory.  When buying our house one of the guys {I can't remember his title, could have been the realator, but I'm not sure} assured us that we wouldn't be living in a flood plain so there was no need to buy flood insurance on top of hurricane insurance.  I remember turning to Russ and asking "doesn't everything flood with a hurricane?  And why isn't that included in it?"  He just shook his head and told me it was dumb insurance thing.  That has always nagged me in the back of my mind, because it just doesn't make sense how a hurricane with loads of rain could come through, but it won't cause flooding.  I pass it off as just "one of those things" that I worry too much about....until now....

Last night around midnight Russ and I woke up simultaneously to a large crash of lightening.  The rain had already began and our poor little house was getting a beating from it.  The lightening was so close you could barely count between it and the thunder.  I was expecting the thunder to shake the house like it does in Utah and Idaho, but even though it was just as intense as those storms it never shook the house.  Oddly enough the girls slept through the whole thing.

We went back to sleep amid the storm.  Russ told me that at one point he woke up again to the storm and thought our window had broken because the sound of the rain was sooooo loud.  Nope just the rain beating on our house.  Russ got up and left for work at 5:20 like normal.  At 7:30 the girls and I headed to the school.  The roads had a little bit of rain still in the gutters, but the storm had stopped.  I dropped Lily off with at school with the reminder that if it was raining she was to wait for me at school and I would pick her up.  After dropping Lily off at school, I take a long route to get back to our house{very annoying!}  As I drove through the neighborhoods by the school I noticed that all the ditches were filled to the brim of water.  I remember thinking, "I hope it doesn't rain more, or these roads are going to flood!"

Allie, Char, and I got back home and went about our normal day.  Russ sent me a text around 10:30 warning me to be careful since there was a flash flood warning for our county.  About 15 minutes later I walked outside to get rid of some garbage.  Returning from the garbage I reached the front door just as it started to rain.  At first I was in complete shock.  I was for sure it was hailing!  I reasoned with myself that it was to warm to be hailing so I braved the weather and stepped out from under the roof.  The rain was popping back up just like hail, and the drops were HUGE!  They were leaving provably over two inches of splatter.  I scurried inside.  Me, Char, and Allie curled up on the couch and watched TV as the thunder and lightening began. Eventually our TV went out and we read books.  Poor Allie was scared, but at least she didn't cover her ears the whole time like she did with the last storm that went through.

All day it continued to rain.  Around 3:15 the rain began to lighten up but I still hauled the girls into the car to go pick Lily up.  As I opened up the garage door I got a bit of a surprise.  Our road was completely flooded!  I ran back into the house and snapped these pictures.  I was standing in my garage at the time.

I carefully pulled out our driveway.  The water was really deep on the edges of the road but as long as I stay in the middle it wasn't too worrisome.  I waited 20 minutes in line.  I was appalled when I saw some of the kids walking behind a teacher from the school to walk home.  The teacher had an umbrella to protect her, the poor kids had just their coats.  My horror continued as I saw the kids reach the street and start taking off their shoes and socks, and began to roll up the pants so they could wade through the water.  I thought to myself how glad I was that Lily wouldn't be walking home in that mess.  I turned back to focusing on the cars ahead of me.

As I was watching the car line move slowly in front me I noticed a girl with a blue shirt on get pulled out of the car rider line and told to run to catch up with the kids that were walking home. I thought to myself, "No that can't be"  but as the girls ran closer I saw that it was Lily.  Thankfully by this time I was right at the corner and she was able to jump in the car without going through the road.  I questioned Lily why she was pulled out of line, to which she replied that she didn't have a note.  With anger rising I asked her if she had told her teacher the instructions I had given her that morning.  She said yes, but the teacher said it didn't matter.  By this time I was seething and about two car lengths from the school.  I crazily debated in my mind whether I should pull into the school and go give a few people a piece of my mind.  Not only about Lily but about those poor other kids who were forced to walk home!  I reasoned with myself that they teachers at this time didn't need a crazy pregnant woman yelling at them when it was a mad house there anyways.  So I pulled past the school and went home.  Oh, and I forgot to mention that on the intersecting road by the school their were police man helping the cars through that area because the water was so high...but it was okay to send kids home walking in that!

The rain fizzled out around 4:30.  Our road didn't drain for another two hours.  Funny how we don't live in a flood plain, yet our road was flooded today!  Hmmm...maybe we should look into that flood insurance!

Our House: Master Bedroom and Bathroom

Our bedroom is finished!!! Well...it is mostly finished.  I have no money right now to buy decorations for it and I'm tired of having random photos on my wall, like the Mormon Ad poster frame I've had since I was 14 or so.  I want sophistication so I've left my walls blank until I can get what I want.  The good thing about that?  I'm learning what I REALLY want and just what I THINK I want. :)

Lets start the picture journey shall we?

Our bedroom is fairly deep, but it is really long!  There was no way for me to capture the whole thing in one shot.  So lets start with the left side...my side :)

I love that Russell displays all his Lego creations that I  buy him for birthdays and such.  He has them on the corner of our dresser right.  Sometime I hope to buy a floating shelf that can either go in our bedroom or the spare bedroom to more properly display these!

The right side...Russ's side.

This is my favorite part of the whole room.  This little reading corner is so nice to relax into when I'm tired.  There is floor space so the kids can play there too.  Oh and the light!  This is about the only spot in our house that gets unobstructed light {ie no houses or trees blocking it}

Here is a close up of our bed.  Our last bed  was on its leg considering it was 30+ years old.  So when we received some extra money this year we splurged and spent it on a king size tempur pedic knock off bed.  Oh it is so delightful!  We of course had to get new sheets and a comforter for our bed.  I found this beauty on sale at Target.  I love the Japanesesque tree and flowers on it.  Also it was my color scheme!  This also was the first time we've had a true comforter on our bed!  Before we always had large blankets that my mom had made doubling as a comforter.  The bed  set only came with two pillows, so I've still got to buy pillows to go in the rest of the pillowcases.  Plus our "standard size" pillows are looking pretty awful in the king pillowcases so hopefully those will be replaced soon too.

At the end of our bedroom is this neat little personal desk.  It doesn't have a light so it is a dungeonesque and we don't use it much except for storage.

When we bought this house I swooned over the fact that we would have vaulted ceiling or tray ceilings as I've heard them called more recently.  Imagine my delight when I found out they were in our bedroom too!  It does make dusting the fan a pain, but they are so worth it!

Next is the master bath.  Again I was sold on the house when I saw it.  On the left is the tub and shower.  You can't tell from the picture, but that is a jetted soaker tub.  Oh my it feels nice!  It especially helps with the aches and pains of pregnancy :)

The shower is HUGE and has a bench built in it.  Again so nice for pregnancy!

On the right is the cave...oh I mean toilet.  I don't like enclosed toilets like this, but everything can't be perfect right?!

Straight ahead is the double vanity.  I couldn't believe our luck when the previous owners left the beautiful mirrors.  I'm still not sure why the left them, but it certainly saved us some money! Oh, there is two sinks, but again it was awkward to get the whole shot in.

Then there is the master closet.  It was a humongous walk in closet that we knew we would never fill up.  One thing about Texas homes{or at least homes in our area} is that they don't have basements, pantries, or a ton of storage space...unless you count the attic.  Since Russ and I really don't own a whole lot of clothes we decided to convert half of our closet into a food storage area.  We did have to make the shelves ourselves because for some odd reason the owners took them when they left.  This working out quite nice for us.  Is it weird that Russ has three times as many clothes as me?  LOL!  Pardon the messy clothes as well.  As soon as I was done taking these pictures I re hung everything according to color and style.  Not sure how that got away from me for so long, but seeing as I took the pictures drove me crazy!

One room done...many more to go!  Hopefully by the time the baby gets here we will be finished.

Our House: Mantle

Many people have questioned me when I am going to put up pictures of our house.  I keep giving the answer that as soon as I finish a room I'll post pictures.  Well four months later I have yet to completely finish a room.  By the time Russell finally stopped traveling a ton and could do some house projects that needed done to unpack, I was pregnant and too sick to do unpack.  I'm feeling better and Russ has finished a few of the projects so we hope that in the near future we will have a few rooms finished and ready to show of :)

Feeling a little down about this whole situation I decided today that I was going to finish something so I could feel like this house is making progress.  So I picked the small task of decorating my mantle.  I knew I could get this done in one day, and it wouldn't totally where me out.  {Please don't think I'm lazy, just know that this baby has been worn me out more than any other baby and I'm still not sure why.}

Okay after that long intro here is my finished mantle....

And a close up....

It is a work in progress.  I can live with this instead of the cluttered mantle it was before, but I'm sure things are going to change.  For example, I'm probably going to find something better to lift my candlestick than an upside down Christmas bucket. LOL!  The frames are also going to get painted and/or replaced.  The flowers need trimmed, replaced, and filled with rocks.  I also need to figure out the balance better and how to overlap my pictures.  For now I'm done and happy with it....YEAH!!!!  However, if you have a suggestion on how to make it look better leave me a comment because my interior designing skills are lacking

For Sale

Occasionally I like to torture myself and look at houses for sale.  Usually I look at things and sigh in relief that I don't want any of the house for sale at the time.  If there is nothing I want out there then I'm not dissappointed that I don't have a house.  About a month ago though I found a house that I just sighed, oohed, and ahhhed over.  After a bit of convincing I talked Russ into taking a tour of this house.  Russ was sure this was a bad idea because he was SURE I was going to love it and be heartbroken when it got bought.  I assured him I would be fine and it would be "fun" to see this house.

We headed over there, and he was right.  I fell in love with house.  What we weren't counting on was that Russ fell in love with the house too.  At the end of the tour I grabbed a brochure so I could document what kind of house I would like when we do finally start looking for a house.  I apologize for the poor quality of the photos they are scans : (

Here is what the house looks like from the street.

 

The backyard would need work but look at that shed that would be staying!

The inside of the house was gorgeous!  Most of the house had vaulted ceilings.  Something I have always wanted in a house.  These are pictures of the living room.  When you walk in the front door it is directly in front of you.  The wall color is a light brown, I've heard it called taupe.

 

  

 

There was a beautiful dinning room to your right as you enter through the doorway.  It is tiled, which is so smart!

Continuing past the dining room and through an archway door is the kitchen.  Oh the kitchen!  All faux stainless steel appliances that would be staying.  Professional grade oven.  A large island. Beautiful granite counter tops.  Custom cupboards.  Oh, and don't forget the breakfast nook!  

 

  

The house was a four bedroom house.  The master was nice sized.  It had a big bathroom with a jetted tub, and a shower that had a built in seat.  I kept looking at the seat and thought how nice it would be.  Then of course there was a walk in closet.  Oh, and a built in desk in the master.  The other bedrooms were fairly large too.  The only picture of the bedrooms on the brochure was one of the built in desk.

And lastly there was a covered patio just outside of the living room.

Sigh.  I was so in love with this house that Russ and I couldn't resist.....as of February 10th this house is FOR SALE NO MORE.  Yep you read that right!  Russ and I now own this house.  Did I mention that it is only five years old? Sweet huh?! 

This weekend we spent a bit of time "prepping" the house.  The carpets needed cleaned, a few spots of touch up paint applied, a few vinyl sayings taken down, and the whole kitchen/appliances needed a good wash down.  Sadly we won't be moving in any time soon.  Russ is gone again for the next two weeks, so our house sits empty.  I'll be visiting it most days to check on it, and we can't wait until Russ is back and we can move in!