May 2008 Update

Well, the month of April has come & gone and we have had a crazy month!!!

First of all, after much contemplation, we decided on a plumbing company to come and make the necessary repairs to our sewer line that was damaged. For such a feat, it ended up being less than $900 (compared to some of the other quotes we received ranging from $2800-$3500). Our home-owner’s insurance refunded us the money I paid Roto-Rooter to get our line cleared the day of the “problem”. They also sent a claims inspector, who wrote up an estimate of approximately $2200 worth of damage done to our bathroom and carpet. Actually, there’s very little noticeable damage at all…a little warping of the bottom of the bathroom vanity cabinet is all. Anyway, now we have a check from them for the repair of our bathroom that doesn’t really need to be repaired.

So, the plumbing company found an interesting thing inside our sewer line. Notice in the pictures below the many large trees we have in our front yard??? Well, the sewer line was cracked in half and had a hole in it…as well as a large root that had grown inside our pipe. See the picture below. It was approximately 2/3 the size of the pipe. We were lucky that the break was just at the edge of our driveway, because they were able to dig down and fix it from the side of the concrete. All in all, they dug a hole one day, next day the repair took 2 hours, then the hole was filled in. End of story.

I spent most of April dealing with insurance issues as Rhett’s COBRA continuation of his health insurance kept bringing up problems with us getting his Insulin prescription filled. After almost 3 weeks of very desperate calls, including many heated conversations and some tears, the problem was resolved…only to find out that by having insurance it only saved us $75 on his prescription!!!

So after almost 10 years of marriage we finally have a nice refrigerator! When we moved into our house in New Mexico we bought a refurbished one. Since then it’s been in storage twice and I must admit it was not in the best condition to be harboring our food. I could share a really gross story about it, but I won’t! A family moved out of our ward this past weekend and sold their 2 year old white Hotpoint side-by-side fridge with water & ice in the door to us for what Rhett called a “deal” (and since he used to sell fridges for 2 years, he knows what he’s talking about!) We are keeping our old one in the garage for now to try to use it as a secondary fridge, but we’re not sure it’s going to make it. We’ll see.

Rhett is working hard at his job and loving it. We love his new schedule as he’s home from work by 4:30 most days. The boys love having all that extra daylight to play with their dad.

I am just trying to keep my house clean and family fed. Some days that’s easier than others. I participated in a yard sale with some friends last month. It feels nice to get rid of things and I was able to make a lot of extra room in the garage. Add that to the Primary Talent Show that I helped pull off in the same weekend…and I am exhausted!!! I hope May is a lot less stressful.

Austin is looking forward to starting swim team. Practices start on May 19th. School is winding down and will be out on June 4th.

Logan has recently found a new love…drawing! He’s always asking me for paper and a pencil and he’ll sit and draw for hours. He still loves trains, but I don’t think he’s had them out to play with for a couple of weeks.

Carson is growing by leaps and bounds. A friend of mine has a girl born just a couple of weeks after Carson. She is always marveling at how big he is. She jokingly one day said “What size shoes are those Carson…7 ???” He then leaned forward just enough for her to see the size 8 on the back of his shoe. She was amazed. I think her daughter is still wearing size 3-4 (sorry Jodi!). Carson has also started talking really well this past month. He says lots of things now that we actually know what he’s talking about. That’s always a nice milestone to hit. There's a cute picture below of Carson & his friend Bentli on the tire swing at the park. I figured I needed to have at least one cute picture, since the rest are sort of boring or gross...

We look forward to summer and the chance to see many of you. We will be visiting some friends near Longview, TX over Memorial Day weekend, then we’ll be heading to Denver, CO and Rexburg, ID (with a short stop in Salt Lake City, UT) this summer for both of our family reunions. We hope to see many of you on those trips. Until then, have a great month!

Love - Rhett, Maren, Austin, Logan & Carson