One year ago today, we discovered a flood in our home that displaced us for six months and had us living in a construction zone for another four.

On December 23, a blizzard hit our area and knocked out our power and heat. We tried to stick it out here but it got cold – fast – and we had no idea how long the outage would last. We went to Shane’s parents’ house for the night and headed home in the morning once power was restored.

Unfortunately, when we got there, we found that the heat did not come back with the power. I put out a Hail Mary in our local Facebook group hoping for a plumber who could help us with our boiler system on Christmas Eve and found the kindest man who came to assess and said he would be happy to help but because everything was frozen, we were stuck until the thaw coming a few days later.

We shut off the water and prepared to go back to hunker down back with Shane’s parents for the holiday. We went back to the house daily to check on things – nothing changed from day to day.

Until the morning of the 28th.

Shane went back early because we were celebrating a re-scheduled Christmas Eve dinner that afternoon. He called me from the house and said I needed to prepare myself.

Yep, I guess so.

When the power went out, the boiler pipes had a chance to freeze. What we have discovered is that the pipes that heat our upstairs actually ran outside in our porch overhang – obviously not great for insulation. We also discovered that there had been other, previous repairs. Other, previous, non-disclosed repairs. Sigh.

The pipes broke across the whole front of our house, resulting in a flood in our bedroom, Shane’s closet, the boys’ bathroom, the office, foyer, living room, and down into the basement.

It was an epic mess. All of the floors, the walls, the windows – everything was destroyed. Our walls were open to the outside.

We were displaced to a hotel for a couple of months and then to a cabin at Punderson for four months, and then returned home…and THEN the repairs began. (Yep – nothing happened while we displaced our family for months.)

The big battles were exactly what you’d expect: insurance, contractors. Rinse and repeat.

The smaller battles were sometimes even more difficult: putting Finny in a big boy bed way earlier than we planned because he outgrew the pack and play in the hotel and we didn’t have his crib. Liam struggled to sleep alone in the hotel. As a result, we slept apart for almost three months. We couldn’t cook full meals for the months in the hotel. Laundry! Oh the laundry. I’m a small loads all week kind of girl – having to use a service or laundromat, or hang out at our horribly depressing house to use our own facilities just..sucked.

What we have discovered through all of this is that kids are delightfully resilient, roll with whatever, and find joy in the smallest of moments. We have discovered over and over again that we are an incredible team that works together fluidly. We worked hard on our marriage throughout. We had incredible support from our family – moving us in and out of the hotel and the cabin, taking the boys when we HAD to have a break, checking in constantly and being as invested in our battles as we were. We got amazing support from our coworkers and friends. My Bedford family raised money for us – enough to cover our deductible.

Don’t get me wrong. This was hard. But the blessings throughout are what I will remember.