To drain or not to drain

Last night they had another meeting at the high school to discuss where everyone is on building their sand bag walls and to discuss what our biggest concerns. While we are still waiting to see if the flood waters will reach us they are positive that the ground water will be a problem. So that means that all of our septic tanks could be compromised. About a week ago Jer and I discussed whether or not we should drain our septic tank and after hearing everyone's advice about the tank floating up and breaking through the ground, or draining it affecting the leech field (whatever that is) etc we decided not to drain but after last nights meeting I think it might be a good idea to empty it. It something is floating in my back yard I would rather it be water then poop!! So I had the septic guy come out and drain our tank. He said to let the water run for about an hour and we should be good but we will have to drain it again after the flood is all over.
Mike went to get the missionaries at 10 and to get some more water and gatorade. It is going to be 100 with high humidity so we will need to keep everyone hydrated. Mike said the Hamilton exit is closed...there is water on the road. I cleaned out Megan's room so we can move Mike and Amy's bed up stairs. We took down her bed, put her clothes in a suit case and all of her American Girl Dolls in a bin and took the furniture out to the garage.
I spent a large part of the morning looking for temporary housing. No one has anything available. I had heard that the University of South Dakota in Vermillion about 30 minutes away was offering temporary housing to flood people (I don't like to use the word victim). I called about 20 times and left 3 messages and they called back and we are going to rent a 4 bedroom with a kitchen for 200 per week. We are still not sure if we are going to have to leave but if we do I really needed the peace
of mind that we had some where to go and no to the Red Cross shelter at the high school gym. I will go up there tomorrow and pick up the key. They will rent it to use on a weekly basis so we will have it when we need it. It is furnished and so we won't have to bring a bunch of stuff with us.
We had dinner and the kids were going to go swimming at our neighbors pool and then Jer showed up with the missionaries (7 of them). They had been working all day with no food so I hurried and made then chicken tacos. We finally go to the pool at about 7:30. They kids were so happy to just swim and forget about all of the craziness around them. I am hoping tomorrow I can get the house in order so I can feel like there some normalcy here!

Sunday

Last night when Jer got home from helping our friends that live in the Dunes he told me that everyone in the Dunes were not being a bit over cautious by moving out of their house and leaving for the summer. The 5 dams to the Missouri river are overly full and so they are going to need to let water out of them so they don't break. They will start releasing the water next week and there is a good chance that the houses in the Dunes could be under water. My next question then was were we going to be affected by this? Jer said "possibly" . They still are not sure how high the water could get but It could possibly make it into Wynstone (where we live). We looked at the map and realized there could be a possible threat of flooding especially in our basement. So We spent the day moving all of my brothers stuff out of the basement (we moved it all in there yesterday) and then moving all of our stuff to the garage. My sister in laws piano was moved into the garage (it has been moved 3 times in the past two days). We moved all of the stuff in our storage room up to higher shelves. We moved my treadmill to the garage and the couches. I'm not sure if there is a real threat of us getting water into our basement but we thought we would move most of the stuff up high...just in case.

And it begins...

I got a phone call from a lady on our ward this afternoon who lives in the Dunes ( a community just up the road from us where a lot of our friends live). She was frantic!!! She said that her house was going to flood and she wanted to know if my brother (who had just moved here from Arizona yesterday still had her moving truck). He didn't have to take it back until Monday morning. He said he would be happy to let her use it. Jer and Mike went over to their house tonight to see really what was going on and if they could help. They were packing up everything they owned. They tore up the carpet in their basement and even took out their furnace. This is the first we have heard of any flooding in the area. The Missouri river has been pretty high but it was like that last summer.
While I was finishing my lesson for church tomorrow I got a text from Jer letting me know that church has been cancelled and that everyone needs be helping those who will be affected by the flood. Church cancelled??? Church never gets cancelled. I actually thought he was joking (Jer would cancel church every Sunday if he could:-) It wasn't until I got a text from another one of my friends in our ward that I realized church really was cancelled. Could this be something that we need to worry about???

Just a few more:-)

More pictures of Hawaii

Hawaii

It has been a month since we have been home but there is just something about Hawaii that deserves a blog post.
After some very cold months in the frozen tundra of South Dakota Jer and I sent out on a 9 day trip to Maui. We met our great friends J and T in LA and so we left late on Friday night and flew to LA. We spent the night in a boutique hotel on Sunset Blvd. We ate at a great sushi bar and we were in heaven.
We met J and T the next day at the airport and we flew straight to Maui.
We sent a week enjoying the sun, pool and the beach. We had some great meals. My favorite has to be Mama's Fish house. YUMMMM!! We went whale watching, zip-lining and even took the paddle longs boards out for a while. We snorkeled, read books and enjoyed each others company. A huge thanks to my sister for coming out and watching the kidos while we relaxed in paradise

Where have we been????

Totally a ligament question!!! It has almost been a year since I last posted anything to my blog. Life has slowed down considerably in last six months since we packed up our beautiful house in Cali and headed east....to South Dakota. Actually the Iowa, South Dakota, Nebraska border. YEP, it has been quite a change. We are doing well and have adjusted for the most part. We decided we like our dad being home more than the beautiful sunny weather in California so Jer took a job doing pain and anesthesia. We have LOVED having him home more. It has been such a great thing for our family.
My goal is to do better about blogging. There are so many crazy things that happen here that I really need to share them. So.. from now on I will be updating my blog a ton more. So stay tuned!!!

Dance-Dance-Dance

This one is for Uncle Jeffers!!!

Winter Skiing

One of the things we love about living here it how close we are to everything. There is a cute little ski resort about an hour and a half away. We bought season passes this year and we have gone up as much as Jer's schedule would allow. Our kids are becoming great skiers and one great boarder;-)

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Poulsen's Adventures: Way over due for an update!

thebohns-fakeittilyoumakeit.blogspot.com/

Way over due for an update!

It has been way too long since I have updated my blog. I have to say that while blogging is a fun past time there just seems to be so many things that have to get done before blogging that I just don't get around to it. I need to make a better effort to do it. However, I do have a great friend who is really good at keep up her blog. We do tons of things with them so if you want to see what we are up to you can check out her blog. In the mean time, I promise to be better about blogging. Such as our trip to Hawaii, swim team, Disneyland, school, soccer, Christmas, skiing and how much our family is growing ( up that is not in numbers:-)
Jen's blog: http://thebohns-fakeittilyoumakeit.blogspot.com/

For Nicole!

My good friend Nicole asked me about how we did Thriller. I told her I would put the video up so... here it is. I have to add that this was the second time we did the dance. The first time was PERFECT..the second time I made tons of mistake.
Nicole...I hope this helps:-)

Vegas Baby

With things so busy around here we decided we needed a little "adults trip" so us and two other couples (Rickards and McCauley) took off to Vegas. We got a great deal on a flight ($19 there and $29 coming home). I don 't know if I recommend flying when you pay so little...it was sort of a joke but the 45 minute flight to Vegas was uneventful). We stayed in the Hilton Vacation Suites (yes, Jer and I had to listen to a time share thing) but it was worth it.
We had a great time just hanging out at the pool, dancing, shopping and eating!!! We also had 3 row tickets to "O". It was amazing. There is nothing like a weekend away to energize you!! We can't wait to go back!

Spring time means...BaSeBaLL

For some reason spring time and baseball just seem to go hand in hand. Maybe because of spring training and all of the fun spring training games we went to in Arizona. We have traded games to the Mariners for games to the Tigers...no not the Detroit TIgers but the Buchanan Tigers!!! Zack decided to play Cal Ripken for Buchanan instead of Riverpark this year. He has done a great job at catcher. His batting has improved and he is enjoying it. His good friend Tyler in on his team. He also has some other good friends on other teams. Hopefully next year we can get them all on the same team. Go Tigers!!

The Great Race!

A few months ago my running buddies and I decided we needed a race to train for. We thought it would be nice to find a Saturday race and was pretty close to home so we started our search. We soon found The Great Race of Agoura Hills. After some very brief research we discovered that Agoura Hills was about 3 1/2 hours south of here so we all payed our entry fee and signed up. About a month later I was beginning to wonder a bit more about the race. I got online and started to do a bit more research regarding the race. I quickly found out that the race was VERY hilly ( is that even a word???). I began to panic. I am not a huge fan of running hills. While running in Michigan (were there are a ton of hills) my hill running mantra was "I LOVE HILLS" to help me make it up the hills. Well, there are not very many hills to train on here but we had already signed up so we kept training.

I kept reading online about the race. I found discussions about the hills and began to worry even more!! On person posted that there was one hill he couldn't even get his car up. Knowing this...we still pressed forward. The day before the race we drove to Agoura Hills and Jer asked if I wanted to drive the course. I declined...I believe that ignorance is bliss!! I woke up the next morning, ran through my pre-race routine and headed off to the starting line. We started the race (after freezing for about 40 minutes) and soon after we started we came to our first of MANY hills. We ran hill after hill after hill. It was CraZy!!!! Em and I ran all of the way together and made it up all the hills to the finish.

We made it in 2:18. Normally I wouldn't be too proud of this time but with all of the hills we ran I was so happy with our time. It was a Great Race and I was so very grateful for 2 cortisone shots (one in each of my hips) to get me through! I honestly think that it was mentally as challenging as a marathon!! Speaking of marathons...our running group is signed up and waiting to see if we get into the St George Marathon in the Fall. Wish us luck....:-)

A new Tag

So my friend tagged me with a new one. This picture was taken at the Jack Johnson concert in Michigan. We went with Kelli and Greg. I was pregnant with Megan and had about 4 weeks left. It was an outside concert and we were hanging out with all of these college co-eds who were smoking pot! It was crazy but such a fun concert.

It's photo tag; here are the rules:
1. Choose the 4th folder where you store your pictures on your computer.
2. Select the 4th picture in the folder.
3. Explain the picture.
4. Tag 4 people to do the same
I tag all my AA Northwood girls, Tiffany M, Haley, Heather E and Nicole F.

Winter Wonder Land

Jer and I were having a discussion about weather the other day. We decided Fresno has the BEST weather around. The thing we both love about it is there are 4 seasons but none of those 4 seasons are very harsh. The spring is beautiful with all of the tree blossoms and the temperature is perfect. The summers are hot but do-able. The fall is also beautiful and we even have fall foliage. The winter gets cold enough for a coat and you get to break out those cute winter sweaters and jackets but they only stay out for about 2 months then they are back in the closet. We live really close to the mountains and can go play in the snow. Last month we went up to a cabin with our friends and had the best time playing in the snow. Yes...even I suited up, went sledding and make snow angels. My kids had blast. It was so much fun!
Yes, we love Fresno weather!!!!

THRILLER!!!!!!!!

My good friend called me a few weeks ago and asked if I would like to do "Thriller" with her and a few others for a stake activity. She is in the stake YW so I thought it would be for a stake YM/YW activity. Well, I soon found out it was actually for our stake adult dance. I was a bit worried. Doing stuff like this is not something I do very often but I am glad I did...it was really fun. I will upload the video when I get a chance. We had to do it twice because the video camera didn't work the first time. Here are some of the fun pictures!!

Time for a new post!

I realize it has been a very long time since my last post. It is not that I am tired blogging...it is just the opposite. I would love to blog but things have been so crazy that there just does not seem to be enough time. Here is an update of what has been happening since my last post. Our biggest news is that we have moved. We finally closed on our house and have moved out of our rental and we are enjoying our new house so much. I am still driving the kids to their old school until the end of the year which is really racking up the miles on my van but it is worth it! We love our neighborhood and all of the fun parks around. The kids love that you can see tons of stars at night, too. We also took a trip to Newport Beach again. Yes, we LOVE that place. We went with the Fishers and had a blast. Macie had RSV and was super sick. Thank goodness her dad knows what he is doing or she would have been in the hospital. Zack has started playing basketball. He is doing really well and making his mom proud. Megan and Abby are still in gymnastics and loving it. One of the best news is Christina. She is a high school student that comes over 2 times a week to help me out. She is amazing and I LOVE the help. I need to go to bed....we are running at 5:15 am! I will post more with all of the pictures of our current adventures!!!