Summer Boredom = More Blogging....

Well, at least that's the idea of summer boredom, and it is working for Jamie!

So it's been rainy, in case you haven't noticed, quite rainy.

Art has a couple of days off because he's starting a new job on Tuesday, we were going to go backpacking in the Uinta's, but it's rainy, quite rainy.

So we've been filling time around the house, pretending we're on vacation. Yesterday began with a trip to the temple, then I came home to walk the dogs, but it was rainy. So errands came next, and then we ate lunch, and alas - a break in the clouds!

(Not actual break in the clouds)

So we threw on our walking shoes, leashed up the dogs, and headed to the park. As we walked over, we noticed the dark skies building in the west, casually mentioned that it might be a short walk. Half way around the park - it began to sprinkle, we decided we better turn around; walked three steps - it began to rain; started to run - it began to pour; ran much faster - it started to hail!

(Not actual hail storm - but in my clouded vision, this is what it looked like, only wetter!)

Lulu does not like being wet, especially when it's by torrent bullets of hail and drowning rain. So when we ran, she seriously ran (while simultaneously wiping her face with her paws -very talented dog). We ran from tree to tree trying to get a short reprieve from the intense water. Let me just say, by the time we got back around the park, we were soaked - water sloshing in the tennis shoes soaked. Nothing like running in soaking wet jeans with a panicked dog. It was fun! We finally made it home, left the dogs in the carport, went in and stripped off our dripping clothes. We toweled off the dogs, then put on some dry clothes.

(Not actual wet dogs - ours are much cuter!)

Art was standing in the front door watching the rain STILL pouring down, when he noticed the small lake building in front of the neighbors house. Then he noticed the neighbors son out trying to unclog the storm drain as the water rushed down their driveway. Art hollered, "We have to go help the Thompson's" and was off into the rain. I pulled on the dripping wet jeans (not easy to do...) grabbed the big push broom and headed out. The neighbors were madly pushing water away from their garage, and attempting to unclog drains all the way down the street. That's when Art noticed the neighbor two house in the other direction had a LARGE lake in front of their house. We ran down and began pushing water away. The water was 6-8" in front of their garage, had filled an entire window well and made a lake around the front door. Art went to unclogging the drain (which was covered in a piece of cardboard someone had neglected to throw away properly!) I began pushing water away from the house. Rain water is cold - very cold. I had on Keen's - my toes were frozen!! But I just kept pushing. Finally the rain started to let up and so we could get ahead of the water. It took about 45 minutes to push the water away from their house. Then we went inside, where they had several inches of water covering the entire basement! We rounded up some ward members and pushed water, and emptied the basement, and sucked a lot of water up. Art got on the phone to Sandy City, on behalf of the neighbor and entire block, and expressed our concerns. They were there in minutes with 10 guys, a truck of sandbags, and a very nice city worker. They sandbagged the neighbors, then we had them do us (we have a very nice finished basement that we don't want covered in water-this rain is going to last another week! (I'm not complaining, just preparing)) About three hours later we finally came home, dried off, and enjoyed the rest of the day inside, because, alas, it was rainy, quite rainy.

(The sun is shining this morning, I better stop blogging and go walk the dogs - you never know when it might rain again!)