Day 11-- We're Home!!

Let's begin with the good news.  We're home.  We're safe, we're alive, our van worked great, and our home is still standing (mostly).
It was an okay drive home.  There's some wild weather in the country right now and we saw a lot of it.  We didn't see any tornadoes, but we had a LOT of wind, rain, and snow. 

We had a super early morning-- we were off and driving by 4:30am Utah time.

Everyone slept a bit.

Some watched movies.

I discovered and had way too much fun playing Fruit Ninja.  The Kindles and Abe's work iPad were popular items.
We listened to books on tape-- the most popular being some world history CDs.

Abe laughed until he cried while quoting scenes from Dumb and Dumber.  For the record, I have never seen this movie, but Abe was laughing so hard that it got me laughing till I cried.

And Abe drove and drove and drove. 
We finally got home around 7:20pm.  We like long car rides together, but 15 hours is too much.

Okay, are you ready for the bad news.  Our neighbors had told us the fence between our homes got blown down in a wind storm earlier in the week.

Fortunately, this family is renting the home and their owners will cover the cost to have it fixed. 
That's kind of a bummer, but this next little surprise was downright unpleasant to discover.

 

 Our upstairs toilet somehow leaked or overflowed or something and it soaked the floor, and the ceiling of the playroom downstairs (directly below the bathroom) fell out.  Carpet is soaked upstairs near the bathroom and in the girls' room and down in the playroom.  There was a mattress on the floor of the playroom that is soaked as well. 
What a mess.

After such a long drive we were all anxious to rest and get to bed, but that was not to be.  We spent the evening moving all the furniture out so disaster cleanup can get started tomorrow.  We don't know when the leak started, but I would guess it was doing damage most, if not all of the time, we were gone. 

There is our ceiling on the floor. 
We'll see how long it takes to get everything fixed up.  It looks to me like it's going to be a pretty big project.  I'll not complain too much, since I may end up with new carpet when it's all said and done.  I suppose I'll trade a mildew smell now for a new carpet smell in the future.  Just kind of a hassle for a while.  

But it was a wonderful trip.  I'm so grateful for the many people who made such an event possible.  And now I am extremely happy to arrive home safely to a mostly standing house.