Rainy day thoughts...

Yes, it's still raining. I'm pretty much done with rain, thank you very much. Oy. To take my thoughts off of how much devastation has happened (is happening) all around me, here are some less weighty thoughts for the day...

- If you're local, here's your friendly reminder to check your basement window wells. My brother down in Longmont bailed his out this morning.

- All this crazy Colorado weather of the last few years has definitely opened my eyes to what I'd be looking for in the future in terms of land/home ownership...things like drainage and evacuation routes seem much more important.

- I'm bummed that I can't somehow make this week's rain "count" such that I wouldn't need to run the sprinklers for the rest of the season, lol. 

- I'm minutely concerned that all this rain is going to make the ground soggy enough that I should worry about our trees toppling and am thankful that our soil appears to have decent drainage.

- Though trying not to overreact, I'd be lying if I said that part of me isn't contemplating buying a bunch of plastic tubs to have on hand should we ever need to evacuate quickly...and actually putting together emergency kits/bags...and putting together an emergency binder with pertinent information. Don't laugh. :)

- Poor worms. ;)

It's a bird...it's a plane...

It's Super Koaly!

Koaly has a new cape...courtesy of his "uncle" Noah...who so wanted a particular Pokemon card of Micah's that he creatively came up with this homemade, duct tape creation to trade Micah (who stubbornly wasn't interested in any of Noah's cards). ;)

Blame it on the rain...

Just updating here to say...

- Yes, much of northern Colorado is flooding.

- We're completely fine here at our house, though much of our town and nearby towns have road closures and damage aplenty.

- Looking at pictures of all the damage makes me so sad (particularly in areas so recently devastated by the wildfires and in the Rocky Mountain National Park area since we love to visit there). It's going to take a good while to clean this all up, and it has to stop raining first.

- My brother works down in Longmont (where flooding is worse). His house and family are all good, but he's out and about for work (and has been pretty much since the flooding started). He works for CenturyLink, so if you have phone and internet in the Longmont area, thank my brother. He was telling me tales yesterday of driving through roads with water up past his doors (and he's in one of the big utility trucks).

- Given the flooding in Longmont, Nathan's working from home, as he couldn't get to work anyhow.

- Even though local schools are closed (along with many businesses), yes, we're still doing school today. ;) Ha!

That was all. :) Hope everyone's staying safe and dry!

Koaly & gang, karate belts and a portable hug

Last Christmas, I bought Micah a stuffed koala. Koaly has become a member of the family and has been joined by ten adopted siblings now. Micah takes his job as their daddy very, very seriously. ;) Last week he took a group picture of them, captioned it "group picture of my kids" and texted it to me. He then asked me to make a print so he could hang it in his room. Because I didn't think the iPod photo would enlarge very well...and because who can resist a sweet request like that...and because he was rather sad at leaving (them) to go camping, on Friday while he was out I took a new group picture, made an 8x10 print for him, framed it and set it on his desk.

Aren't they cute? ;) By the way, Micah also made a list of all their birthdays (the dates he got them...which, yes, required some searching through receipts and calendars but which we succeeded in pinpointing accurately, lol). They each have their own room in his bedroom (yay for cardboard boxes and imagination!), plus a number of common areas like the kitchen and family room. (Fortunately, things like frisbees and pillowcases make perfectly suitable beds and blankets, lol.)

He's still adopting, by the way. Next on his list are a stuffed penguin, dolphin and monkey. I don't know why. ;)

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In cleaning Micah's bedroom over the weekend (because the loose legos and the bedrooms for his "kids" had gotten out of hand, lol), we managed to update his karate belt situation. His hanging belt display was more than full, so we took out all the striped belts (intermediate steps between solid colored belts) and managed to fit them perfectly in this shadow box to set in his closet. Pretty pleased with how it came out. :)

(The solid white, yellow, orange and green belts are still on his hanging belt rack on a different wall. He's hoping to add his new purple belt to the rack by year's end, lol.)

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I caved and bought Micah a "portable hug" over the weekend. Because, dude, little boys who call these "portable hugs" and run in delight to hug them whenever they seem them in stores for the past few months ought to have one for their very own.

Micah's a happy boy. ;)

Chambers Lake

So, in efforts to make happier memories (than their initial backpacking trip) and get in at least one more camping trip before our weekends become crazy, Nathan took the boys camping at Chambers Lake last weekend. Given time restraints and the goal of the weekend, he opted to do campsite camping rather than backpacking in. With the promise of actual restrooms and a campfire, Noah agreed to go this time, too...which Nathan says ended up being a huge help. :)

The boys all took off Friday morning after a bit of last minute packing (ie throwing things in the van, lol). They arrived at the site, picked a great spot at the end of the campground peninsula and set up camp. Apparently there was a good bit of throwing rocks in the lake and skipping stones and such. That night, they made smores and played poker. Good guy bonding all around. ;) 

Saturday, they had a camp breakfast of bacon and eggs then set out on a hike to another nearby lake. Micah would like to remind everyone that he specifically requested/demanded a shorter hike than last time. But, this hike was about 6 miles each way. There was some complaining on the way there. And rain at times. But. They managed to have a good time while there, ate lunch and headed back with happy anticipation of their campfire and improved moods. 

Sadly, though, the scattered showers made for a moat of sorts around the campfire...making it unreachable for the night. :( In light of that, Nathan and the boys opted to head home rather than spend the night again. They got home about 9:30 Saturday night and we managed to get them all showered and mostly unloaded before heading to bed. The next night (after a pretty productive Sunday such that I couldn't even be too upset at them interrupting my alone time, lol) we made smores in the oven and played some poker to make up for Saturday night. And all was good. :)