Catching Up - Flooding problems AGAIN!

So, I have a lot of catching up to do to fill in what has happened in the month of May . . .

First, flooding, flooding, flooding!  Unfortunately our house flooded 3 times over the course of about 5 weeks.   The first time this year was one of the very worst . . . very bad hail storm in which the hail covered up many of our drains and knocked leaves down over the drains, resulting in water covering almost all of our downstairs rooms - Alaina's room, guest room, kitchen, living room, dining room, and a little in our bedroom.  (I looked back on my blog and it also happened in Spring of 2008, August 2008, June 2009, June 2011, and this time April 2012).  Our neighbors had their yard graded in 2004 time frame, we had a little more problem with water after that.  Then we had the yard graded flat in Spring of 2007.  Started having the major flooding problems the following Spring.

So, after this horrible flooding experience, we decided that after all these years of trying to handle the problem ourselves, this was it . . . we really needed professionals to help us  After several estimates and ideas, we decided to go with a landscaping company who was going to regrade the backyard again.  So, after they regraded and did all their work, the yard looked great!  They did a very slight, slight fine grade away from the house, so it really isn't too noticeable.  But it does slope away from the house, but it is still flat enough for the kids to play back there.  Plus they put in new sod, which is looking good.  And Scott moved the brick patio to the other side of our cement patio, to also make more playing area for the kids.

 Well, we thought our issues were solved.  We even had a couple heavy rains, still not horribly bad storms though, so I wasn't 100% convinced.  And then, we had a horribly bad storm, and it happened AGAIN!  Even after the professional's work.  Obviously the back corner of the house and side of the house still needed an additional solution. 

Then after this flood, the very next night (Wed) water came in a third time!  So, we had 2 days until we were to leave for a huge family vacation that we had been planning for almost a year, so we had to act fast.  The landscapers came back, and were just amazed at all the water on the side of our house that was coming into the yard from all of our neighbor's yards.  He really couldn't believe it.  He said the best thing they could do is to dig a huge ditch basically between the two houses.  We already had a small ditch, but it obviously needed to be bigger.  In order to have them come the next day to start, Scott had to take down our fence, plus we decided the big tree in the back had to come down too, to make room for the ditch to be dug.  We had several guys from our church who graciously came over and helped Scott that night to cut down the tree, take down the fence, and move anything that needed to be moved so the landscapers could do their work.  We were so grateful to our friends who volunteered their time and hard work to help us!  The landscapers did part of the work on Friday, we left Saturday for vacation, and they finished up on Monday.  I left towels in our hallway for our neighbor to put against the walls in case water came in when we were gone.  It was hard leaving without seeing the whole job completed, but I just had to trust God that we had done everything we could do, and the rest was in His hands.  When we arrived home from vacation, the ditch was dug and river rock put in and things look like this now on the side and back corner of the house.  There is a definite slope away from the house, and hopefully the water will flow right down the ditch covered with the river rock and out to the street!

We had a small downpour this afternoon and tonight, and the water did flow out to the street.  But even after all this work and many thousands of dollars spent on the landscaper's labor and materials, I am still weary that this has totally fixed the problem.  I am hopeful though, and so tired from dealing with this for all these years.  Time will tell, time will tell.  All we can do is wait and see.  (Well, this ended up being a lot longer post than planned . . . obviously writing all this out must be a big stress reliever for me!  :-)

My next post will be about happier, more interesting things that happened in May.  But this flooding issue really did seem to dominate our lives over this month!

Blog staying at Blogger

So, I don't know why this has been such a hard decision for me, but after blogging for a while on my shutterfly share site, I realize it isn't set up to actually "blog" and write out what's going on quite as easily.  Plus, I like being able to showcase select pictures on here.  I think I am planning to keep my brisken bunch shutterfly site just as a picture sharing site.  Mainly family will probably want to see the tons and tons of pictures there that I upload, and any friends that want to become members too, just let me know and I'll add you!  But for now, this blog just has too much history to stop and go to another one.  After all, I started it in 2007!  So, this is where my blog will remain.  Now . . . I need to go back and copy some posts from the brisken bunch blogging trial to this one, plus catch up on a lot more that has happened!  So, stay tuned for lots of updates!

New Blog Site

So, I'm experimenting a little, and trying out keeping my blog at a different site.  I haven't decided yet if I'm fully switching all the way over to this blog only or not, but in the meantime, check out some of my blogs at www.briskenbunch.shutterfly.com and click on "Blog 2012" tab.  I like the look of being able to have different tabs for different years.  So . . . I'm still contemplating the switch.  Let me know what you think if you check the new site out!  Thanks!