2011 Feb: Robertson

Hello Everyone,

February was even more adventures with water for us. We had a pipe burst on us under the floor of the newer addition on our house. Because of the nature of the house, it ended up building up and then sweeping the ground out of shallow foundation to an older expansion. The end result was a basement full of mud. The girls woke up to find that their beds had turned into islands in a sea of muck. We called insurance and they called a restoration company to help us out. The restoration company ended up tearing up all of the flooring in the basement. They also took out all of the baseboards and most of casing for the doors. Several of the girls’ stuffed animals and books that were on the floor were also ruined and had to be thrown away.

Long story short – we feel a bit blessed with the entire situation. The night the pipe burst really wasn’t that cold. It had survived more of the colder nights we have been having. We looked at the pipe, it had a foot long crack in it. It was a galvanized pipe and the interior of it was pretty corroded. It was only a matter of time before the pipe cracked by itself. However, if it had cracked from corrosion, our insurance wouldn’t cover it replacement. But a pipe burst from freezing is covered. The plumber said that the pipe did freeze and it was the freezing that cracked the pipe (even though the pipe was already pretty weak). He felt that insurance should cover the replacement of the pipe. And they did. The restoration company that was brought in did a really nice job and wrangled the insurance company for us. They made sure that insurance didn’t ding us too hard for depreciation for our carpet and flooring since they were new when we moved in. Because of the work of the plumber and restoration company, we were given a very generous compensation check. With it we have put in all new flooring, we have the baseboards, and casing bought and ready to install. We even had enough left over from insurance to purchase a mini-van (Morgan’s idea) since the Buick also died this month and we had to sell it for parts. So, all in all we are coming out of this month a bit ahead even with all of the hassle.

Everyone here is doing well enough. Jamis has developed a spreading rash, but it doesn’t seem to bother him. We took him to the pediatricians and were told just to watch it. We were given some prescription hydrocortisone cream to see if that will help. Who knows. Other than that, the girls love preschool, I’m trying to stay afloat in all of my various school responsibilities and church callings, and Morgan has been kept very busy with all of our house and car problems. And with that, we are bracing and getting ready for the next month and just hope that March gives us some sort of a break.

The Robertsons

2011 Feb: Hope

Well all Feb was a slow month first Scott turned 6 years old which I can not believe. Then just working, playing the pipes, and learning new songs. Scott passed off his ABC's now and then he got Bronchitis then Kyle got Strep throat on Sunday then on Monday he was trying to get some pants to get ready in the morning he fell and broke his nose so the pics are on my FB page was the aftermath of it when you see the pic just think of lots of blood on his face but other than that just a slow month hope everything is going well with you all

The Hope's

2011 Feb: Bates

Well, I am pretty sure the "F" in "February" stands for "flu".

We were very ill all month long. We each took turns, and then tried pairs, and then all decided to be sick. I am fairly confident we hit every possible combination of sickness in this family.

So, Valentines day was a retch fest. We rescheduled for the next week... which ended up being a snot-fest.

Eventually we went out to eat at Deny's with the kids for our belated Valentines celebration.

I did buy Tamara a Nook for V-Day, and she likes it a lot. She has been reading a ton on it. I really like the display screen, but the touch screen is slow and frustrates me (I've been assimilated into the iPhone world of decent performing hardware).

Other than that, February was pretty boring. With at least 1 sick person in the house at all times, our most exciting activities involved watching TV and playing Wii.

Hope the rest of your Februaries were Flu-less,
The Recently-Released-From-Quarantine Bateses

2011 Feb: North

Well this is a good year for me to be involved in a ‘Most Romantic Husband’ contest; I’m kind of proud of my Valentine’s Day gift this year. Here’s the story: In early January Becky commented to me that she likes getting flowers, except that they are so expensive and they die soon. Well that got me thinking about a substitute that doesn’t die so quickly. At school the next afternoon I commented to a friend that I want to make origami roses for Becky and he helped me find a website with a good tutorial and hooked me up with the origami paper. Origami is one of his hobbies. In case anyone is interested, here is the rose I made: http://www.origami-fun.com/origami-rose.html. I’m glad I started early because it took me a couple of weeks before I could even fold it. My first 10 roses looked more like roses that had been picked, chewed up by a dog, and spit back out, than anything you would want to give to your wife. Eventually I got something that resembled an actual rose. Every day for a couple of weeks I made one rose, twelve in all. It was actually a nice break from my studies. I found that I enjoy origami. I made the stems out of craft paper and shish-ka- bob sticks. I made some leaves to glue to the stems, and then I glued the flowers on top of that. I’ll attach a couple of photos of my bouquet.

Becky and I think we have found a house for my 3rd and 4th year of med school. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we are moving 50 miles West of our current location to a city called Beckley. I will be stationed at a hospital there for much of my next 2 years. We chose to move to Beckley rather than commute as many of our friends are doing. About a month ago I was sitting up in my room at school studying when I got a phone call from someone I did not know. She said that she knew my wife from some service that Becky did over a year ago and that she learned we are looking for a house in Beckley. She said that she and her husband have a house in Beckley that they want to rent out. We went and looked at it yesterday and are happy to say that it looks like it will meet our needs, at a price we can afford. The location isn’t ideal, it’s near a main road, but it will meet our needs. It sits on a double lot too, so we’ll have plenty of room for a garden, and room to be outside. We feel that Heavenly Father has watched over us and helped us find this house. We are still looking for an additional car though. This moving and expanding is expensive stuff.

We wish each of you the best of success this month.

Stewart, Becky, and Sophie