The Hawkins Boy House Sitting Service

We house-sat for my boss and his wife last week. Ever since they built this new big fancy house, we've been waiting for them to go out of town. Unfortunately, they had an unexpected death in the family, which brought this on sooner than we thought. Nice to know we could help them out, while soaking up a mini vacation. They have a private guest suite with living room, bathroom and 2 bedrooms, all decorated in the style of a fancy B&B. Bevan enjoyed endless World Cup watching opportunities on their new high-def big screen while I ran around like a crazy woman trying to keep the company going while neglecting my office duties. It all worked out though and life is now back to normal. Whenever we do this, it always reminds me of that SNL sketch with Adam Sandler and Chris Farley doing the Herlihy Boy House Sitting Service. Funny Stuff!

"Let me bring in your mail!"

"Let me water your plants!" They had LOTS of plants

"Let me sleep in your bed!" or the huge guest suite bed

"Let me move in with you!" Soccer is not over yet

Can Bevan outrun an ice cream sandwich?!

I'm sorry to admit that I don't do a whole lot of running anymore. With Bevan working 4 10-hour days, it leaves for little time in the evenings with everything else that needs to be done. I figure with all the running around I do at work (combined with quick walks in the evenings and weekends), I'm getting plenty of exercise. Whenever a chance comes up to support a friend and run/ walk for a cause, we're all for it! This has included SMA , Lupus , and now Hemophilia. The secretary in our Primary has a son with the disease and we got on board with the local chapter's 5k. What a blast! Fat Boy ice cream was a major sponsor and if you could beat the guy dressed in the ice cream sandwich outfit, you won a free box of Fat Boys! This was motivation enough for Bevan who left the guy in the dust! I on the other hand decided to take it easy. Pretty much no training and current conditions found me finishing in about 28:34, which is better than I thought. It still got me a nifty medal and t-shirt. Bevan got all that plus the ice cream sandwiches. He finished somewhere around 21 minutes, but who really keeps track. He did come in 11th place overall, but they only recognized the top 5, 3 of which were on the local highschool track team. Overall it was a great way to spend a Saturday morning. Thanks Britni for all the fun!

The bridge is safe!!!

I was all sort of worried last week when we left for work and a huge log had jammed our bridge. We worked the whole day in suspense wondering how we'd get home. Well... we rounded the corner on 1000 east and saw half a dozen parked cars (not a good sign). Above the cars I saw a huge dump truck that was actually blocking the view of the bridge. At first I panicked, but then we jumped out and walked around the dump truck. It was still there! All the stream bank vegetation was gone to make room for the improvements, which is why it looked so bare. The neighbors and their parked cars weren't stranded, just gawking. They probably laughed when they saw my concern. A huge track hoe had been there all day laying 3'-4' boulders along the bank, filling in behind with cobble and gravel, not to mention pulling out any debris trapped against the bridge. I wondered, "Wow, was this the county's doing?" No, Victory Ranch! They didn't like all the flooding upstream and the possibility of a bridge washing out on their property, so they brought all their equipment (probably not being used anyway at the moment) and helped us out! They stopped the flooding upstream and secured the banks. What nice neighbors!




Of course the runoff peaked that night and has since tapered off. Everything is back to normal except our river is now 15' wider than it used to be. Bring on fishing season!

Where did all the snow go?!

I've been waiting to blog about our bridge situation because it keeps getting more and more exciting every day! The river started getting high several days ago, but we thought nothing about it. It was really warm. Then the floodplain adjacent to the river started flooding (imagine that), which started spilling over onto the road going in and out of our neighborhood. It got worse. The channel was about 10' wide and 16" deep, probably too deep for my little Civic so we've been taking the Subaru. THEN they brought in some rip rap to form it into a broader/shallower stream. Still pretty rough, but now it's 25' wide and only 5" deep!
We thought we were safe until this morning when we stopped to look at the bridge along with some other early-bird neighbors. A huge log has become jammed at the bridge, which has now started trapping more debris. The stream bank has eroded so much on either side of the bridge, there won't be much bank for the bridge to grab onto soon. The neighbors said there was a large track hoe on it's way to clear the bridge, but it could be several hours, if there's any bridge left. Woohoo! So exciting!
The sad part is that 2 years ago, when it wasn't this bad, we had the news out here! Now there's flooding everywhere else, and nobody cares about little Woodland.

I love the entrance to this driveway.

Flood waters next stop: Victory Ranch!

Not too bad.

This is after they IMPROVED the road!

Yesterday afternoon.

Yesterday evening.

This morning!!! It's hard to see the log jam, just the waves it creates.