A Sneaky Peeky at Casa de Uribe

Our contractor, Gary, heretofore known as the Most Excellent Contractor Gary, did a crazy fast job early on to get our house turned back into a home. Within hours of receiving our keys, he had the old carpet torn out, the stuff left behind by the Evil Moving Crew moved to his warehouse, and an electrician working on our dangerous connections. He thought our house would be ready by May 25th, but as happens in the contracting world, delays with carpet, the electricity, the gas, and a whole host of other problems have pushed back the move in date. In all honesty, some of the delays have been our fault. We decided to have new windows installed (we have a week and a half until they come in) and we decided to upgrade our cooktop and install a microwave/hood unit. Those should be installed in the next week or so.

Frankly, I'm not concerned with the delays. I'm all for them! I'd much rather that we not be cleared to move back in until July so that I can finish up summer school and have time to unpack our crazy amount of belongings.

One happy thing we did was to hire Ed's cousin, Mario, to redo our landscaping. You may remember Mario from Nana's new garden. He tore apart Nana's front yard and created a beautiful landscape last summer.

Well, he came to our house, sized up the burned ivy and trees and decided to create a totally new yard for us. He tore out all of the ivy roots and the new sprouts, created a leveled and beautiful landing in the back of the house, and hacked the ugliness in the front and created a new walkway for us. It is gorgeous!

our new backyard

See the left side of the tree? The black part. That's where it caught fire.

Some of my new, supposedly, drought resistant foliage.

Our new walkway connecting the carport and the stairs to the front door.

A view from the street.

The landscaping is beautiful and Mario has promised us a month or so of upkeep to maintain it. While he was working on it, he had several people stop and ask about getting a quote. We are his "floor model."

The inside of the house is pretty barren, but pretty nonetheless. If you've seen pictures pre-fire, you know that the inside of our house was a combination of yellow (aka Creamcake) and sage (aka Brazil) paint on the walls. We went for a more neutral palette this time and Ed is really happy with it. Our new carpet is a frieze in Espresso and our new laminate flooring is Summer American Cherry. Both are gorgeous and make the house totally different.

The Great Room (aka dining and living room)

a view of the den and hallway to the master bedroom

Master bedroom with our illegal baby alcove.

I can't wait to see what it looks like with the new windows, new window treatments, and our killer new cooktop.

See that light? The end of the tunnel is getting closer and closer!

News, Amazing News!

I've decided that our contractor was sent from Heaven. His crew is plugging right along and he thinks our house will be done by May 25th. This is crazy news. We never thought they would be done that quickly. Oakridge tells us that the soonest they will let us move back in is June 15th. They aren't quite ready for us.

In the meantime, we are kept busy choosing new paint for the walls. Eventually, we will get new carpet and vertical blinds. The contractor even says that we could replace the carpet with an economy hardwood (not laminate, hardwood). We are very excited about this because we've always found it difficult to move our chairs on the carpet. We also have a new shopping list: new refrigerator, new stove top, new hood. Gary, the contractor, is going to install our stove top and hood for us. We are crazy excited!

All that news isn't what you are here for, I'm sure.

We had an uneventful Mother's Day. We spent the day with Nana, went to Hailey's softball tournament, ate lunner with Aunt Bec and her fam on Saturday, and I got to go have a pedicure by myself. Gracie and Luke ate an entire pound of red grapes by themselves (Note to self: It is never a good idea to allow toddlers to eat a pound of anything, especially fruit.) It was a pretty relaxing weekend (except for the screaming, crying, and wanting to be held all day ---- Lukie!).

The best thing to come from this weekend was Gracie and Luke's new trick. Someone, it wasn't me, taught them to show their belly buttons. If you ask them where their belly button is, they will lift up their shirts, point to their belly button and say, "Beep! Beep!" It's the cutest thing ever! My goal is to get it on video. You know I love a good blackmail!

Making Strides

The last 6 months have been rocky. Okay, that's an understatement, but true. There were times I honestly started to think we would never pull out of our "Gray Period." As is true with all things, however, the sun does come out eventually.

This week has become a testament to the phrase "things are looking up." Daddy has been doing better and better. He has a long road for recovery, but he is himself again and he is fighting for us. I can't tell you how inspiring that is for me when I start to feel down.

I met with our contractor on Tuesday. He is an amazing man who is professional, has a plan, and is ready to kick it into action. He works for a company that specializes in repairing homes damaged in disasters. He seems to be a very honest and dedicated individual. He inspires me to believe we may actually be moving back to our house in the near future.

Then, yesterday, a wonderful thing happened. All this time Daddy has been sick, I have worried non-stop that Gracie and Luke's day care would boot them out. The day care is at his community college. Since he can't attend classes because of his current illness, I was really worried that they would tell me Gracie and Luke could not stay in the program. We do pay a hourly fee for them to attend, but it is a manageable one. Where most day cares charge $750 per month per child, this day care charges us half that. Gracie and Luke love their friends and their care givers. And whether you believe in day care or not, Gracie and Luke have benefited from their time there. Ideally, I would be at home. That, clearly, is impossible (unless I win the lottery). Since, there is no one they can stay with during the day, I have been terrified that I would have to find a way to pay gobs of money for a private day care.

So what is the wonderful thing? Eddie and I (yes, Daddy went with me) met with the day care director. At first, they thought that we would have to pay more than double our current rate for Gracie and Luke to stay. However, since Daddy is currently recovering from a major illness, he can apply for a medical leave that keeps him listed as a student, but allows Gracie and Luke to stay in the program at the current rate. It also guarantees their spots for a year! What an amazing thing! I don't have to worry about it any more.

You can see that things are indeed looking up. Colors seem brighter. Flowers are everywhere. Our avocado tree survived the fire and subsequent 6 months of infrequent watering. Even the once scorched hillsides behind our home have green on them again. The world is just a happier place. I'm so happy that things are looking up.

Maybe this means I can work on saying good-bye to the binkies! What do you think? Should I risk it?

Green light means GO!

Nearly 5 months and 20 days after we fled from our homes to escape the Sayre Fire, we have been given the green light to come in and start the work necessary to make our home livable again!

Five months and 20 days is a long time. It's even longer if you think of it as 171 days out of our home. (One hundred seven days of that, Daddy was in the hospital.) I'm pretty sure that Gracie and Luke have no recollection of our house. However, given that our entire apartment could fit in the front half of our house, I think it is a safe bet to say that they will LOVE it when we get to move back in.

Tomorrow, I have an appointment with a contractor named Gary who will be giving us our estimate for the cost to get us de-smoked and de-sooted. I need to call the Gas Company and the Electric Company and get our utilities back on line. No timeline just yet, but we will work on it.

I have so much to do! I just can't believe that there is indeed light at the end of the tunnel.

Larry, Loretta, Susan, Heidi, Carl, Oscar, and all of our other neighbors: Party on our street in August? You in?

With Spring Comes Hope

I haven't spoken about our home in a long time. We've driven past Oakridge, but nothing else. Our insurance representatives told me that big things would be happening starting the beginning of March. I did not believe him. It is easier that way.

Today, we decided to drive along the 210 on our way to our temporary abode. We got stuck in the Friday afternoon traffic headed north. Imagine our delight when we saw the following:

As we drove along the freeway, we saw lot after lot cleared of debris, only a few brick structures left. They've moved so quickly! The whole southeast part of the park looks cleared and they were working on the southwest section as we crawled past.

Maybe we will be home soon!