Living on Love: What a Weekend...

Let me repeat...What. A. Weekend.

I haven't had such a fun and such a miserable weekend at the same time in as long as I can remember. We had some really high highs and some really low lows. It started out something like this...

Friday night, I went to the Charlotte Knights game after work with a networking group that our company is a part of. We had dinner at the stadium in the clubhouse and then watched part of the game before I headed home to spend time with Jake and some friends at one of our usual hang-outs.

Then, Saturday I woke up and went to get pedicures with Karen. Some nice, long overdue pampering :) After that we had brunch at Panera and tried their Sausage & Gouda souffles...heavenly. Then, a ~~little~~ little shopping at Target.

Brunch was followed by a sewing day at my friend Shanti's house, complete with lots of entertainment from Miss Reina...

and people say that Rottweilers are mean...

We were sewing some blankets to bring to the Ronald McDonald House in Charlotte, because while visiting there to bake cookies a couple weekends ago, they told us they were getting low on their boy & gender neutral blankets. They need a constant supply because as a part of each families welcome to the house, they are given a few things in their room, including a child/lap size blanket. The house typically has some information about the family before they arrive, so they try to give a boy or girl pattern/color blanket to the family if they have a son or daughter, or gender neutral. Shanti, Karen, and myself really enjoy getting together to have "sewing days," especially if it's for a great cause, and figured these little blankets would be easy to whip up. We made a trip to the fabric store and found some great deals on super cute fabrics...

This animal silhouette fleece I found for a steal at Hancock Fabric. The striped fabric I got from the $1.99/yd section at Mary Jo's. This was the first on I attempted, and the rolled edge technique I found and tried to use was a little difficult with the thickness and stretch of the fleece.

I fell in LOVE with this barnyard pattern flannel at Hancock, and it was on sale for 30% off. Is it not the cutest?! The dotted stripe fabric was another $1.99/yd deal at Mary Jo's. The rolled edge worked out SO much better on this blanket.

After a few hours of sewing, I went to an event with my cousin-in-law Brooke, although she's pretty much another sister-in-law and I admire her so much. One of her friends put together an event at her church, with a nice dinner and hearing testimonies of two local women. It was a really nice event; I always am so fascinated by people's stories and backgrounds that shaped who they are today. After the event I got to spend some time with my "nephews" who are more adorable than I could put into words.

Then, [yes, I know, Saturday was very eventful...just wait] I came back to Rock Hill and went out to the softball fields because Jake was playing in a tournament. His team did great and they were playing in the championship game. Enter, Rain. It had been a beautiful day, and although it called for rain it seems like everything had held off. I was happy, but a little nervous hoping that the rain wouldn't show up on Sunday when we had plans to be outside. More on that later. Well, about three innings into the game, the downpour began. I mean hard. I haven't seen it rain like that in a long time. They ended up calling the game because it started to lightning, so unfortunately by default Jake's team lost and came in 2nd place overall. Not bad, but the game was close and they were on a roll, so it was disappointing for them. So, we ran to the car, ending up soaking wet and headed home at 11pm.

We got home, I got into some dry clothes/pajamas and Jake put his wet, dirt-stained uniform in the washer and went to get a shower. I climbed under the covers and was watching TV when about 10 minutes later, Jake walks out into the hall and starts freaking out, hollering and making me wonder what in the world was going on. I jumped out of bed at record speed and ran into the ~~hallway~~ pond. Yes, pond. The carpet was sopping wet. The washer had to be leaking from the second that Jake turned it on and for the entire 10 minutes he was getting his shower. Water was everywhere. Overflowed the washing machine tray, flooded our laundry closet and the hallway. Then, I hear it. The shower sound. But wait, I thought, the shower's off. Jake just turned off the washing machine. Where is that coming from? And then I hear my husband, who walked downstairs, where he saw water coming through our wet downstairs ceiling around a ceiling vent. Coming down like a shower on full blast. Such a mess. There was a very chaotic 10 minutes while we were throwing as many towels as we could downstairs to try to protect further damage to the floor, and searching for buckets to catch the water. I called a couple emergency water damage companies to see who would answer and be able to send out a technician at midnight on a holiday weekend. Things always happen at the most convenient of times, right? Well, AdvantaClean to the rescue! Kelvin, their emergency response tech, got to our house around 2am and didn't leave until 4:15am. We have all kinds of fans in our house, carpet ripped up, vinyl ripped up, laminate hardwoods ripped up, holes in our ceiling, etc. Here's a little bit of what we're living with:

The giant puddle. This photo doesn't do justice at all to how wet it was. They had to pull back the carpet and remove the carpet padding, because it was FULL of water.

Our wonderful buckets. Thank the Lord for Backyard Beer Pong, the reason for the 12 little buckets being in our garage.

After they ripped up the vinyl floor and drained the water.

Carpet sort of laid down, with pieces missing, after they took the carpet padding away.

Ceiling water damage, before they cut the drying hole.

The drying hole. The air vent on the left is the one all of the water was raining from.

After they ripped up the flooring. The water line went all the way into our kitchen.

Say hello to our concrete slab!

So, that's life these days. We are becoming pros at dealing with insurance companies in 2013. I'm looking forward to the Adjuster's visit on Thursday and then starting on the repairs.

But, thankfully the weekend didn't end here. Sunday, after going to bed at 4:15am and waking up around 11:30, we got ready and headed out to get the boat ready for a day on the water with our family. It ended up being a pretty gorgeous day. We rode around, docked at T-Bones for dinner, and then rode back, finishing off the day with a breath-taking sunset...