Rain Can Go Home...NOW!

So I am a fan of the thunder, lightening, and even the rain, but it has overstayed it's welcome!

I was at work today and it was just pouring.  I thought I may have to come home and check out my window well, but then I was able to get a hold of a cute neighbor of ours and she checked the window well for us.  It was okay.

We (B and our other neighbors) rode up Smithfield Canyon tonight.  The temperature was perfect for the ride up.  We had cloud cover, no lightening, no rain.  It was perfect.

We froze on the way down though.  Which was not too bad, we had hot cocoa and now I am blogging about it.

As I have been typing this blog there has been some threatening thunders.  I hope that we can see some sunshine soon.

My computer says not until Sunday.

What is this, Seattle?

I Stole a Picture!

My sweet sister blogged about our biking events and I stole this picture off of her blog.

I think we look like absolute babes here.

I miss her so much already.  We had such a fantastic time.

I honestly cannot wait until next year to ride with her again.  Maybe she will even have her own super fantastic road bike by then so that mine doesn't kill her wrists and legs!

(Sorry again sis).

It is hard getting back into the normal things in life, work was much harder today than on other days.  It was still a good day, don't get me wrong, just somber because I wasn't out playing with my sister.

Ho hum.

I will always love the memories!

Two Posts In One Day? You Gotta Be Kiddin'!

This morning, before Raw Chicken left, we decided to go to breakfast at Village Inn.  We then went shopping at Old Navy to see if there was a swim suit that she may want.  After that we said our goodbyes and my cute sis was off.  B and I just went home.

On our drive it began to rain and pour AGAIN!!!

We got home and checked our window well.  It was okay at that time.

As we hung out in our house, the rain became incredible again.

This time when we checked our window well, this is what we saw:

This is what we did:

B lowered a bucket to me, I filled it up, he dumped it out.

There is cute B getting my bucket of rain water!

And here he is after having lowered the bucket back to me!

Below is a photo of the lake that accumulates in front of the playground in front of the condos.  The drainage here is absolutely horrible!

Again, another photo depicting awful drainage!

And finally, below is actual footage of the rapid flow coming out to form Smithfield Lake.

What I think is awful is that we never know when it is gonna rain like this and just what to expect.  What if we had been at work?

I am beginning to feel as though we really purchased a headache home.  Maybe I am not understanding that this could possibly be a typical situation, but I don't ever remember having to deal with possible house floods due to heavy rain where I grew up.

Who knows.

Even though, we are happy to have caught this incident before the rain water entered the basement!

So Much Darn Fun!!!!

I am so bummed that this weekend is over.  We had a blast!!!

I love my sister so darn much, and this weekend only proved to me that I need to see her more!

I am a dufus and did not take any pictures of the fun we had the first night she was here.

We went and picked up our registration packets and then we went to dinner.

Where did I take her?  Do you really need to ask?  Of course we went to Cafe Sabor, my favorite restaurant!  Raw Chicken ordered a Pink Zebra drink, it was more like a strawberry shake.  Me, I had a Pina Colada.  We both decided to get fun drinks.  Honestly, I think this was the first time Raw Chicken and I have EVER gone to dinner, just the two of us.  We had a ton of fun!

Raw took some photos at dinner, so please, if you are curious, see them at her blog!

The next day was our ride!  I was much smarter and took many pictures!

Below here are our cute faces and not soar bodies, ready and excited to ride!

We are both so cute I can hardly stand it!

The next few pics are just a small taste of the exquisite scenes that we enjoyed on our ride!

Just a reminder, we did 46 miles and had a blast!

Below here, we are about midway through, and still smiling!

Below here, I believe that Raw Chicken was beginning to feel the pain.  Oh no!  We still had about 20 to 25 miles to go, this is not a good sign.

Here Raw is below again, 8 miles left, and she does not look happy!

I don't think I adequately prepared her for what exactly she was taking on.

Sorry sis.

The next two photos below are just a pics of riders ahead of me and behind me.  I got off of my bike to wait for Raw, she is the lead biker in the photo of cyclists coming toward me.

Poor Raw Chicken.  She had just had it.  As she came up toward me we only had about 4 miles left.  Pause the music player and listen to her comments in the short video.

At this point she got off of her bike and sat down for a minute.  She slowly climbed back up to her poor soar feet and convinced herself to get back on her bike.  I told her I would ride behind her as too not lose her  too far back with the other cyclers.  I told her we only had about 4 miles left and she groaned.  We started to cycle.  I kept holding my breaks, and then looked at my computer on my bike that tells me our mileage and our speed.  I chuckled because here we had 4 miles left and poor Raw, pedaling her heart out at this point, was only able to go 4 MPH.  I chuckled because I thought, 'We'll be done in 1 hour!'  I didn't dare say this out loud as I feared it may cause her to start to cry.

After about 5 minutes of 4 MPH hell, Raw Chicken got off of her bike and told me to go ahead, she was just gonna walk.

I hesitated and then thought 'Well if I go ahead, I can get to B and then we can drive back and pick her up.'  I shared this idea with Raw, she was happy of the thought to have B and me come and get her.  I told her if a sag wagon (support car) comes along to let them pick her up and drive her to the end.  She said okay and off I went.

I crossed the finish line and a volunteer that does support work for these races was putting lei's on all the riders.  So I got leid (tee hee) and then picked up a drink.

I then had to get my pic taken with the luau version of the Big Bad Wolf.  Luau was the theme for the ride this year.

After this photo, B and I went to the truck and threw the bike in the back and started on our journey to find Raw Chicken.

While we were driving, Raw called my cell to let us know that she had just crossed the finish line.  She decided that she would be better off riding than walking.

I AM SO PROUD OF HER!!!

After we all were together again, Raw just needed to sit and relax, I however found a big ass grass umbrella and had my photo taken.

I like the photo below, it was a fun umbrella.  Oh ya, I dunno why the above paragraph was underlined.  I couldn't get the underlining to stop.

I then coerced B into taking a picture with me by the umbrella.  I love my B.  He told me he was proud of me for the ride.  I am proud of me too!

After all the photos and relaxing at the Wellsville Park, our start and end point, we took Raw out for a birthday lunch.  It is her birthday today.  She spent her birthday weekend with me and I am so happy to have stolen her for her birthday (sorry Astin family to have stolen my sister from you on her B-day weekend).

After lunch we went home and got the stink off of us.

Raw wanted to go into town and see if there were Bakugon and Littlest Pet Shoppe toys for her kids.  What a good mom.  We then got caffeinated soda's to pep us up and went back to my house where Arty and Opera and their adorable daughters were waiting for us.

Sorry we were late guys.

We had a great time.  We ate dinner and put on a cartoon for the girls to watch.  Then we had a fire in our backyard.  We took some more photos.  Below is Raw's eyes, and extreme close-up!

Below here is Opera and her mini-me.  Mini is GORGEOUS!  Both their girls have amazing skin that actually tans in the sun (not the burn, peel, and white again)!

Mini is just finishing her s'more.

Below here is Arty and Raw Chicken, who looks like a dude named Marty from Jersey.

In the corner is Arty and Opera's other daughter Princess.  She sure loves our puppies, and our puppies did much better with these girls than they have done with kids in the past.  I don't think we give our puppies very much credit at times, so here is some credit for them.

Below here were have an action marshmallow toasting photo.  I even got in on the action and made a s'more for myself and ate.  I hate s'mores because they are so darn messy, but what can I say, I got caught up in the moment I guess!

Below B is enjoying the fire that he built.  What a super fella he is.

And the final photo of the weekend fun:  Me and the girls.

I was gonna start out and say that I don't feel that this is a very photogenic picture of me, but I fear that Princess has out shined me here!  Ya gotta love that girl.

This weekend was so much fun.  I am so bummed that it is over.  Thanks for all that came and had a good time.  I love my family so much.

Happy Birthday again to Raw Chicken.

Happy Birthday to B's Momma too.

Two of my favorite people are celebrating their lives today.

Raw I believe is more celebrating that she has one year until the next Little Red Ride that she WILL do with me!

I love you all and hope you all had a great weekend too!

It Is Gonna Be a Great Weekend!

My weekend starts tonight.

I have Friday through Sunday off, and I am so excited.

My sister is coming!!! We are going to ride 46 miles in the Little Red Riding Hood Cycling event.

I rode last year with my neighbor and we had a blast, even though it hailed on us.

I will take my camera with me and blog our cycling fun!!!

It has been a year (I think) since I last saw Raw Chicken.  A lot has happened.

We will have a lot to catch up on.

Tonight B and I went longboarding.

I am not very good at it but I have a blast anyway.  We bought our longboards a couple of weeks ago and they are just so darn fun.  Of course B is instantly good at riding his.  He says it is because he skated a lot as a kid, but that was a long time ago, he just is able to keep his skills even when not in use!

Below is a picture of our boards, the boring side.  Oh ya, and my super cute skate shoes that we bought so I don't ruin my running shoes.

Below here is the artistic side of our boards.  Mine is the one on the left and B's is on the right.  My board is called 'The Goddess', because that is what I am.  B's is titled 'The Hills'.  His is a tad bit easier to ride because it is wider, but mine is still fun.

B and I are becoming much more active.  I am loving it.  I have lost some more weight and if we keep up the activities, I should lose even more, unless God has some cruel trick to play on me or I decide to loaf on my couch and keep the McDonald's coming!

B and I are both looking great.  We are both getting excited to get my mountain bike so we can go up the dirt roads of the canyons and B and his friends found a fun little hilly course just east of our condo's.  When we rented me a bike B took me up there and I was too wussy to really do any of the fun parts of the course.  I got halfway through the first one and that was all I dared to do.  Once I get my bike and get comfortable with it I am gonna rock that course.

Well, there is not too much else to say for now.  I hope all is well elsewhere!

Rain, Hail, Rain, Thunder, Lightning, and...a Lil' Flood!

So, as mentioned in my previous blog, there is a certain mountain bike that I have my eye on.

I was able to get B to help me download a picture to the blog and you see the bike that I long for below.

We hopefully can order it on Monday.

I can hardly wait!

On to my day.

I thought today would be an ordinary day:

Go to work.  Go to work meeting.  Hear new changes being made at work.  Get mad/concerned over new changes.  Go home, depressed and wishing to be a millionaire, sighing that I am not.

The big boss man ended todays meeting which tells us now we have only 12 hour of nursing per day at Terrace Grove saying that he is not sure which nurses will get to have these shifts.

Bottom line, he is gonna have to lay off a few of us.

I hope it's not me, but I will find something else (gulp) if it is me.

Anyway, as my evening progressed, I had noticed that Fox news station was running a thunder/rain storm warning for Toole County.  Little did I know it was headed our way.

B and I enjoyed the lightning, the thunder, the rain, RAIN, hail, and rain.

As we were in our room, blinds pulled up and windows wide open, we suddenly heard:

"Better check your window wells!"

Then we heard a thump.

Then B says, calmly and now this makes me smile:

"Hey, he is in our window well."

We rushed down stairs, B went all the way to the basement, I opened the front door to talk to the hero saving our home.

The rain had flooded our window well above the window seal and water had gotten in.

The man had a bucket and was throwing literal buckets of water and dirt out onto our sidewalk, as you can sort of see below.

The little orange bucket below is all we had, and we used it wisely as we cleaned the flood mess.

Below here is the good news:

We were able to successfully extract a huge weed that grows in our window well every summer.

There the weed carcass lays.

VICTORY!

Below here we see B's cute foot and our pups and me and my baggy scrubs blotting up the carpet.

Below, B's chicken legs again doing more blotting.

These last two pictures are the aftermath of our window well.

We got a lot of water out and we are actually quite lucky compared to some of our neighbors.

As we cleaned our mess, those who originally brought it to our attention that we were flooding had been going out and checking ALL of the window wells.

Not everyone was as lucky as we were.

Some had 1 foot (about) of water in their basements.

As I write this blog up tonight, I can hear sump pumps running from the window wells of those who got it the worst.

B and I really are lucky.

How nice to live somewhere that your neighbors, who hardly even know you, help you out.

It has been quite an adventure.

I am also lucky because B is so even tempered and so relaxed.  He didn't freak out, he just got to work and told me what I could do to help.

Tonight I feel like the luckiest woman.

Tonight I am the luckiest woman.

I Know, I Know, I Know!

So I am finally back to the blogging world.  I am sure you all have missed me immensely.  

Things in our lives are fairly good.

Job is changing yet again, however, I think it is changing for the better.  We are adding some Med-techs to our staff, and changing the nursing shifts to 12 hour shifts.  This will allow the nurses to only work one weekend a month.  Heck Yeah!

B and I have been playing on our bikes a lot lately.  B rented me a full suspension mountain bike and we went up Green Canyon in North Logan on Sunday.  That was a lot of fun and I found I could ride up things that looked as though I couldn't.

We have since picked out a new mountain bike to drool over and someday purchase for me.

I cannot wait.

In other news, we also bought some longboards.  They are super fun.  I am not so steady on it yet, but I still have a blast riding it.

B and I have become much more active and this is a good thing.

This weekend my sister Raw Chicken is coming up and we are going to do a bike ride called Little Red Riding Hood.  It is an all female ride and we are gonna have a blast!

I am so excited to see her.

Now that the internet is back, we will be taking more pictures and posting more blogs!

Horray!

Love you all.