Wednesday, December 26, 2007

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, or am I?

If you haven't heard yet we had a white Christmas this year. We got up around 9:00 AM and made breakfast and opened gifts. When all the gifts were open I thought that we could take the cardboard and paper out to the burn pit in the back yard before it started to rain. when I looked outside i saw the first flakes starting to fall. I told Try and he could not believe it he thought that I was kidding around. In all we received about an inch of snow.

At around 2:00 PM we we climbed into the Chevy and wade the short trip down the hill to my mom's house for dinner and cheesecake. Toby received all kinds of clothes and toys. He even tried to open a few gifts by himself you know by slobbering on them until the paper was soft enough that it would just fall apart.

After the festivities with Grandma Debi and Grandpa Joe whe payed a visit to the Cash house to see Tom and Ester. They has company over and we cought them just in time for dinner. We had been invited to share in the feast but we were so stuffed from eating earlier in the day. Toby seemed to be really hot at Toms so we stripped himn down to his skivies and he decided to take a nap.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I know we sure did. This was by far my favorite Christmas so far. I can not wait until next year, I have already started shopping for new things for Toby to open. I want to thank everyone for making this a year to remember.

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Silent night,

Well it is the night before Christmas and all the presets are wrapped and under the tree. Toby is in his Christmas PJ's and he has gone to bed. I can't wait until morning as usual. This is my absolute favorite day in the whole year. I never sleep on Christmas Eve.

Any way here are some photos from this evening.







Saturday, December 22, 2007

Busy, Busy

My goodness it seems like only a minute has passed and here it has been almost three whole weeks. For those of you that wished that i would update faster I do apologize.

Well here it is, to start after I had last updated Toby spent his first night over at Grandma Debi's and Grandpa Joe's to give me a night off for my birthday. He did really good he whent to bed on time and I was there in the morning when he woke up.

After that he caught a little cold that lasted the next week and since I am around him and his drooly fingers 24/7 I caught the little bug. We were both sick for one whole week, it was awful. I tell ya,there is nothing worse than caring for a sick fussy baby when you yourself feel; the same way as they do. However we both made it through it.

This week I have been really busy with property inspections due to both the flooding and the unfortunate rise in foreclosures. This week alone I had 30 reports just for foreclosures and 20 for disaster damage. Toby and i spent most of Wednesday and Thursday in the car. Probably about 14 hours overall this week until Friday. On Friday we did not go anywhere for work but we did make it to aunt Paula's house for dinner and presents.

Today i spent 10 hours in the car driving around finishing up my inspection. Thank goodness for my mom and Joe. they watched Toby all day, I don't think he would have done one more day out on the road with me. As it was on Thursday he was so mad at me and Friday he did not want to be in his car seat for the short ride to Paula's.

I still have a lot of work to do on the computer and one more day of driving around but nothing like the past three trips. I have to get all of my work done by close of business Eastern time Monday, which isn't even a full day so really I have until 11:00 AM Pacific Time. This wouldn't be so bad but all of the sites are down and I am at a stand still with about 2 whole days work to submit.

As for the damage report from our storm our road will be closed until late spring early summer. I take this as being more like late summer early fall, you know county projects never go as planned. I have driven around the canal twice since the storm and i can not believe the damage. Some places you would not even recognise. I saw a house today that had been ripped in half by a landslide that had occurred in the back yard. It was the craziest thing I have ever seen the house was just bent like a toothpick with its siding all splintered outward. The saddest part about this was that i had seen the home owners over the summer re-side and install new windows.

Any way, for those of you who need to see pictures here are some of the latest of the Tobester.







Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Wow, What Weather We Have Had

Well if you haven't hear or if you are not in the area, what a crazy weekend and beginning to this week it has been. It all started on Saturday morning wee woke at 6:00 Am to snow it seemed a little early in the season it only being the 1st of December but it had snowed on Tuesday but not enough to stick around it just fell from the sky but it did;t stick to anything. Well this snow was sticking and it was falling and sticking fast.



We had a birthday party to go to it was Kierens Birth Day party Toby's cousin we couldn't miss it.



By the time we came home from Aunt Paula's house we had 5 inches of snow. Around 10 O'clock Saturday night the snow had turned to rain and we thought that it was the end and that by morning the snow would be history. Boy were we ever wrong. When we woke on Sunday morning it was snowing harder than the day before by the end of it all we had received over a foot of snow.







Late Sunday night it tuned to rain and that is when the craziness began.
Monday morning I was out early shoveling trenches in our yard to divert the rain and snow drainage away from our septic tank as it was starting to overflow, YUCK!!! After being outside after only 2 minutes in a thick jacket i was soaked to the bone. Poor Scotch Dog tried to hide from the rain under the deck in the back yard but the wind just blew the water right onto him, poor thing. Our closest neighbor had her basement flooded with three feet of water and her yard and the driveway leading directly to our house was a lake. I wish I had taken a picture but I don't think it would have turned out I only have one with snow.



This whole area where the deep snow is, is where the water was it was about 1.5 feet deep in the driveway and more on either side.



This is one of our neighbor's houses after the water started to recede a little. This Gray house sits right next to our driveway and the water was in their basement. There is a small creek to the left of the house that under normal weather conditions you would not even know it was there.



This is the creek bed to the west of the house above. This is about 20 yards from our driveway. Just to the right (not shown) the road is starting to go down into an embankment. I walked past it today on the way to the corner store to see how bad it had gotten since yesterday, the dirt is completely washed away from under the pavement and the road is closed at our driveway to Clear Creek Road until further notice.



This is the driveway right before ours there are two homes behind the white home that were fully engulfed in water.



This is a picture of the Marine gate of Bangor Naval Base look to the north, it does not do it justice. If you could have only seen it. There is a large storm drain outlet just south of the gate that was shooting water out as if it were a fire hose. Just imagine this drainage outlet is a four foot by 2 foot outlet and it was spewing water out at an astonishing rate.



This is a single wide manufactured home located on the west side of Clear Creek Rd across the street from our corner store. In all I believe that at least a square half mile of property was under water in this area. It was incredible, I have never seen anything like it. If you think that this was Clear Creek that did this you, are wrong. It was just a small stream that feeds into Clear Creek downstream a little ways closer to Silverdale that did this damage. If you were to see Clear Creek at Mountain View on Monday you would have thought that it was the small stream. Clear Creek itself did not crest its banks hardly at all.

Well I will keep you all poosted on the damge as we are still getting hit with some pretty hard winds.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Oh Glorious Heat!



Well it has been a while since I last posted, Thanksgiving has come and gone and i have not had much time as Toby has become quite needy latley. Anyway Stan and Beaver sent Troy home from his hunting trip with a new pellet stove for our house and I am lovin' it. Our house it so warm now and I hope that our power bill decreeses some. Our power bill can be a bit out of control in the winter time due to stupid baseboard heat and small inifficient heat sources such as electric space heaters. Last year I swear we wasted at least $1,000 on heating our house.



Well anyway we are set for the christmas season Aunt Paula gave us a really nice little fiber optic Christmas tree it is really pretty. Toby has a few gifts so far. We will be making the trip accross the mountains to Stan and Beavers house on the 21st of December and most likley staying until wednesday that week.


Monday, November 19, 2007

A Weekend Without Daddy



Well Toby and I spent our first weekend home alone without Troy. He left on Friday to go over to Stan and Beaver's house to try and get his white tail buck. Unfortunately he didn't get it but that is only because Stan shot it on Thursday.



On Saturday I took Toby to go take pictures for work and we stopped by my moms house for a little bit. On Sunday we spent most of the day with my mom shopping and just hangin' out at her house. When Troy got home Toby spent some time in his new baby seat he decided that he likes it for now, he especially likes the Watermelon tray liner.



Well today was back to usual except for one thing. The filter on my gigantic 50 gallon fish tank failed on Friday and I had to do a thorough cleaning today because my fish were starting to suffer the consequences. Oh my goodness I forgot why I hat cleaning a the fish tanks in the winter. Instead of just hooking up a hose and a siphon and running everything outside I have to empty the tank into buckets and carry them into the bathroom to empty them into the bathtub. After that I have to Take all of the gravel out and rinse it a few pounds at a time. When this is all done then it the task is to refill the tank bucket by bucket. I think in all it is something like 60 round trips to the bathroom. Anyway it feels like a lot, it took me 4 hours where in the summer it takes only about 1.5 hours. Oh well my fish are happy again and Toby is happy that he can watch them.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Presents!



Toby turned 3 months old yesterday and the UPS guy came to our house with stuff for him. He got his new Bebe Pod chair and some other stuff he will get for Christmas. The chair is his now though. He can't decide if he likes it or not, I guess only time will tell.



It has been this way with everything that he has, like his bouncy seat he hated it, then he liked it, then he hated it, but now he likes it again.
Poor Toby had a fever yesterday and today and his ears have been bugging him. He pulled on one of them so hard that it cracked. This is no way to spend a B-Day.

Monday, November 12, 2007

The Blustery Day

Well Toby and I made it through the small windstorm that we had. Our power flickered a few times and few branches from the many tall trees in our yard fall but nothing to bad. I always worry about that stuff, I hate the wind. Toby and I stayed in the back room of the house for most of the day. I feel that this is the safest room in the house. He talked a lot you know baby talk. He is too cut. I just know that when he finally starts to form real words he will always have something to say.


Toby spent most of his day hangin' out with his kitten Leonard. We did make it out to go to Costco with Grandma Snyder and Grandpa Joe.



At the end of the day it was time to take a hard nap with his frog teether.

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Ta Dah

Well I finally got this up and running. I will try to keep it as up to date as I can.


If you haven't talked to us in a while here's the scoop. Toby will be 3 months old this tuesday, man time flys I can't believe how fast he is growing. I wish that he could stay little forever but I know that is impossible. We whent to Stan and Beaver's for deer hunting season last month I got my deer while Troy hung out with his mom and Toby. Troy will be going to get his White Tail Buck next weekend. I will be staying behind so I can See Kaelee and the girls before they go to Texas.