More flood pictures

Flooding in Snohomish

For those that live out of town and don't know, we have recently received quite the snowfall, melt, rain and now major flooding. Darin and I went to look at the Snohomish river that is very near where we live. The sights were amazing, tragic and really just awe inspiring. I will try and give a little perspective to what you are looking at.

This picture is not the river but a commonly used roadway near the river. To the right is a farm and to the left are houses and soccer fields. Also notice the train on the tracks, that is usually a good 8-10 feet above the road.

Behind these houses are the soccer fields. Remember, this is not the river...

This is the river I would say at least a good 20 feet higher than normal. Notice the picnic table and trash can at the bottom of the picture. These are placed up on a cliff above the river, now flush with the river.

Again, the river is flush to the hillside when normally it's many feet below a walking trail which is also below street level. The tree you see is positioned on the top of a hill above the riverbed. Unbelievable.

snow clothes

In our attempts to make the best of being "snowed in", we have been spending a lot of time out side. Our daily routine is to make a mad rush to get on all the various snow clothes before kids start sweating, screaming, itching...we play for a while then make a mad rush to get all the clothes off before kids start to scream, itch, freeze. Our coats, pants, hats and gloves go into the dryer so that we can do it all over again in a few hours.

While getting ready again for what seems like the zillionith time, in my frustration I blurt out to Cameron "Oh, why are these gloves wet!" Meaning the dryer had not done it's job. Cameron's response..."Because of the snow, mom..."duh" Thank you Cameron, it's all clear to me now.

Snow Day with Dad

Due to all the snow, Darin was able to stay home with us today and enjoy all the fun. We were able to get some really good play time in before it started getting really cold.
Unfortunately, the only sled we have is this infant one. It's awesome, but the big kids are getting too big for it. We tried to get a couple of bigger ones, but all the stores were sold out! Go figure..

Logan had his first real taste of what it means to be completely ineffectual at walking. His gear was great...if his main goal was to sit in a pile of snow and not move an inch. Poor kiddo, they all go through it.

Last night as the snow was falling, Darin made our first snowman of the season. The kids got to see it quickly at 11:00pm at night. Ask me how my night was with children up so late, ya, thanks Dad!

Look at the happy family, one of the only pictures with all five of us.

Fun Park Pictures

We often visit one of our favorite parks that we lovingly call the "castle park". When we purchased our new camera, we decided to give it a try here.

Chain of command in the Leonardson Castle

While playing princess and little prince Bella made the chain of command very clear to us all. To ask permission for something she approached me as "King". I immediately corrected her stating that I was the Queen and Daddy was the King. Simple enough, right? She turned around, walked over to Darin "the King", stopped and paused for a moment. "I think I better ask the Queen" she said. Of course this was hilarious and we all laughed about it. True to form, Darin asked Bella the question..."How does the chain of command work?" Who has the most power? Bella replied, "the king is in charge, the queen is more in charge and the other queen is more in charge". Hmmmm...interesting...

Lunch time conversation

This is one of those times that doesn't really warrant a photo but definitely needs to be documented...during lunch today, the conversation went like this:

Cam: "Sis! Do you love me?"

Bella: "Of course, silly!"

Bella: "Cam, even when I'm being naughty, I still love you. Why?"

Cam: "Oh, I love you too. I'm just happy that you are here."

Ok, really? Could that be any cuter? We weren't even at the table when this happened.