When it rains, it pours...

 We are so excited that summer is here. Grilling out, eating on the deck, playing outside, time at the park, planting flowers, fire pit nights - bring it all on.

We, however, have had one of those weeks.

First we get a knock on the door from MidAmerican Energy.

"Excuse us, but we need to take down two of your beautiful and completely healthy trees in the backyard.  Yes, the huge ones that provide shade.  Oh, and yes, we will cut them down, but leave the logs and entire mess for you to clean up.  And you'll have to pay to get the stump removed.  Oh, and we have to drive a huge track lift through your yard to get to the trees, which will tear up your yard - another mess that you have to take care of. Thanks."
Matt was a little upset about this, and by a little upset, I mean super mad.

 

This photo shows one of the two trees. To give you some perspective, the orange ring at the bottom is over six feet in height.  They have already begun chopping this one down and have been working on it since last Thursday.  It won't be done for another week or so.

 

If anyone needs any firewood, it has to age, but we've got plenty.

Next up?  Our oven blew up. Exploded. As in flames were shooting from it.

It was a normal day in the Bishop household, I preheated the oven to make lunch and about five minutes after putting the chicken in the oven, 

I heard a noise that sounded like our garbage disposal on steroids.

 It was loud. Crazy loud. 

I was working at my desk and Jax was playing with his kitchen right next to me. I stood up and saw a huge fireball in the oven. After all of the preparing that you can do before something like this happens, it all goes by the wayside when there is an actual fire happening in your home.

I screamed like a ten year old girl, grabbed Jackson and went to run for the door. Matt came running upstairs because he heard the power surge explosion and unplugged the stove of death. 

The fire stopped. Whew.

That was a close one. Our house was super smokey and I didn't stop shaking for about an hour. The only damage (other than the over being shot) was done to the surrounding cabinetry. It's charred. 

When we called Best Buy, they told us to contact Samsung because our oven is still within the one year warranty.  Did I mention that it's only two months old? 

We called Samsung. After being placed on hold forever, they told us to unplug it and wait three seconds and then plug it back in.  They wanted us to try to plug in the oven that exploded. WHAT???

I guess they are trained to say certain things, but this person definitely was reading off of a script for a different scenario.  This happened a week ago, and they haven't even had the servicemen out to ensure that there was an "incident" so that we can get a replacement.  

Their customer service is ridiculous.
Moral of the story - Don't buy Samsung appliances.

 This is the actual heating coil that caused the fire.

 This is what the rest of the oven looks like. A charred mess.

This morning we get a knock at the door that we won't have power for most of the day on Friday. Seriously, MidAmerican?

Not a huge deal, except that we both work from home and had both planned to get some things completed.   We're going to make the most of this situation by spending the day together and getting out of the house. So, all in all, thank you, MidAmerican.

Oh, and we are getting a new driveway, which we need desperately.  Jax has fallen more times than I can count because of the cracks and overall unevenness of our current one, so this is a huge blessing.

However, the guy called last week and will be arriving on Tuesday to take out our driveway. The same day that the appliance guy will be here. And the tree cutters will be here finishing up the demolition of our backyard.

We are so thankful for everything that we have. 

It's instances like the oven debacle that make us realize how lucky we truly are.