We're still around!

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.