Just jumping on to let you know we're still in a hotel. Still looking for a more permanent place to live. The pack out of the house is scheduled for Monday.
On a happy note, Amelia clapped her hands by herself tonight. It was so cute because she was imitating me.
Sorry this post is so lame. Until next time...
Here's a slideshow of the house damage pictures. Enjoy the destruction... on to packing!
Yea! We're connected! Amelia's grandpa let us borrow his laptop in the meantime... and now I can upload some pictures and show you all the damage the tree caused. So briefly... let me tell you what's going on.... ready?
We are now staying at a new place, the Staybridge Suites near PDX. It's a nice big place, two bedrooms/bath and a living area. We've got a full sized fridge, a two burner stove and a big microwave. It's really great and the staff is awesome. Even Emmy can come and stay with us. On Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, we get dinner. And then every morning there's a full breakfast. We get laundry service and there's a work out facility and a pool. It's awesome. Before we moved here, we were staying in the slums in a one room place... we're happy. But now we're looking for a new place to stay for a long term... like a house.
Today we met with the contractor and the insurance adjustor... looks like we'll be out of the house for at least four months! There's a lot of stuff that needs to be fixed with our house... our bathroom is shot, Amelia's three walls and the ceiling all have to be replaced, our closet and one wall in our bedroom has to be replaced... in addition to the ceiling. The linen closet is also going to be replaced... and the hallway needs to be replaced... the ceiling. Downstairs, the kitchen ceiling needs to be taken care of, as the floor joists got nuked. There's also several walls in the kitchen that need to be replaced and also the window, as that got torn apart. The carpeting is going in the living room and the wood floors will be dried and may be salvaged. The cabinets in the kitchen may have to go... we'll see. But the kitchen holds a bearing wall. There's lots of things that need to be replaced. So it's a work in progress. We've got about $80,000 in damages and that number is just an estimate and it's expected to go up from there. We're working with a LARGE claim adjustor. He's really nice and we like our contractor.
On Monday, we gave our clothes that we managed to salvage to the restorative contractors to clean. We had a rush order and we got those clothes back, so now I have clean clothes! The rest will come back in a week or so. Next on the list is to find us a house. The house down the street from us will not let us rent it for less than six months. Next Monday we have the movers coming to pack us up so the demolition can be started. So things are moving along. I am just so happy that I paid the house insurance! Hee hee hee! Well, that's about it... as I want to relax. Both Brad and i haven't gotten a chance to relax and we've been 0-60 every day so far. We've now got colds. Go figure. Oh yes, all we have to pay is our deductible of $500.00.
So the timeline of the events leading up to the tree falling... Saturday afternoon I received a call from a neighbor who got call from their neighbor... who got a call from one of their coworkers because their coworker's parents are our neighbors. Anyway, we got the call that our gutter had fallen. We were in Albany at the time... we got home at around 8pm that night and saw that the gutter was down... and a tree. A tree on the City of Fairviews park property fell and clipped our house. It fell about 2 feet from the house taking down the gutters and scraping the side of our house. We started making calls to the city to find out what's being done and to our neighbors. At one point during the night, our back neighbor called another neighbor who called us to say that a tree on his property was really moving the earth. That freaked me out and I took Amelia and Emmy and ran to a friend's house. I insisted that Brad come along and not stay at the house to protect it. Good thing he did because Sunday morning at 6:30a we got a call from our neighbor saying that a tree fell in our house. It fell at about 6am... and the rest is history.
Here are the pictures I promised. Due to the fact that I am borrowing FIL's laptop, I don't want to download a whole bunch of pictures to his computer... so here are two. You can get the picture!
Love to all and thank you for all your concern. Enjoy your day.... and just think... Brad and I get a new bathroom, closet, new floors, a good cleaning of the house, a new closet for Amelia (her's was 3" or so two shallow) and we're all safe.
Just hopping on really quickly. i am on a friends computer. just wanted to let you know that we are all safe. we're moving forward with our claim for the tree into the house. we had a contractor out today. the heat and water and electricity is back on. tomorrow we hope to see the claim adjustor. but the contractor who came out today to put a temp roof (plywood & plastic tarp) on our roof said that we will most likely be out of our house for about 3-4 months. once the adjustor comes and looks at the house, we'll ask them what we can do for a more longterm situation and hopefully we'll have the computer back and i can post. in anycase, a 100 foot tree fell into the house crashing into our bathroom, amelia's nursery and into our kitchen just below early sunday morning (brad's birthday). our clothes are being laundered professionally. we're all okay and we'll be fine. thank for all of your concern. i hope to be back soon so i can post pictures of the tree in our house... and the other one that fell and missed the house by 2 feet. more on that later. love to all!
While Mommy was shooting Amelia, Amelia grabbed the camera and turned it around on Mommy. Sorry the video is a little shaky as Amelia liked to grab it. Enjoy!
Also... Mommy weighed Amelia on the bathroom scale. She weighs 17.4 pounds!
Just a quick post with some pictures. Last Saturday we went to see Grandpa Bill's side of the family. Here are few photos we snapped!
Here's the updated slideshow of Amelia growing up next to the bear. She turned 7 months old on January 7. Enjoy!
First off... want to wish everyone a Happy 2009! Our family kicked off the new year in style... Daddy was loading music on his iPod, Mommy was watching Dick Clark count down and Amelia was sleeping soundly in her crib oblivious to the fireworks going off in the street.
New Year's Day we went down to Albany to celebrate Christmas. We had a lovely time as Uncle Chris made dinner for all of us. We filled our tummy with chicken fettucini and cesar salad. Then it was present time! Yea! Amelia got tons of presents... among them a cell phone, keys, talking book, laptop computer, sit/scoot & stand toy, a piano and a little person chair. Amelia had a great time with her loot. She had a great time playing with the ribbons from all the packages. In between all the present opening she even had time for a little cat nap. The pictures of the day's event are below.
