March Mayhem

March started out like a lion for us with a couple feet of snow.

Benson's first time "playing" in the snow. I dug out a big snow cave and Brig thought it was pretty cool.

This is Brig's idea of dressing himself to play outside. He puts up a fight every time he has to get dressed. This is the first and only time he has tried doing it himself.

The day after the snow arrived we had 50 degree weather. It was nice until we realized our yard was flooding. We had been out and about most of the day and when we got home we saw a huge sink hole on the north side of our house. The hole was about four feet long and three feet wide and water rushing into it and disappearing. Oh, crud. Where was all of that water going? Jared ran downstairs and sure enough, it had gone underneath the foundation. The crawlspace was overflowing with water and it was pouring into the furnace/storage room. The water in the furnace room was already a foot deep and rising quickly. We started to panic. Jared ran outside to try and slow the flow of water while I stayed with the kids and called some people to come help. Twenty minutes later when our first friend arrived to help, the water had risen to four feet. That's when I really started to panic because I realized it wouldn't be long before it reached the main floor. We had lots more help arrive, including my friend Tiffany, who took the boys to her house. Shortly after that, 250 sandbags were delivered to help divert any more water from entering our property. This greatly slowed the amount of water entering the basement. We then got a sump pump going that was able to pump most of the water out of the basement. It is unbelievable how much damage water can do and how quickly! I've never seen anything like it! It was a complete disaster and a very stressful situation. I am just so thankful that it wasn't worse and that we had so many wonderful friends and family members who came to help out! We had about 15 people here the first day to help and then about the same number a few days later helping clean up. I didn't take any pictures during the chaos, but here are a few the day after.

In this one you can still see some water standing still in our yard and the sandbags around the hole. (Brig's swing set was already knocked over by the wind.)

 The sandbags that diverted the water coming across the road to the other side of our property, where there is a natural drain ditch.

 Before the sandbags arrived we used anything to try and stop the water. Ha

 The water line in the basement. It measures 4.5 feet-covering half of the light switch. We turned off the electricity during the flooding and had an electrician check it out before we turned it back on. And look at all of the mud on the floor! Nasty, nasty, mud everywhere!

THe waterline on the water heater. Thankfully, Jorden got the water heater working again.

 While the flooding was happening it was obvious that most of the water was coming from across the road. I had grabbed our shovel and tried shoving it through our neighbors culvert with no luck. I figured it was just ice. Nope. The next day, after the water had gone down, we discovered the culvert was completely blocked with rocks. Maybe this wouldn't have been such a big deal, except for the fact that this culvert drains into the community retention pond. That means that a good portion of our neighborhood's run-off water is supposed to go through here. With the culvert being blocked however, it all went into our yard. What a great way to tick us off.

 We didn't have time to save many of our belongings. We had a lot of stuff down there. A lot of it was stuff I was planning on getting rid of the next time we moved. But there were a few things that made me cry, like a few photo albums, scrapbooks, Brigham's baby book, Jared's mission call, and our BYU diplomas. I had just barely moved all of our office stuff down there to clear out a room for Benson.

 The crawl space. What a mess. We had to rip out all of the insulation and some sheet rock and replace the furnace. Because our home was unlivable, the boys and I went to Fairfield for a week until the new furnace could be put in and most of the mess cleaned up. Everything is dried out now and life is slowly returning back to normal.