Weekend Still Photos

Here are some stills from this past weekend. Noah is showing off his new smile with braces on top (lowers will come later after he loses another tooth). And Alyssa is sporting a hat I crocheted.  Amazingly I still remember how to crochet after taking about 12 years off.  The team photo was taken just after Noah's team won the championship game Sunday night.  Thankfully I got one picture of Noah in his champion's shirt before he ate pizza and drank Shirley Temples.

Forrest will try to post some video he shot later.

Guest Blogger-Forrest

Well, I guess Heather is too exhausted catching up on chores to post so she asked me to do her blogging for her. We all know husbands are pretty lazy on the weekend and are rested by Sunday night.... Maybe not all husbands, I know Lloyd, Jim, and Paul are the exception to the norm!

We spent the weekend at Western Washington University at the MLK Basketball Tournament with Noah's Basketball Team. Two days and four games, resulting in a celebration dinner at the local Pizza Hut for winning the Championship in the 7th grade bracket. Noah's team finally got out of their funk they had been in and blew out three of the teams by 20 points or better. The Championship game was a bit tighter. After a back and fourth battle with 30 seconds remaining we tied the game at 48. Our defense held and with 12 seconds left we hit a three pointer to take the lead for good and sealed the game with two free throws to win 53 - 48.

We also got in a walking tour of the campus, mostly because we didn't want to pay for parking. Their Rec-Center is pretty nice as is most of the campus. We asked Alyssa if it was a college she might want to attend? Her answer was she thought it was too big. I guess that rules out UW, WSU, and most major colleges on the west coast.

In between games we hit the local Best Buy and returned our cheap video camera that quit working after three uses and upgraded to a better one.

As the result of the tournament and having today off, we tried to catch up on chores today. Heather mostly concentrated on the inside and I on the outside plugging holes and topping fences. Most of you probably know by now our (Heather and Alyssa's) new dog Cowboy has turned into an escape artist. Their freebie dog as ended up costing us several hundred dollars of breakout prevention. I guess it is true what they say.... Nothing is free! If you want to know more about our prevention tactics you will need to call, I don't want to put anything in writing and get in trouble with the animal rights people if they happen to stumble across this blog.

We did take photos, and once Heather gets the photos downloaded she will post them. I would ask her about it, but she is drinking some tea and earlier read Noah the riot act about being a slob and picking up after himself so I am a little apprehensive about asking her about it.

I guess I will close for now, I can feel myself needing a relaxing break. This Monday off has thrown off my whole lazy weekend routine.

Until next time your favorite guest blogger -fj

Still Soggy

It's almost 36 hours after my last post and I still only have one way in and out of my neighborhood instead of three. A friend who lives above the small town of Silvana sent me this photo of the road that we both usually take to work. Maybe by Monday we'll be using it again. I still have to drive 20 miles instead of 5 to get to town. Maybe by Sunday the roads will be clear. Last night the police were escorting dump trucks to Stanwood to shore up the dike that had been breached. The water in the park and ride lot was up near the top of the stop signs and part of the state highway to Camano Island was closed. The sewer lagoons were compromised too as the river overflowed it's banks and poured into the holding ponds causing them to spill over. Stanwood schools were closed again today. They now have five days of school to make up. We only have three. As I was typing this the power went out. I'm sure that's related to the flooding somehow. I made Forrest go start up the generator so I could publish.

Whacky Weather

The river is supposed to stay on the far   side of the line of trees..



Of the three routes available to us to get home only one has been open the past two days.  The others are under recording breaking flood waters.  The state highway that runs through the town where I teach is closed.  One lane of Interstate 5 is closed where it intersects with the state highway.  The schools in the town where I live are closed and voluntary evacuations are taking place.  The mayor declared an emergency and the firefighters are helping with the sandbagging efforts.  Buses in the town where I work are on limited routes due to mudslides, water over the roadways, and especially because of the closure of Highway 530.  My school and its neighborhoods are on higher ground so we have very few children missing today.  One other  school is cut-off from town and it also has no power.  Two of the other schools have very few children as the kids just can't get to town. We had a two hour late start so that the sun would be up and drivers could assess the roads better.  I  haven't talked to Noah or Alyssa yet to see how many of their friends were able to make it to school.  Forrest worked 13 hours yesterday inspecting and closing roads for Skagit County.  I have no idea how long he'll be out today.  I'm sure you've all seen some photos of Western Washington's flood waters since we've made the national news, but here are a few I took at 10:00 AM as the flood waters were cresting.