May is already showing how busy this summer is going to be. I feel like Brian and I are always running all around the place trying to manage our crazy lives and still have time for fun!
The first week of May, Kimberly and Austin were back in town for another wedding, so Brian and I were lucky to steal some of their time and have lunch with them one day. That same day, Sabra and I went to PaintNite in Layton! I have always wanted to do one of those events and I had a great coupon for it, so it seemed like a great time to stop making excuses and go. For those who don't know what PaintNite is, you go to their website, choose your location, and then look through all the different paintings they have. You choose one you want to learn to paint on a day and time that works for you, pay the fee, and then go to the class you signed up for. They have all the paints, brushes, and utensils you'll need already there for you. It's a fun atmosphere (although I didn't particularly like the location), and you leave with a canvas and knowledge you didn't have before. Sabra and I chose a sunflower painting; I'll include some photos at the end.
On May 4, Brian and I caved and bought another guinea pig (haha, it was only a matter of time right?). We decided that Winston was probably getting lonely hanging out alone while we were at work every day, and since research told us guinea pigs are very social creatures, we had to get him a friend. Because neither of us want to deal with baby guinea pigs, we got another male and named him Schmidt, obviously because what else could we name him? (I guess I shouldn't say that, Ferguson was in the running too....) He's very squeaky and much more active than Winston, so his name suits him for sure.
Our excitement over the newest member of the family was short lived, as disaster struck our house again on Mother's Day weekend. We went grocery shopping so I could begin the process of making 150 cake pops for the Baldwin Family Mother's Day party, and when we got home, we walked in to see a huge puddle of water on our living room hardwood, which was obviously coming from the dripping in our ceiling. We went upstairs to discover that our washer (which is conveniently *sarcasm* located between our master bedroom and the larger of the two spare bedrooms) had not drained properly. We still don't know how it happened, but it resulted in the water leaking into our laundry room, under the linoleum, through the flooring, into the ceiling below, and emptied through the smoke detector. The upstairs hallway was also flooded, and the water had seeped under the walls to the two bedrooms on either side. As a result, we had to suck out via steam cleaner 6-8 gallons of water out of our carpets (thanks Lindy), cut and pull up our brand new carpet (just installed with brand new padding 7 months ago), rip out all the wet padding and throw it away, rent two big industrial sized fans to blow the carpets dry, rip out the linoleum in the laundry room, and drill big holes into the laundry room floor to tape a shop vac in there to blow the ceiling dry.
I have to insert here that it could have been so much worse. The downstairs hard wood didn't get warped because we got home in time to mop it up. The carpet all dried in a matter of 2 days, and Brian has already replaced all the padding he had to rip up. The bad news is we don't know what's wrong with the washer and we'll probably have to replace it to be on the safe side. We laid the carpets back down over the new padding, and we'll deal with having them stretched and put back in when we get back from our big trip (starting this week, yayyyy!!!)
To make things more annoying though, our air conditioner decided to quit working the night before the washer fiasco. Luckily, Brian's awesome cousin ordered the part we needed and came and installed it for us the next week before it got hot again. The bad news is that he also discovered some of the wires had gotten fused together and started a fire in the wall in the garage. We still don't know why our house didn't burn down, other than the fact Heavenly Father is reeeeallllyyyyyyyy watching out for us it seems. We are so blessed that through all of these trials, we've actually not had anything too serious happen to us.
As previously mentioned, Mother's Day we had a big family dinner we attended. That week at church we also got a new Beehive join our class! I taught about the prophets Mother's Day weekend and about Patriarchal Blessings this week since we'll be gone the rest of the month! My Aunt Mary and Uncle Joe are visiting from Florida and cousin, Kimmy, from DC for Maddie's 4th birthday, so Brian and I went to Provo for dinner yesterday and got to see everyone and hang out. I'm so glad we decided to plan our tropical vacation this fall with a trip to Florida to see all my family!
Kimmy will be headed back to DC this week, so we'll get to see her a few times while we're home visiting my parents and I am so excited!! This week before we go will be super busy trying to get the house clean and laundry done (I can't leave knowing I'll come back to a dirty house), packing, and making sure everything church related is taken care of before we head out! We have a mother-daughter luau planned for Mutual this week that will be a blast, I'm happy I'm not missing it while I'm gone. When we head out, we're headed to Vegas to see Kevin & Amanda and the kids and then flying out of Vegas. If I haven't mentioned this before, flying out of Las Vegas is sooooo much cheaper (and it's a win-win because we get to see family!).
Now before I wrap this up, I have to brag about my incredible husband for a minute. I think I wrote before about how he's taking a full load of summer classes that span the entire summer, but he's also still working and had applied to a lot of summer finance internships. I admit we fell a little behind the curve when he started looking at internships because most of them had deadline dates from before our wedding, and we definitely weren't on the lookout for them then. However, Brian found a great internship with Northrop Grumman's finance department in Salt Lake City. After many phone interviews and finally an in-person interview, he got an offer last week to join their summer internship program! Not only does it conveniently start after our vacation, but it pays really well, especially for a summer internship! I am so so proud of all the handwork he's put in and his dedication to getting school finished up in the next year, while prepping his resume for grad school ;). I'm one lucky wife!
I'll have many more posts when we get back with all our adventures, so I'll wrap this up now! Happy beginning of summer, everyone! :)
Now we just need the weather to warm back up...
