Flooring Update

As you know, I'm back in Richmond dealing with the aftermath of a washing machine flood. It's amazing how much damage one tub of water from a washing machine can do!

Right now, there are packers in my house. They are packing up all of the stuff in the dining room, game room, and family room. Once the stuff is packed, it will be moved into their storage facility. Then those three laminate wood floors will be taken up. Beginning on Monday, they will be replaced with the same flooring that we just put in the family room in June. My one consolation is that now all three of the floors will match! After the flooring is replaced, the movers will bring back all of our belongings and unpack them. Awesome!!

We had thought that would be all we had done. The carpets in the four bedrooms got wet (mostly in the doorways) but they weren't damaged. The padding in those areas was cut away and the plan was for the flooring people to just replace the parts that were cut away. However, when the flooring guy cut out a piece of the old padding, he said it was so "substandard" that he couldn't even replace it (gotta love the quality materials builders use). He said it would be way too uneven, so he was going to have to replace all the padding in the bedrooms. Since our insurance would be paying for the padding, the labor to remove and re-lay the old carpet, and moving all of our belongings out of the four bedrooms, Robert and I decided that now would be a good time to get new carpet. So that's what we're doing. We're getting nice, new, good quality Stainmaster carpet. I think this will be the first time we've lived in a place with better than builder's grade carpet! I'm very excited, although I won't get to enjoy it for more than a few days before I head back to Italy. That's a bummer.

Some of Robert's family is meeting at our house for Christmas (although we will be in Italy). Would it be wrong of me to tell them they're not allowed in the bedrooms?

What a Mess!

On Wednesday, Kimberly's washer and dryer were swapped for ours. It seemed wise, since my Maytag washer is almost 18 years old! Unfortunately, the movers didn't put the drainage tube in securely. And, also unfortunately, my mother-in-law didn't realize it until water had flooded much of the flooring.

According to the "water extraction team" we will need to replace at least the floors in the dining room, game room, and family room. And yes, the family room floors were just replaced in June. We may have to replace some tile and carpeting too. I'm not sure about that yet.

So, on Monday I'm flying home for three weeks. This is one of those issues that I need to deal with. It can't be passed on to someone else.

I have conflicting emotions. I'm so excited to come home. SOOOO excited. But I wish it were under better circumstances.

We're going to have to have a special GNO while I'm there.

Exciting Time for Italian Mormons!

In October of 2008, the Church announced that a temple was to be built in Rome. It's been two years, and so far nothing has been done.

Yesterday at church, it was announced that the groundbreaking is to be held in two weeks. That means that construction will begin soon, and the Saints in Italy can look forward to having a temple of their own. There are no pictures or drawings of any sort on the Church website, or else I would post one.

We will be gone by the time the temple is dedicated, but I'm excited for the Saints who live in Italy. What a blessing the temple will be to this country.

A Boy and His Boots

I have already posted about this on FaceBook, but I decided to post about it on my blog also, since it's my online journal.

Last March, after we knew for sure we were moving overseas, Scott decided he needed a pair of cowboy boots to take with him. Robert was home visiting then and thought that was a great idea. So he and Scott went to Cavender's Boot City and Scott picked out a pair of boots.

Fast forward to last Wednesday when our shipment of stuff came from home. Scott was happy to see his cowboy boots, and proudly wore them to school on Thursday. When he got home from school I asked if anyone had said anything about them and received a resounding yes! Besides getting comments from people, he had to get up in front of two of his classes and model them! The kids and even the teachers really enjoyed seeing his boots, and it really cemented in their minds that he was the kid from Texas!

Here he is in his boots. Note that he also wore his state of Texas t-shirt!

Here's a close up of the "detailing" on his boots.
As they say, "You can take the boy out of Texas, but you can't take Texas out of the boy".