Maine

We had the best little three day weekend last week! The boys had a few days off of school and we decided to make the most of it and go for a drive. Gone are the days where a drive that takes less than three hours means the Lake of the Ozarks, mayyyybe making it to St.Louis or Omaha. All great trips in their own right, but now I'm spoiled! lol. Now I can have mountains in the winter and ocean in the summer! What more could a girl ask for! ;)

So the downside was that it's off peak season, so some of the things we wanted to do were closed (oh well, we'll have to come back! lol), but that meant less crowds, cheaper rates, and plenty of family relaxation time! We went to see the Nubble Lighthouse, played on a few beaches, visited the science center, checked out the country's oldest jail, went on a nature hike up Mount Agamenticus, and yes we did plenty of outlet shopping! :)  A full but great weekend! 
I wanted to share so many pictures I didn't want to make a ginormous post, so here's a little slideshow for ya!

If you're ever in the northeast, I would highly recommend the trip to York Beach!  We had a great time & I'm sure we'll be back! :)

Parenting Fail

Well, so we thought.

So I'm a paranoid mom.  I'll be the first to admit it.  Especially when it comes to my kids' health.  Being a pediatric nurse will do that to you.  You see a lot of terrible things happen to other people's kids & the irrational part of your brain takes over and assumes that all of those terrible things will happen to *your* child, completely forgetting that the population you see is only a teeny tiny fraction of the number of kids running around.
Having said that though, I feel like I've gotten better at that part.  (ie, not assuming my child has leukemia every time he gets a nosebleed).  However, I am a little extra cautious.  I'll never be able to let that go.

One downside to moving so far away from everyone & everything we know is not only not being able to see those friends & family members as often but (selfishly) a lack of childcare.  It's not so easy to hand over the kids to Pa-Pa when you need a night out or, I don't know, knock down walls in a house built in 1860!  So all three kids, especially little Natalie who is not yet in school, get schlepped to the house quite often while Matt or both of us work.  It's either that or it doesn't get done.
BUT, that bothers me.  A. LOT.  I don't like the multitude of safety hazards that that situation poses for my kids, and the biggest one that has been in the forefront of my mind has been:

Lead Based Paint.

Growing up in a post-1970's neighborhood in St. Louis and living in equally if not more-so recently built homes in Kansas City, lead based paint was never a concern for us.  But this house is old as hell & has been neglected for at least as long ago as when the whole lead-based paint concern came to light.  So it worries me.  Granted, we're knocking down plaster from walls that have never been painted, only wallpapered (about a million times), but still.  It's flaking off of doors & it's on the baseboards & it's on the windowsills where we've been disturbing paint chips to install new windows...  It's enough to make this momma nuts. 

So out of pure precaution, I called our pediatrician and asked if we could test little Natalie.  I just wanted to be super sure that we weren't exposing her & doing everything right.  (Figuring she'd be the most at risk).  No problem.  Tiny finger prick & we were sent on our way.

Well I get a call from the nurse and that's never good.  She told me to call right away.

Me: "Hi, Nancy.  This is Stacia calling back.  How are you?"

Nurse: "A lot better than you're going to be!"

(insert Stacia's pure panic here).

She said Natalie's level came back at 27!  Twenty-flippin-seven!  @$#%^&*(!!  Anything over 5 is not okay.  Up to 45 & we're talking hospitalization for chelation therapy.  @#$%^%^&**!!!!  So she asked me to get a venous test just to be sure (first time was just a drop from her finger, this time will be from a traditional blood draw).  I asked for a level on all three kids so I can be certain they're all okay.  Sure.

Thursday, they all get their blood drawn.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday, & Monday, Mommy is silently panicking that I've poisoned my children!

Well I got a call from the nurse this afternoon, and by some miracle all three of the kids came back less than 5!!!!  YAHOOOOOO!!!! :)  I'm so relieved I cannot begin to tell you guys.  I have no idea why the first one came back so high, but I'm so incredibly grateful they're all okay!

But we're not going to go back to letting them run around the house anymore.  I'm entirely too paranoid now.  It's going to make things a little slower, but no more Natalie going with daddy to the house while mom's at work.  No more mom & dad cleaning up together while the kids run & play.  Matt's going to have to go solo until it's all cleaned up and no longer a potential danger.  It sucks, but we've gotta do what we've gotta do.  We're tossing around the idea of looking for a mother's day out program maybe for Nataile too.  That way we'd have a few hours a week we could get more done.  I'm not sure.  Hopefully though we'll have it all taken care of soon & it will be a non-issue. Sigh.  This home renovation thing is tough.

(And PS: 3,200 page views at the time I'm typing this post!  Thanks for the love guys! :)  Leave me a comment once in a while so I can know who's reading.  I'd love to hear from you all too! :)) 

Easter Fun

Ahh, Easter in the land of "cute."  It has been such a fun weekend!  And after working every weekend for many many years I am always grateful to have weekends off for holidays like these now.  They're getting so big so fast and I'm so happy to be able to enjoy these moments with my family!

So yesterday was a jam-packed day of Easter fun.  Yep, I kept my husband from more important tasks like building our house, but that's okay. ;)  It was totally worth it.  First up was cake decorating at the local bakery.  For the last two weeks there have been many fund-raising activities for Melissa Jenkins' son, the woman I told you about in my earlier post.  This was one of them, and we were more than happy to participate & have the funds go to such a good cause.  The kids got to decorate a bunny-shaped cake for Easter & take it home.  This is what happens when you let three kids' differing creative visions explode onto one little cake! lol

It ended up a lot busier than this when it was all done! lol

 Once that was done we headed to a fun Easter Egg Hunt.  It was nice because it was divided by age groups so that you didn't have great big ten-year-olds trampling over the toddlers for eggs & candy.  Hard to get a photo op if you have kids in a couple of groups though.  :/  Anyway, they had fun, got some candy, and some prizes too.

                                                

 

After that we went on a Scavenger Hunt.  About twenty or so local businesses participated and we went from place to place collecting stamps on the kids' little "maps" and collecting candy.  Once their "map" was full, they came back to the welcome center to choose an egg that contained a prize.  So cute & fun!

Natalie wasn't too sure about this whole "giant Easter Bunny" business...

 Last but not least, we made it home to dye Easter Eggs.  They are a riot every year with all of their color-combo particular-ness. 

All three hard at work

 

Natalie showing off her fave.  (Pink of course!)

 I do love these holidays!  And now I must sign off to enjoy some of Mathew's delicious Easter ham!  Hope you all had a wonderful holiday too! :)

Two Years

Two years ago today our personal hell began. Two years ago today we were thrown into one of the worst experiences of our lives (and believe me, we've been through a lot).

It was about 9:30 am. We were all having a bit of a lazy morning. It was a little rainy & gloomy out and we didn't have anywhere to go, so we were just hanging out in the living room. We hadn't even turned on the TV yet. It was April in KS~ a yucky windy storm was not at all unusual. Then it all got quiet and an ugly shade of green. We had about enough time to think "huh. That's strange..." and then it hit. The wind was so loud it literally roared and it made this horrible "honking" noise (as my son Mark describes) as the forceful wind nearly popped the windows right out of their frames. We were so stunned we didn't even get the chance to run to the basement or do any of the things you're supposed to do. And within about three minutes it was all over. We were all fine (even the animals outside) and that's what has kept me sane through this whole ordeal. My family is safe~ stuff can be replaced.

So once the storm had completely passed, Mathew and I went outside to assess the damage. The roof was damaged pretty badly, but repairable. Shingles blown everywhere and trusses broken, but livable. Gutters all blown off, 100+ year old evergreen tree knocked down, wood propelled into my windshield of my car and shattered, solid cast iron patio furniture blown 1/2 mile into the corn field and dropped so hard it bent in half, and a barn that was pushed off its foundation and only standing on a splinter.
We're all fine, this stuff can be fixed. No big deal. So we immediately called the insurance company.

And we're still not sure if this was a micro-burst or a quick touch down of a tornado. We called the weather service and the closest location was 30 miles away. They never did get an accurate measurement of the high winds in our area at all much less this. (I'm sorry. 40 mph wind doesn't do this kind of damage).

So if that was the worst of it, I'd just add it to the list of unfortunate incidents in our life and move on. But oh no, of course it can't be that simple.

Insurance company didn't come out for a WEEK AND A HALF! The guy was a jerk and didn't do anything to help us. And so began the fight. We had to purchase and place our own tarps in the mean time to futilely try and keep the water out of our house. The guy tried to claim that the storm couldn't have caused the magnitude of damage to the trusses (as he's looking at this massive tree twisted and broken in half in our yard) and wouldn't give us a dime or aid yet. Mathew was on the phone constantly trying to get help. Meanwhile storm after storm after storm rolled through. It's April in KS after all. The water literally poured into the house. The shop vac couldn't keep up with the water and the floors needed to be ripped out. Then the drywall couldn't hold onto the massive amounts of water anymore and the ceilings caved in. In some places right above where we stashed furniture in an attempt to salvage it from all the water.

After SIX weeks we finally got the manager of our insurance company's branch to come out and he brought along with him a representative from ServPro. They took one look at the place and said "you can't live here! We're going to pack up all your stuff for you and give you a place to stay while we repair the damage.". I was so relieved I cried!! Thank God we're finally getting help!!

Nope. Of course not.

We stayed in a hotel room... All five of us in one room... For 3 weeks. No house to stay in on the horizon. No money coming in for repairs. Nothing. Mathew, the real estate agent had enough, and in one afternoon found us a place to rent. (And yeah. During all of this phase we suffered yet another miscarriage. Why not add insult to injury).

So we moved into the rental house. Only a very few of our belongings given back to us so we could function. Insurance company, even though they weren't giving us enough money for repairs and we were handling it almost all on our own, said that we had enough time to fix the house come December and quit paying for the rental.

From there we had to hop from place to place. Friends houses, multiple hotels. Ten "moves" I had to put my kids through while we fought for our home. Meanwhile Mathew had to fight with insurance day in and day out to no avail. They were pulling crap like dividing our claim into two separate claims: storm damage, then water damage. Even though the water was because of the storm and because of their negligence.
(Oh, and did I forget to mention we were robbed THREE times at this point in my story? Oh yes. They left two trailers full of tools and supplies in the yard so we could work on the house and people saw that as an open invitation to help themselves. Thousand and thousands of dollars lost. Awesome.)
Then they said they wouldn't cover the barn because it wasn't on our policy until Mathew had to prove it to them. They would only pay for a tenth of the water damage because the basement started to grow mold... But the mold was because of the water and it sat because of their neglect, and it got there because of their neglect...

Omg I'm starting to feel panicky again just rehashing all of this. Let's just say that I could go on and on for a week with all of the insurance stuff we had to fight for.

So come August, we realized that we could no longer afford to keep the house and finish the repairs with what we used from our saving and with what little they gave us, so we essentially gave up. But decided to start our life over in Vermont. Now was as good a time as any. And I'm so glad we did!

Now we finally have a home again. Our own beds. My kids have their toys back. Little things we very much missed that we couldn't have for the longest time. We have our life back.


So now, at the two year mark, we think we're at the point where we've gotten every dime from them they'd be willing to give and it doesn't add up to more than a fraction of what we are owed. So now, two years after the start of our nightmare:

WE ARE SUING THE PANTS OFF NATIONWIDE INSURANCE!

I hate this guy.  :/

Word to the wise: if you have nationwide, drop them now!! They are NOT "on your side."

So, now we are hoping this is the beginning of the end. That we can finally finish all of this and put it behind us.
Wish us luck!
 I don't think I have much more fighting in me.