Bath Time With Marshall & Nyla

Gracie Trials Benita

The search for Gracie's new horse continues. This week we begin a 2 week trial of Arab mare, Benita.

Gemma's Birthday Sleepover

From John and Karen In Tokyo

Hi Everyone,

After watching CNN the last hour I thought I needed to let everyone know that we are OK and give you a few details.

It was quite a afternoon here as the earthquake hit about 2:50 PM, shortly before school was out.  I was teaching a class outside on the field when I thought I was getting dizzy, thought maybe I was going to have a heart attack or something...wobbly knees, things moving around, and then I saw the windows shaking in one of the buildings on campus and then the kids started pouring out of school and running to the field which is the meeting place for them in the case of a earthquake.

I ran back inside the school to check on my colleagues who were in the gym and the pool. Both were empty but the pool had about 1 1/2 feet of water outside of it on the deck and the water was still splashing 6 feet high off the walls.  We had to run a class of middle school kids out to the field in their swim suits.

The building shook like I have never seen before but thanks to a earthquake retrofitting in 1998, be had no damage to any buildings other than things falling off shelves.  Our old house even survived with minimal damage which I did not expect.

We got 90 % of the kids on the buses to go back down town, and the rest who ride trains stayed with friends or teachers out here by school.  I was at school until 11:00 PM and 19 of the 26 buses had not dropped the kids off downtown yet.  They got on the buses at 4:30!

Since the trains were shutdown and the major freeways were closed for inspections, travel within the city was almost at a standstill.

Thousands of people are still trying to walk home.

Tokyo which is a long way from Sendai where the epicenter was got off quite easy.  Unfortunately, Sendai and some other areas not only got hit with the earthquake, but the tsunami as well.  This will be a devastating event that is going to take a long time to recover.

We were extremely fortunate that today was a parent teacher conference day, so virtually no elementary kids were on campus, which made for extra room for the rest of the kids in the school to ride the buses.

Karen had just finished a conference with some parents in her office when the earthquake hit.

All school activities are cancelled for the weekend, including our first baseball game at Kinnick which is the naval base right on the water.  Hard telling how long we will be out of school although I heard some of the trains are starting to run again.

That is my update from Tokyo, hope all is well with you.

John and Karen

Nyla Walking

Nyla took her first independent steps just before turning 10 months but I just got around to filming her.  Shown here just shy of 11 months......what I can say? She's the 5th kid! Better late than never.

Daddy/Daughter Date Night

This is Gemma getting her hair done for the Daddy/Daughter Date Night event held annually in Seward. Gracie decided not to attend and instead scheduled a separate, one-on-one night out with Daddy. No complaints from Gemma! Scott and Gemma had a great evening of dining and dancing!

Marshall Turns 3!

Marshall turned 3 today so we celebrated with a cake baked by Grandma and decorated by Gracie! The morning after the party Marshall said, "Mommy, can we have another birthday for me today?" Thank goodness he doesn't understand how long a year is!

2nd Floor Water Mess

It all started with a damp spot.  We thought Marshall had spilled a glass of water. The next morning at 5:30am Scott found two wet spots and thought our dog had peed on the carpet. In a half sleep, I reminded him to be sure and rinse out the "Spot Shot" with a wet rag when he was done.  He left the towels on top of the wet spots and I found them later, sopping wet! I was furious thinking he must have dumped a gallon of water on the carpet! I grabbed more towels and soaked up the excess water.  When he got home from work last night, I asked him about it and he said he never dumped any water on the carpet.  We just looked at each other and then sprinted to the 2nd floor furnace closet. Our furnace has a water line to the humidifier and something went wrong with the drain and water had been backing up into the furnace room (and elsewhere) for over 24 hours!

By the time we made the discovery, the water had seeped out into the playroom, the girl's and boy's bedrooms and the hallway.  The only good news is that those rooms are over our garage, so as the water made it's way down through the ceiling, the only thing that got wet was the garage floor. So while we'll have a lot of padding (and maybe some carpet) to replace and a little ceiling repair, it could have been a lot worse!

The first thing we noticed was a small spot, but eventually it became wet wherever you stepped!

Playroom Carpet

Playroom, hallway and girl's room are the worst.

Padding and sub-floor are soaked.

Campbell's Cleaning & Restoration is determining how far the water went.

Girl's bedroom.

Boy's room. Water continued to seep as fast as we could pull the padding.

Snow Day At The Farm!

Hot Date

Scott and I ready for our first date of 2011!