Snow Boys

Yesterday, Brian took the boys up 80 to the Sierras to play in the snow. I stayed home (I hate snow) and scrubbed the tub and stuff like that. He said he ended up holding Nathaniel most of the time because he just liked to run off :) They took a few pictures and several videos with the digital camera...I'll put a few here.

back tracking part 1

I never got around to posting pictures from Christmas...so here are a few from Christmas Eve when my Uncle Brian and his wife Linda came over for dinner. Here's Nathaniel eating his pumpkin pie. And Carrie feeding him something.

Here are both boys with their new stuffed animals that you can record messages on...Joshua's is a puppy - perfect since he's going through a puppy stage. (Since I've told him we're NOT getting another dog, he's collecting stuffed ones).

Nathaniel also got some new blocks from Great-Uncle Brian and Aunt Linda...thought that the signs (and all the rest) were pretty cool. He also discovered that Great-Uncle Bri has a mustache...just like Great-Grandpa Ken does and that

just fascinated him!

A few pictures

Here are the pictures of our "campout" a couple of weeks ago when we were without power and rain had seeped in onto the boys' floor...the rest of us were up by this point (and the power had come back on) but Nathaniel was still sleeping. We slept like this on the living room floor for two nights.

Here's a picture of Brian and the boys playing a little Star Wars video type game that hooks up to the TV. It's pretty cool - it's even shaped like the Millenium Falcon :)

No Nap Kid

Blogger wouldn't upload the pictures yesterday, so finally today they let me!

Yesterday (Monday), Nathaniel wouldn't take a nap. When he came into our room yesterday morning, it was still kind of early and it was cold and so was he! So I just pulled him into bed with us and snuggled him and he went back to sleep. Well, he slept until after 8am...so I knew he wouldn't take his usual nap at 1145 (falling asleep in the car as we came home from taking Joshua to school) and I was right. However, he wouldn't nap at all! Finally around 2 I gave up trying because we had to go pick up Joshua at 3. Well, around 4, Joshua was watching a short video, I had to go to the bathroom and Nathaniel was playing with Joshua's quiet book that he "discovered" this weekend. When I came back out to the living room about 15 minutes later, I asked Joshua what Nathaniel was doing lying on the floor and please don't let him be asleep. Well, he was! Joshua's video was over, so I turned on the CDs that the boys have been listening to and turned the volume down a little bit, but not quiet and told Joshua that we didn't have to be really quiet because I didn't want him sleeping too long that late in the afternoon. He woke up a little after 5 very disoriented.

It was cute...he'd fallen asleep on top of the quiet book with one of the parts in his hand. Joshua went and got him a teddy bear to hold in his sleep. Needless to say, he didn't go to bed very early last night and didn't sleep that well anyway. Hopefully today will be better. He usually falls asleep after eating lunch in the car after storytime...and when we drop Joshua off. I hope he takes a long nap. I've got tons of stuff to do. Of course, it'll all be shot because the AAA person is supposed to come (Finally!) and take pictures of our damaged cars between 12 and 3.

Our Latest Excitement...

Last night, about quarter to 9, Brian and I were watching "Deal or No Deal" and Nathaniel had just fallen asleep. Suddenly, we heard crashing sounds outside and then squealing tires...not sounds you like to hear when you have 2 cars parked in the street in front of your house. Brian went out...and never came back in. I put Nathaniel in bed and made sure Joshua was still asleep, got a flashlight and my slippers and the garbage (which needed to go out anyway) and went out. Brian was a couple houses up the street talking to some people...and there were quite a few people out on our street for that time of night. Both of our cars had been hit, our neighbor's work truck had been dinged and the neighbor on their other side had had a car hit. And of course, the person who had done this had taken off. The two other guys had taken off in their trucks after them...Brian wanted to follow, but hung around a bit longer and after a police car came barreling by with lights flashing and one of the guys called his wife and told him they'd caught the kids and where they were at, Brian went over too. Turns out that some stupid 17 year old kid was very very drunk and was driving...his 21 year old passenger was also very very drunk. They hit our Explorer (that we're wanting to sell) and cracked the rear left light and made a lovely groove down the side of the car...then, my poor little Sentra...they cracked the rear left light on it, scraped the sides and took off the driver's side mirror. Two house up they smashed in the left rear corner of their vehicle - which they'd been planning on taking to Carmax to sell on Saturday.

I think Brian said that there were 2 local policemen (I think we only have three), 2 Sheriffs and 1 CHP car at the kid's house...they don't live that far from us...and had pulled into their driveway when our neighbors caught up with them and removed the keys from their ignition. The kid is going to be charged with DUI and underaged drinking...hit and run or fleeing the scene of a crime and resisting arrest because both kids took off running when the police got there and tried to get away.

Brian took Joshua out this morning and showed him what had happened. We've told Joshua that drinking alcoholic drinks are bad for your body and not good for you...this kind of took that lesson a little further and Brian explained that it messes with your brain too...the kid wasn't able to drive right and then didn't make a good choice with running away from what he'd done instead of stopping and taking care of things.

I'm just glad that it didn't happen half an hour or so earlier...or that Brian wasn't half an hour or so later coming home from work, because he drove the Explorer and I'm sure they wouldn't even have noticed if they'd hit someone the way they were driving. Here are some pictures I took last night and Brian took this morning.

A little water, anyone?

Well, our big storm hit Friday. By the time Brian left for work a little after 8 am, the sidewalk was totally covered in water (as well as the entire street minus a narrow strip down the center) and he had to come back and put old shoes on so he didn't get his good ones all wet. By the time he got to work in Davis, I'd discovered that the floor in the boys' room was wet...water was seeping in between the floor and the baseboard under the window. So after calling him to let him know (and finding out that he was without power in Davis and so would be returning home anyway), I pulled on some clothes and went outside to see if I could see where the water was coming from...well, whenever it rains our backyard seems to flood to some degree - our patio is always under water. Well, the whole side yard (I use the term yard loosely since we don't really have a backyard...no grass, really) was basically flooded. I stepped in one spot that went up over my ankles. The water was pouring out of the gutter right over the boys window and there was a huge puddle there. So I attempted to dig a trench, but could hardly see due to the water covering my glasses and the wind. I went back into the boys and moved a small bookshelf in their room that was under the window to try and assess how wet the carpet was. I used some towels to soak up what water I could and cleared out the stuff under the bunk beds. I also called our hometeacher (who is also one of Brian's counselors in the Elders Quorum presidency) to see if he happened to be home. He was and said he could come help. I knew Brian wouldn't call for any help, but being has he was fighting off a sinus infection and we couldn't leave the boys unattended for that long alone in the house, I knew we needed some help. So between Brian and Bill they dug trenches to direct the water out of the yard and down the driveway and into the street (which was flooded anyway, so no big deal) and cleaned out the drains so that the water would go down the downspouts instead of over the sides of the gutters. Bill went back to his house and got his sump pump which we also used and was a huge help. I continued to move stuff in the room and peridoically change towels. I just dumped the wet ones in the tub, because I was sure we'd eventually lose power...the wind was horrendous. And sure enough, just as Bill was heading home and all the power went out...and didn't come back on until quarter to 5 the next morning...so we were without power for about 17 hours. No power meant no fans or anything to dry out a bedroom floor. Around 5 pm Friday night we decided to go down to Vacaville to get some dinner and maybe some more batteries...well, 505 to Vacaville was closed, but half of town did have power - luckily the half of town that has our three main resturants. So we went to Cody's and got some dinner and then went back to our cold dark house. We "camped out" in the living room on air mattresses. The boys thought it was great...yeah, well, at least we were dry and kind of warm. It could've been so much worse.

With the power back on yesterday, I was able to get some laundry done and vacuum the house. We turned on fans as soon as the electricity came back on early Saturday morning and by evening the floor was quite a bit dryer (Brian also used the carpet cleaner's hand attachment to suck as much water out of the carpet as he could), but not quite dry enough for the boys. So night 2 of Camp Living Room. At least we had real lights and stuff last night and we were quite a bit warmer...until the power went out again at 4 am this morning! Brian went to his early meetings at church at 730, and called back to say that if the power wasn't back on by 845 (church starts at 930), church would be cancelled. Well, the power came back on at 810 this morning. Another storm is supposed to be coming, so we'll see what it brings. Yesterday and last night's rain didn't seem to affect the boys' room, so hopefully tonight we'll all be back in our own beds as we have the fans blowing back on the carpet and it seems to be much much drier. I know this is nothing like flooding that Brian's sister had up in Washington recently or many others have had, but it was enough for us! I decided I was so not cut out to be a pioneer! I like my heat, my electricity, etc.

Here are a few pictures of Brian on Friday and our yard.

Happy New Year!!

Wow - 2008 already...time sure flies! I still have to put Christmas pictures and stuff on here. Today we spent taking down all the Christmas ornaments and reorganizing them so they'd be easier to deal with next year. Joshua helped Brian take down our outdoor lights while Nathaniel and I did the dishes. I totaled up my Books Read in 2007 today...156 books...that averages out to 13 books a month or 3 books a week. I still have to total up my Scrapbook Pages done in 2007...that'll be something I'll do tomorrow because I have a bunch that I haven't listed on here yet. Hope everyone had a Happy New Year and will continue to do so.