The Great Flood of 2010

We all love a bit of entertainment to break up a long work day. Fortunately, the construction right outside the office provides plenty of it. The latest...a broken water pipe leading to...you guessed it...a flood.

This is shortly after the flood started, and BEFORE the construction workers actually noticed the water.

And then just a few minutes later...

Within half an hour...

And still going strong! I'll keep you posted!

Skateboard Drama

There is nothing like a warm, relaxing evening to put you in a good mood. And there is nothing like a border collie blonde moment to take you out of that mood, and put you into a post anxiety-attack grumpy mood. Friday evening started out wonderfully. We went out to dinner. Chile's was our restaurant choice for the evening. Apparently we were in the mood to gain a few extra pounds, and I was craving (in the oh-not-so-pregnant way) a big juicy hamburger.

After dinner we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather by relaxing on the lawn. Aside from the ugly white fence dividing our yard from our neighbor's, our front yard is a pretty nice place to be. So we hooked Toby up to the long leash and went outside.

Shena is usually very well behaved, and seems to hate leaving the yard, so we left her off leash. We though it would be good practice for her. She comes pretty reliably, and we'd done this before, so we figured that all would be well.

Oh how wrong we were. Shena was well-behaved, for the most part, but she has a major flaw - she is terrified of skateboards. We did not see the teenagers coming before Shena was on her way toward them at full speed. She ran immediately for the skateboarder, nipping at him to try and get him off the skateboard. Bad idea Shena. Of course I panicked, because Shena has already (wrongly) had animal control called on her once before. Now she was biting at teenagers? She didn't hurt the kid, of course. Her intention was to rescue him from the evil skateboard, not to actually bite him. And, luckily, animal control did not have to get involved.

But something had to be done about Shena's aversion to skateboards. So we took drastic measures. We borrowed my sister's skateboard and put her on the leash. Josh rode the skateboard back and forth, and she went crazy! I had a bucket-full of treats on hand to reward her when she was calm. At first she wasn't even interested in the treats, but eventually she did stop barking and yanking on the leash.

We've still got a long way to go. She is decidedly unhappy about the skateboard's presence in our house, and spent all day giving me this look:

Well, she will just have to deal with the skateboard, because it's not going anywhere...and it will be ridden again. Oh Shena.

"Accidentally Cool"

I had to share this picture! The second bud of my lilies bloomed this morning, so I snapped a quick shot with my cell phone. The lighting turned out fantastic! Beautiful bright orange flowers against a dark background. I got a totally cool picture, completely by accident!

Welcome Summer!

The summer solstice was just a few days ago, and so far we've kicked off the summer with some nice hot weather. After a rainy month, I must admit I'm glad to see the sun again. The only drawback is that the dojo heats up like an oven these days, and it doesn't seem like the water has been hooked up to the swamp cooler there. Yikes!

To celebrate the official arrival of summer, my first lily bloomed! Since my thumb is not exactly green (it leans towards black), I was very excited to see the first of my bulbs actually come to life. I have a few lily plants sprouting, but so far this is the only bloom.

The blooms came in "assorted colors" so I had no idea what color this flower would be. It turned out to be a fantastically bright orange, as you can see. I haven't seen a single sign of a freesia or gladiola plant yet, so maybe they won't be coming up this year. I can probably blame the neighborhood cats for that one, since they seem to think my little flower garden makes a nice litter box.

Also to kick off the summer, Josh has been studying hard for the math accuplacer test, to see if he can get out of his math class. He needs a C or better to test out of the class, and that's what we're praying for. He'll be taking the test in the next couple of weeks. As for me, nothing is really new. I just finished up a writing assignment and am looking forward to getting paid for it so that I can buy a new swim suit for our Bear Lake trip (or perhaps new brake pads for my car?). Other than that it's just work work work. At least I have a job though, and in this economy that's something to be thankful for.

I want one of these!

I just found out that these cute little guys existed, and that they are actually quite popular pets. And I can see why. SO CUTE!! They're called sugar gliders - due to their ability to glide - and they fall into the marisupial (no I can't spell that) family. Did I mention CUTE!?

Food from a Galaxy Far Far Away...

Josh and I have been eyeing these fantastic pancake molds (thanks, Leah, for pointing them out to me!), and can't wait to get our hands on them. One of our favorite dinner meals consists of:

Pancakes, French Toast, or Waffles

Scrambled eggs sprinkled with cheese

Sausage

Cheesy Hashbrowns

Fattening? Maybe, but so tasty! What a great way to add more "character" (no pun intended, really) to our dinner breakfasts! And imagine in the future, when my children's friends brag about the Mickey Mouse pancakes their mothers make them...what a fun thing my kids can say! "Oh yeah? Well my mom makes me Yoda pancakes!" Ha ha ha ha...

Winding Down

Well, as I said it was a very busy week, with one cousin's birthday, one cousin's wedding, and another cousin's homecoming (all brothers and sister, by the way). There hasn't been much time for anything else.

Andrea's wedding was lots of fun, and the couple looked great!

They had a cute polka-dot cake, and colorful decorations. We also had a lot of fun goofing off with our cameras at the temple. Here are a few samples:

We also went to Joshua's homecoming on Sunday. He gave a great talk, and there was good food afterward! Things did not slow down for us Monday either. We were up bright and early for a trip up the canyon for breakfast with Josh's family. It's a Memorial Day tradition that is lots of fun. There was hot chocolate (thank goodness) and a warm fire, along with pancakes, french toast, eggs, hash browns, bacon, sausage, and fresh fruit! It's a lot of food, but of course you can't forget dessert! In this case we had the ultimate campground dessert: roasted marshmallows or S'mores. Yum!

We are looking forward to a calm few weeks now. In other news, we finally purchased a new vacuum cleaner - one that actually vacuums. Yay for Memorial Day sales, and so long dog fur!