When it rains, it pours-inside?

We've had some great monsoon this year!  I mean, like buckets of water, wind that shakes the house, and rivers in the street.  For the most part, we've loved it!  Until, that is, we found some very soggy carpet on a Sunday morning.  We followed the water and found that Taylor's room and the loft had significant water coming up through the carpet.  It had even leaked into the ceiling downstairs near the front door.

After having someone come and look at things, we had to rip out walls, pull up carpet....

 and even quarantine this small section of the loft because of the mold!

This is Taylor's room

And this is the studio room downstairs underneath Taylor's room.

To make a long story short, the roof had a small leak that then turned into a major problem with all the wind and rain.  Thankfully, after two month of construction zones in our home, we got the roof fixed and insurance covered everything.  We dried it all out (those industrial fans are loud!), closed everything up, I painted it all again and we are not awaiting new carpet for the entire upstairs (why stop at two rooms?)

Vegas and Sweet Sixteen

We spent Memorial Day weekend in Vegas to attend the BYU  vs. U of A football game.  We walked the strip allllll day and then went straight to the game that evening.  We were so exhausted by the time we got back to our hotel room at 2 am!  Brent and I decided we are too old for Vegas.  The kids were good sports about it all.  Honestly, Vegas isn't my favorite place to visit, but the casinos were pretty impressive.  

About 11 pm at the football game, BYU won!

Inside the Venetian

Two days after we got back, this girl celebrated her 16th birthday!!  I can't believe she is old enough to drive and date! 

Sydney still makes Brent and I look good.  She has the gift of gratitude, which is a blessing to me.  Serving your kids is so much easier when they appreciate you!  Sydney also likes to hang out with me, which makes me super happy. She has started with voice lessons again (which I tag along for), and it's so wonderful to see her develop that talent.  She has struggled with the new Drama teacher at school, which has been hard.  But, she is enjoying the kids in drama and is grateful to be able to have a more normal high school experience.

 For her birthday, I arranged for a gift to be delivered to her in each class at school.  We had crepes for breakfast, I brought her sushi for lunch, and then we had Chipotle for dinner.

The weekend after her birthday, we surprised her with a party.  She wasn't super excited about having a party, but I decided we needed to celebrate her.  Unfortunately, one of her friends ruined the surprise the day before, but she still acted surprised.  We had a ton of kids show up and they spent a good part of the party singing karaoke (mostly Broadway songs, of course).  Amelia came and did a mocktail bar, and  we had this cake made.  Yellow and macarons, another Sydney duo.