More than We'd Bargained For...

I won't try to tell the whole story here, but want to document a little of what made the first couple weeks here in Utah more harrowing than we could have imagined.  We knew that the carpet in two of the bedrooms had issues.  But, we'd hoped cleaning would help.  Cleaning only made the smells worse!  As we started to pull up the carpet...it was quickly apparent that not only was it damaged beyond recovery, but so was the pad.  There was also significant damage to the sub-floor. 

 

We ended up needing to remove all of the carpet in the house, bleached the worst of the sub-floor, sealed with Kilz all of the sub-floor and some of the bedroom walls, and painted 6 of the rooms in the house before new carpet was installed.

We lived for a week with half of the carpet torn up...and another week with the other half.  Both weeks with the stairs carpet pulled up which is noteworthy because all the little carpet strips with metal spikes were still on the stairs.  Keeping all of us from getting pricked...and keeping Aaron off of the stairs altogether...was a total nightmare.

We could not have done all we did without both our families and all of their help!  They were a huge part of helping things happen as well and quickly as they did.

It was hard to have our new neighbors all come over to meet us with our entry filled so the front door couldn't even be opened, etc.  It was not exactly the "first impression" we'd pictured giving.  But, we just kept telling ourselves there would never be a more convenient time than now to get it done.  We just knew we wouldn't regret making what progress we could as quickly as we could...before "normal life" really picked up again.

One evening after the carpet had been installed, Mom and Dad Luthy had been there for the day to help us finish up some painting.  Greg came home from work and before he got in the door the High Priest Group Leader snagged him on the driveway to ask him if the Stake Presidency could come and visit us that evening in an hour.  (He didn't yet have a phone number for us so he hadn't been able to give us better warning.)  I don't think we've ever moved so fast removing what tape we could, shoving furniture back into place, etc. etc.  The kitchen was still taped to paint the next day.  In the end it was a routine set of visits by stake people...the high counselor for our ward and high priest group leader came to visit us...but it is a night I won't forget!  I think that is so the flavor of these first few weeks here.  Just when we thought we'd get our feet under us a little we'd be taken by surprise again.  (And rarely with something as nice as a priesthood visit.)  :)