Flooding

I'm sure those of you who live around here are well aware that we have had a LOT of rain and storms lately, for those who don't....we have! I even saw one of the top stories on cnn.com was from Franklin, Indiana (just 15 minutes south of us).

The rain that started sometime in the early morning hours on Saturday and came down up until around noon on Saturday seemed to tip the scales. As we watched the rain come down from our house, I was surprised to see the street flooding outside...



Once the rain stopped and the sun came out, we decided to get out for a walk since we had been cooped up inside all morning. We were surprised to find more flooding when we left the subdivision...







Still not realizing how bad things really were, I decided to go to Lowe's to buy a new grill. It took me over an hour to get up to Lowe's at Madison and County Line Road. There were many intersections that were closed or impassable. It was while I was driving tht I first started hearing on the radio how bad things really were, and about the state of emergency that had been declared.

Our church was cancelled this morning, partly because of the flooding and partly because they just put another coat of varnish on the new hardwood gym floor...but mainly because of the flooding. The Bishop tried yesterday for an hour and half to get to the church and couldn't make it.

Around noon today, I got a phone call that one of our ward member's homes had flooded (she's on vacation) and they were looking for wet vacs to help clean it up. I loaded up and went over there to find an unbelieveable mess in this community. It is a community of duplexes, sort of like those 55 and over communities, but we did see some younger people living there. Water had been inside many of the homes. When I arrived they had just finished pulling the carpet up out of the neighbor's house and were just getting ready to pull it up in the home I went to help with. We ended up helping a number of other residents in the neighborhood. There was mud EVERYWHERE. One house in particular had laminate floors and the mud was very thick. Yuck!

If you'd like to see the rest of the pictures from the flood click here to see the rest of the album.

Finally, Some Pictures (and Videos) of the Twins

I've gotten some complaints recently that I haven't been posting enough stuff about Hannah and Noah lately. Well, not really complaints, but you know what I mean. I decided to put up some pictures and a couple of videos for your enjoyment. These first four shots highlight Hannah and Noah as they prepare for their future modeling careers.





These next couple of shots are from our trip to the zoo on Saturday morning.




Finally, here are a couple of videos I shot here at home this evening. Hannah and Noah show of their tumbling talents in the first one, and the second one is proof positive that Noah has some athletic abilities. (Who knows where that came from...)

Day of Service

It's been a while. The business of spring and summer has started; I love it!

Today was a cool day at work. We had a "Global Day of Service." My department got to participate in a mural painting project. It is being submitted to the Guiness Book of World Records for the largest paint-by-number in the world. I think it was over 1,000 feet long.

Over 8,000 Lilly employees participated in Indianapolis alone. Employees all over the world participated as well.

Here's a link to an article from the Indianpolis Star. I don't know how long it will be available, so sorry if the link is broken.

Colorado Springs

Elizabeth and I had a wonderful trip to Colorado Springs this past week. I was there for a conference Monday through Wednesday, but we flew out on Saturday to enjoy a bit more time away. It was the longest we have ever left Hannah and Noah, so as you can imagine we were quite nervous. It was a much needed break though.

I took 227 pictures while we were out there. That's the positive and negative side about digital. It's nice to be able to take as many pictures as you want without having to worry about how much you are spending on film, but sometimes you end up with more pictures than you know what to do with. I've shared quite a few pictures below, but here's the entire gallery if you'd like to see more.

If I haven't ever mentioned it before, I LOVE the Rocky Mountains! I have been in love with the mountains ever since my first trip out to Philmont when I was a young scout. Colorado Springs was beautiful with lots to do. The resort (The Broadmoor) was amazing! Each of us enjoyed a spa treatment while we were there. I had a great massage and Elizabeth had some weird thing with spices that included a massage. (Hers wasn't really that weird, I just made fun of her a lot.)

The weather was fabulous. It was in the 70's and almost 80 on Monday and Tuesday. Of course, they were predicting up to 10 inches of snow on Wednesday night right after we left.

You may have also heard about a couple of wildfires that happened while we were out there. One of the fires killed three people and destroyed several homes. We could see the smoke from the resort on Tuesday evening.

Probably my favorite thing of the whole trip was our ride on the Manitou and Pike's Peak Cog Railway that took us up Pike's Peak. Unfortunately, the wind was howling and we couldn't make it to the summit, but we did make it up to about 12,500 feet and had an amazing view.

Here are some pictures from the trip up the mountain.





This next picture was taken on one of the steepest parts of the ascent. The trees you see are growing straight up and down, so you can compare that with the angle of the window to get an idea of how steep it was. The train was long enough, that when combined with the grade, the front of the train was over 3 stories higher than the back of the train! Pretty cool. That's Colorado Springs down on the plains below.


Once we crossed the timber line we started seeing a lot more snow. Their snow "plow" which works more like a snow blower was clearing the way for us.


Talk about a lot of snow!


The mountain range in the distance in this next picture of the mountains of the Continental Divide. They are over 100 miles away!



Another cool place that we visited is called the Garden of the Gods. It's a bunch of really cool rock formations that seem to grow out of nowhere. It was very cool!




Here's some shots I took around the resort.

Marshmallow Game

If you don't ever watch Ellen, you've probably not seen her version of the marshmallow game. Apparently there's a whole TV show dedicated to this somewhere is Asia. I laughed so hard I cried the first time I saw it. It's not quite the same without all of the lead-in, but I think you'll still get the gist. Enjoy!