Halloween and a flood.....

What a crappy (is that a childish word or what?) week I've had. On Saturday the
25th I tried to take Taylor and her friend Serena to a benefit concert for a family in Mesa who had been seriously burned in a plane crash. Mindy Gledhill, a singer from Utah was putting on the concert, and her music was BEAUTIFUL. So, two songs into the concert Branden texts me saying that the "house is flooding". Now, there were 3 16 y/o boys and one 13 y/o in the house, so my first thoughts were that someone just clogged the toilet and there was a little water in the upstairs bathroom. Well WAS I WRONG! Branden and his two friends were playing something, on the Wii, with the volume up loud loud and the fan on. Well, I guess one of them flushed the toilet and then shut the bathroom door.... while the flapper decided to get stuck open and water poured out full blast for about "fifteen minutes" or so, according to the teenage dorks. THANKS KEISHA/KEVIN for bring the girls home for me.
Alec was downstairs making a creation out of pom poms and styrofoam balls (that is another story for another day) and decided that he needed something to hollow out the styrofoam. Thank goodness he went into the garage, only to discover that water was pouring from the ceiling. Who knows how three very intelligent 16 year olds didn't realize that the upstairs was flooding, while they were sitting about 4 feet from the closed bathroom door. (I question how many braincells they lose between agers 14-16). Anyway, our neighbor Chris Koceja came to the rescue, bring his tools and gigantic shop vac.
The boys were so helpful and spent the next couple of hours soaking up towels and sucking up the water. My other helpful neighbor Jody White happens to own a flood restoration company, and he was over by 10:30 with fans and dehumidifiers. The carpet has been taken up in a big part of the loft, Branden's room, and Taylor's room. There are about 4 pieces of sheetrock that had to be removed in the garage ceiling. Now we're just waiting for the insurance adjuster to give us his claim estimate so we can finish all the work. We had the fans going for about 5 days and they were loud!! I love how quiet it is here again.
It's about killing me to have my house torn apart. Branden and Taylor are not able to be in their rooms at all, so we have their clothes and stuff everywhere in my room and in the loft. The OCD in me is driving me CRAZY. But that is ANOTHER story in itself.
Branden had to work on Halloween, and I guess we live on the wrong street in our neighborhood to get invited to the "big part-ay" but we went over to some friends in the ward and had dinner. Taylor went trick-or-treating with her two best friends from the ward/school and Alec hung out with some kids from the ward. It was a fun evening. Thanks Penni for inviting us. It was a lot of fun. Here are some pics of the last weeks events. I did download Mindy Gledhill's CD from Deseret Book. I missed the concert, but get to enjoy her music anyway.