Big Trouble with New House

The last day of our Thanksgiving/Birthday blowout we discovered a huge sewer backup that flooded the new house from both sides of the first floor. It. was. disgusting. It started a huge ordeal of emergency clean-up crews, mold-testing and Standard Pacific's head of warranty dept overseeing everthing. It was a big, messy deal. They had to rip out all the carpet, tile, and some of the wood, baseboards, doors, moldings. They cleaned and then tested the house 3 times before it got a green light from the mold guy for the rebuild. Fortunately for us, they let us re-do the master bath at the same time. It was the only ugly part of the house when we bought it. Apparently every dark cloud has a silver lining.

Double Big Birthdays and Thanksgiving

I realized that my Dad, Tim Jernigan, and brother, Wade were turning 70 and 40 on December 3rd and 5th of this year. So, I hatched a plan to get everyone out to Austin to celebrate Thanksgiving and the big birthdays. Luckily we closed on the new house on November 20th, just a few days before everyone arrived, so we had some extra rooms to share. Wade, Stacy, and the boys flew out, Mom and Steve drove down, Dad and Teddy flew out, and Wendy flew out with her boyfriend, Mike Ezelle who we were all going to meet for the first time. No pressure, Mike. We had a huge Thanksgiving meal, a kid's interpretational First Thanksgiving play, Black Friday shopping, a huge birthday party, a scavenger hunt, did the Austin Duck Tour, had a big-kids night out, played Bingo, and ate ourselves silly. It was my most favorite Thanksgiving ever. Scavenger hunting... Down the greenbelt... Cooking and eating... Duck touring... Proof we all actually were in one place at one time!