Where in the world is - Jessica Lowe (and family)?

Well, for those of you who haven't heard, we had to move about a month and a half earlier than planned because our apartment was flooded. Not by all the rain we had in Haltom City (which coincidentally was going on at the very same time) but by the sprinkler system inside our apartment. On the 16th, I was at my parties and I get a call from Austin telling me that he has some REALLY REALLY bad news. I immediately thought something had happened to the kids, but thankfully that was not the case. He was at home, watching golf on television and the kids were quietly playing in their rooms when all of a sudden the sprinkler head in the living area exploded and gallons upon gallons of water came gushing out into our apartment. This explosion set off the fire alarms for the whole building. Frantically, Austin thought he could save some stuff, but soon realized it was spraying out way too fast to even bother and he ran to get the kids. Jakob was in the kitchen squatting down covering his ears and Kora and Miah were in Kora's room in the corner hugging each other and crying. Of course, Kora was only in panties so he had to get her dressed and then he took everyone outside. For 15 minutes, the water continued to POUR into our home until the fire department got there to turn it off. Our apartment was the only one that this happened to. Everyone in our building had the alarms going off, so they all came outside to see what was going on and if there really was a fire. The water damage to our furniture was disastrous. You wouldn't think such a tiny little sprinkler head could spray out THAT much water, but Austin compared it to a fireman's fire hose. The apartment management was not there that weekend and they only had a temp. working that day who couldn't do anything to help us except call maintenance. They sent over the carpet guys who sucked out about 200 gallons of water total. The entire place was flooded. He told us that we had to get everything out immediately or it would all be ruined. When I finally came home from my parties, we worked on packing everything in the apartment. Since all the moving places were closed, we had to stay the night at my parents and then go back on Sunday to REALLY move it all out. Even stuff that wasn't ruined the first day, was ruined the next day because of all the moisture in the apartment. We lost our couches, our television, DVD player and sound system, 2 mini DVD players, my camera, family pictures and frames, some clothing and lots more. All in all, the damages totalled about $6,500.00. Thank GOSH we had renter's insurance (of course the daughter of an insurance agent would) because the apartment is refusing to cover any of our damages. They aren't even giving us half of our rent back that we paid for June since we were kicked out halfway through the month but paid a full months rent.

Now we're at my parent's house in Rockwall and we'll be staying here until probably the end of the year when we find out where the military will send us. It's been a HUGE mess, but I think more blessings have come from this mess than I could have ever imagined. It has also made me realize that everything we lost was just STUFF, stuff that can be replaced. The only things that REALLY matter are my family and they are just fine so I can deal with this.

AND, the bad news is that since my camera was ruined, the blog will be lacking visual aids for just a bit until I get it replaced. But don't fret, I'll be updating our adventures still and you'll just have to be creative and use your imagination.

There's just one thing I have to say to everyone about this whole situation:
AMESBURY COURT APARTMENT COMPLEX IN HALTOM CITY SUCKS AND I WOULDN'T SUGGEST THIS APARTMENT COMPLEX TO ANYONE LOOKING FOR AN APARTMENT IN THIS AREA. THEIR MANAGEMENT IS VERY UNPROFESSIONAL AND UNCARING AND THEY DON'T KNOW HOW TO TAKE CARE OF THEIR RESIDENTS REGARDLESS OF THE EXTREMELY OVER PRICED RENT WE PAY EVERY MONTH. SPREAD THE NEWS!

The Rainbow Connection

After the bad storm yesterday, a beautiful rainbow came to replace the dark sky. It was so pretty I had to take a photo of it with my heathen kids. Yes, that's Kora in her underwear outside without a care in the world....

Just a day in downtown Fort Worth...

Today Jake got out of school early and I needed to go downtown to take care of some "bidness" so when we were done, it was almost time for Austin to get out of his Bar prep class. Jake was insistent that we wait for dad so while we waited, the kids had fun playing in this semi park in front of some offices. The picture of the three of them together is in the shoe of this gigantic cutout of a cowboy sculpture. I love the picture of Kora being sweet with her eyes off to the side and her shoulder up, how cute is that! The one with the three of them huddled together is when Kora caught a rolly-polly and was showing it to the boys. They were all running around doing tricks and handstands and then Miah decided he wanted to do a handstand too so here's a picture of him trying that out! Kora wanted to get a picture of me and Jake together and I think she did a fabulous job with the camera! Once Austin got there we took a few more pictures, but I couldn't resist putting the one up of he and Kora because 1st of all - they don't have many pictures together and 2nd of all - she's making a normal face which isn't very often!