Kaylene’s Mommy Thoughts

Kevin has recovered pretty well from his surgery. He’s doing OK, but he’s being slammed at work. They have two others guys out on long term sick leave, so on top of being in the middle of busy season and changing their methods, their work load is growing twice as fast as they can get things through the system. Kevin has to stay late as often as he possibly can. He’s muddling through alright.

We got back Saturday night from a family Reunion at a little ranch house in Southern Idaho. It was wonderful! I LOVE my Mom’s family!

Lets see what else… OH YEAH! As of today, our house is back together!!! YAY!I We still haven’t gotten the go ahead replacing from the insurance, other than the dryer, but yeah, my house is back together!!! One more random repair person I didn’t personally hire, and NOBODY comes into my house that we didn’t personally invite for at least a few YEARS! YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAAAAAAA!

Kevin had another surgery on Thursday.  We knew it was coming, he had an obvious Umbilical Hernia (Hernia through his belly button, which was part of Octobers scar tissue), The surgery turned out to be more extensive than planned, instead of one hernia, he turned out to have two, and a weak spot.  So it was a bit more intrusive than planned, but it was a very good thing that we got it taken care of now.  He’s only got a two inch incision, so that’s good news.  He however is in a lot of pain and needs a lot of rest and pain meds.

On the home front, things are going slowly.  We have carpet and paint colors picked, we finished the carpet planning on our way home from Kevin’s 24 hour post op.  He did fine and felt up to it.  I’m excited to see it come together.  The mudding of the dry wall goes slow.  We should have painted by now, but the dry wall mudder keeps coming up with reasons to drag things out.  If he doesn’t wrap up by Monday I think I’ll be making a phone call or two.  Once that’s done it shouldn’t be too long until the paint and carpet are done.  Then we can finally move back into the half of our home that isn’t really usable right now.

The content part of the recovery is going slowly.  I haven’t even begun to go shopping, or know much from the insurance in that regard.  We do however have a lot of stuff that was saved, that will be able to move back out to the rooms, so it’s not like they’ll be empty or unusable, and will free up the usable spaces of our home because right now they’re crowded with the stuff that’s supposed to be elsewhere.

Overall we’re doing alright.  We’re all pretty tired, but getting along.

We’re going home today.  Things are not all put back together again, but I’m tired of feeling out of control.  The basic needs are finally all working, so other than torn up walls and bare floors (which are being tackled ASAP), we’re good for go.  We will finally have all of our belongings again, and our own beds, which I think will go miles in feeling normalcy again.

I can finally focus on putting things back together regarding both the yard which needs grass seed, mowing and some serious weeding, and the inside of the house which still has stuff scattered about from the first wave of flood damage rescue.  I’m just excited to have some privacy again and control of the homefront again.

Not to mention no commute to take care of my family’s basic needs.  It’s not that it’s that far or hard to drive the extra 20 minutes, it’s just draining when you know you have three needy kids that will be hard to pack up, hard to keep from screaming and whining in the car, and then be hard to gather up again once it’s time to head back.  Plus I can go back to filling my tank once a month, instead of every week!  Yay!

I’m just having a hard day, it’s been a crazy month, and I’m tired of a lot of things, not being home, not having privacy, worrying about money, worrying about Kevin, just not having my comfort zone.

So we’ve been hoping to go home any minute, but we realized last night that the water heaters need fixed and replaced (one of each) and we’re not going home without hot water and the phones internet and gas turned back on.  Cold showers in late June and July, no biggy, not being able to sterilize dishes, not going to happen, not with Kevin’s health.  More than half of our square footage is torn up from 2 feet down.  We can put up plastic or a baby gate and keep people upstairs, but the playroom is also torn up, leaving the bedrooms (which are full of none-damaged stuff) living room and kitchen (full of damaged stuff) intact, leaving one couch cushion free.  We have a storage pod in the driveway, but it’s pretty much full.  I want to go through and find new places for things, but I don’t dare move things until we start moving through the money part.  Our insurance guy is (or was) out on bereavement, so there’s been no progress on our stuff in days.

I miss my home.  Miss my dishes, my pantry and food, my washing machine, my theater and movie collection, my own bed, the kids having all of their own toys, my nice dishwasher that doesn’t fall forward every time I pull out the bottom rack (called the front desk twice about that one), my own bathroom (that seriously needs some updating TLC, but will have to be on the back burner for now), and even my sad dry (thankfully!) and weedy yard.  I don’t want to bring more than I have to to the hotel because I won’t use it much, it’ll be in the way, AND I don’t want to haul anything more than I have to home when we’re done here, but it sure would be nice to have my crock-pot, more of the random food in the pantry, all of my make-up and hair care products, more shoes etc.

I just need to complain for a little bit.  I am grateful for our hotel room.  We have a 2 bedroom (2 kings and a sleeper sofa), 2 bathroom place that’s 750 sqft and has a full kitchen including dishwasher, full size fridge, stove and oven.  I often slip and call it an apartment.  We get 10 free meals a week, and have great staff and a pool.  We got a great deal on our room too, probably because we booked for at least three weeks, which we hit this Friday, sadly it’s beginning to look like we’re going to have to exceed that….  I’m grateful for a good van that I like to drive.  I’m grateful that Kevin is doing alright despite all this stress.  I worry about him.  I’m grateful for great family.  MIL and FIL took the kids Saturday night and gave us a much needed date night.  We really enjoyed some quality time together.

My response to the latest news article found here.

A few things I feel the need to add as Kaylene Steele.  Kevin came straight off of a phone call with our insurance to the journalist, so he came off to her more brash and candid than he meant.

First, there was a wall in the creek on school property that should not have been there.  It was a big part of the flooding getting out of control in our neighborhood, and probably caused the flooding that came into our home from the west side (opposite the creek), causing most of the damage.  Neither the city or the school seems to take any responsibility for this failure in safe water engineering.

Second, the money will work out.  Both of our families are trying to help, and are wonderful.  We are doing what we can including trying to make some money on the side through things I can do at home while I care for our family while Kevin works and goes to school.

The water level inside the basement never got above about 6 inches deep because we were constantly pumping.  If we hadn’t it would have surely gotten up to about 2 1/2 feet, as that was the water level outside the back door including the steps down to the lowest level.  In the empty crawl space it got to about 18 inches.  Our disaster crew has removed 2 feet of sheet rock (the required amount) and any other materials that were damaged, which is probably where the misunderstanding came from about inside water levels.

Our insurance has been good and should cover a lot. Overall it’s been a scary and hard experience, but we’re all safe and healthy, after almost loosing Kevin 7 months ago, I’m pleased with that.  We have been endlessly blessed and served and we are so appreciative.  The people of Lehi Rock!  We should be home soon and we look forward to rejoining our neighborhood.

In some ways it seems like it’s been hours, in others months, since our home was infiltrated by a wave of WATER.  Pictures and details coming soon, in the meantime google Kevin or me, and “flood.”  Or just read my facebook updates for this past week.

My oldest Michael was baptized yesterday, on my birthday.

It was a great day with great people. Michael was a little nervous, but he did great. I guess at the last moment he locked up and forgot to bend his knees and sit like we’d talked about and practiced, so Kevin basically had to dunk him. He came up gasping with a mouth full of water sputtering “I’m OK!” Which cracked up everyone.

His confirmation blessing was wonderful. There were a lot of sweet blessings given. His Dad blessed him and Grandpa Mark , Grandpa LeGrand, Uncle Dallin, Uncle Nate, Great Uncle Scot, and our Bishop Allgaier were in the circle. Unfortualtly a lot of people had other plans, so we didn’t have as many people as I’d hoped, but we had a blast with who we had here.

Afterwards we came back to the house and had BBQ. We served smoked brisket and pork loin on Texas toast, barbecue sauce, corn bread, bbq beans, grapes, water, and lemonade. Peggy brought whipped cream fruit salad and a veggie tray with her excellent dill dip, my Mom brought potato salad and utensils, Scot brought yummy chewy ginger cookies, and Kirsten brought yummy carrot cake cups, and raspberry bars. Kirsten, my friend from High School who happens to be in our new ward, brought her family and they were the only none family members who came to the house. I’m so glad she came, she and I have a lot of fun together.

After people left and the basic food clean up was done it was shocking how quiet it was. I’d forgotten in a lot of ways that it was my special day since the focus had been on Michael. I spent the rest of my birthday watching shows, hanging out with my hubby, and then my brothers when Ryan got off work and they came back for left-overs.

We are watching the creek cause it’s risen a lot in the last 36 hours, and we’re worried about our house, or at least our yard flooding. I wouldn’t mind the yard, that would be watering the lawn without any work, lol, but once the yard floods, the house is in danger, and that’s no fun.

Now today we’re heading off to church, and afterwards our families are throwing me a little birthday dinner in the park. Sounds fun to me!

TMI WARNING, a little diaper talk, but nothing that any mom hasn’t seen and talked about a million times.

One morning last week Joey was poopy, I asked him to bring a diaper and wipes, he brought me a diaper and one wipe. LOL! I started changing him and had Aiden bring me a package of wipes. So I had a pack of wipes sitting there.

A little bit later Joey came along with his wet diaper in his hand, I guess he peed and wanted to be done with it, so he brought it to me… I asked him to go get a diaper. He came back with wipes.

I asked him again to go get a DIAPER, he ran off and got distracted, lol!

I called to him (he was playing in the next room), and said “Joey, please bring a diaper to Mommy!” He came back with a THIRD package of wipes! I sighed, giggled a little and said, “No buddy! We need a diaper!” And with a twinkle in his eye he popped a diaper out from behind his back! He’d been teasing me ALL ALONG!

This is my backyard right now.  ”Inconceivable!”

It’s days like this one that I miss Texas the most.

OK, if you don’t have little ones (or big ones) running around and I sent you a note wishing you a Happy Mothers Day, this is why.  I hope I didn’t make a hard day more painful, if anything I wanted to do the opposite, say to you that you make a difference in this world, and we’re better for it.  After all that’s what Mothers Day is all about isn’t it?  Honoring those in a matriarch role (who are literal Mother or aren’t, wishing for children, or who aren’t) who work and sometimes sacrifice for those around them.  If I missed passing you a note, I didn’t mean to skip you, just didn’t want to spam the whole web!  I’ll take this chance now to wish you a HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!

On another note, What a beautiful day!  I’m going to go clip some Lilacs (they’re FINALLY BLOOMING!!!), and probably snap some pictures while the light is still beautiful, as I type the creek water is shimmering a reflection off the ceiling in the garage.  Maybe I’ll get some great shots!  Then we’ll run to church, and Afterwards we’ll see my Grandparents who are visiting from Denver.  Should be a REALLY nice day!