As Fate Would Have It

Ryan's younger brother Eric and his wife Hayley were recently living up in Salt Lake where Eric is studying engineering at the University of Utah. They both work full time and don't have any children yet, and they started looking into buying a home with a rental, since they were going to be around for awhile before Eric graduates with his Masters. They found a really nice side-by-side duplex that had already been remodeled, was close to TRAX (the commuter train) and already had a tenant living in the other side. They went for it and on Saturday, June 7th they had moved out of their apartment, had all of their possessions loaded in a truck and drove over to their duplex to move in. Here's a few photos of the inside...so cute!

When they got there, Hayley went over to visit with the tenant for a minute, and Eric went inside to discover that since they had last been there the apartment had totally flooded! They found out a line in the swamp cooler had broken and it was apparent that it had been flooding the apartment for several days. So, obviously, the damage was pretty considerable. Ryan and his older brother Nathan were on their way up to help unload when Eric called and told them the news. Ryan told Eric to come put their stuff in our garage, and Ryan called to tell me what had happened. When they arrived I fully expected to find Hayley sobbing. I was amazed when I opened the door and she was totally calm, and was even smiling in amusement at their bad luck. They have been handling the situation so well, much better than I could have possibly done!

Here's the after photos:

One lucky thing was that they hadn't closed on the duplex yet and still had the option to back out. They spent a lot of time talking to the insurance people and the contractor that had been hired, and were really impressed with how quickly they started taking care of everything. After taking everything into consideration they decided to go ahead with the purchase. They are even going to benefit from what happened because several aspects of the apartment will be updated where they weren't before, at no cost to them.

Ryan and I offered to let them stay with us until all the repairs were complete...we have a guest room and a bathroom that gets used hardly at all (except by Thomas) and we were glad to have some space to offer to them. So for the last few weeks we've been "roomies"! It has actually been a really fun experience spending time with them and getting to know them better...they haven't even hit their 2-year anniversary yet and they've always been teased about being the "reclusive newlyweds." They're great...they help us out with Thomas all the time, insisting we go on date nights! We take turns cooking dinner for each other and they are awesome cooks. It has been a lot of fun and I think we will have a hard time getting used to not having them around when their house is done! (And I'm not saying this just because I know you'll read it Hayley! =)

They still have a couple weeks before the house is ready to move into and I think its going to look great. It was so nice before and now it will just be improved! Isn't it interesting how life works sometimes?