Good Hygiene and Doors.

~Good Hygiene is Important~

I noticed that I hadn't been taking many pictures lately of the boys because we haven't really gone anywhere or done anything, we've just been too busy "living." So last night I thought it was kind of cute how when I said it's time for bed they all went up like little ducklings and headed straight for the bathroom to brush.

Sutton probably is the most excited to brush his teeth and Mason is starting to not want to do it. I snapped this picture last night. They moved a little right before I snapped it, they were in perfect alignment and it really showed their stair step ages but it's kind of cute nonetheless. Sutton's getting pretty good at actually brushing now and not just chewing on the toothbrush.

And he couldn't resist not chewing on it :)

~Opening doors is FUN!~

Sutton has a new obsession with opening doors. All the doors. I didn't realize he could do it until the other night when I went in to put him to bed (and remember this is the child that you take up, lay down and he goes right to sleep with no problem). He threw a fit when I put him in his bed, so I sat in the rocker to rock him and he wanted down, he immediately ran to the door and opened it. I was shocked, I had no idea he could even do it. Then he proceeded into Easton's room and wanted to sleep with him. I have yet to give into that request (although both of the other boys were in big boy beds at this age since their crib was being passed down). So this obsession has now continued and he opens bathroom doors, pantry doors (and gets out food), and now even the door that goes outside (thankfully he can't unlock it or we would be in trouble!

Just as I sat down to write this post I could hear him digging in the pantry. He came running by with an armful of granola bars (7 to be exact). This is his other new obsession, let's see how many things I can put in my hands at once. It's really funny watching him, I will try to get a video of it soon to post. So he runs by with his granola bars and opens the front door and out he goes. Not sure if he is planning to cater afternoon snack for the neighborhood or if he's hiding them to store up for winter. Regardless it was funny enough I had to take his picture.

In order of occurrence:

1. Head outside... oops mom caught me

2. Turn around to go down the stairs, say uh oh as you drop them (one of his new words and one of my all time favorite words that kids learn to say!)

3. Run from mom as fast as I can so she doesn't take my granola bars.

4. Go look for friends to share with.

More post flood

We decided that while we must rebuild Lucky Pawz due to flood damage we would do some extra renovations we had been planning to do eventually. Nothing like a catastrophic flood to light a fire under you huh? So here is phase 1: operation make the outside look better. I will post more as we continue the progress.

Post flood update

Hey there, sorry I abandoned ship again. Life has been very busy these last few weeks. We were able to get back into our building on Friday June 20th (well we went into our building without permission and drove through 3 feet of water to get there, but we were in nonetheless).

We have 3 different buildings connected by fenced in yards/playareas that make up our facility. 2 of the 3 buildings had all the water out and one still had less than a foot. Looking at the pictures you can see where the water line ended up, some spots it was 4 or 5' and others about 3'. We sustained a significant amount of damage to the facility and as many of you have asked we don't have flood insurance so none of it is covered sadly. We do rent our buildings so our landlord has some responsibility to get them back up and inhabitable, but any upgrades or construction we have done is our resposibility and that is probably 90%.

We worked hard the past week and half gutting the buildings, cleaning sludge and mud off of everything, bleaching, powerwashing and doing some demolition, and hauling out all the stuff that was ruined by the water. As of last Friday (just a week after we got in) we were able to get the city to allow us to open up one of our buildings. So we are running at a very small capacity but running is running so we are thrilled. The other 2 buildings have a bunch of drywall so it will be weeks before we can get them all rebuilt.

Here are some pictures post flood and during demolition stage. Thanks for all your thoughts and well wishes, we are looking forward to some normalcy which hopefully will come soon. Jake should be back in his Cedar Rapids office mid July if all goes as planned, we are looking forward to a nice calm August :)

Here are some pics, I will make sure I post more pics when we are finally done!

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=hjvfbtb.68psizej&x=0&y=5tcvqw&localeid=en_US

More flood pics

Here are pictures from this morning when Jake, Jim, and his brother took a boat to Lucky Pawz.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=hjvfbtb.8tawsywz&x=0&y=rvdhy6&localeid=en_US

Link to more pictures

Here is a link to more pictures from the early flooding. Jake and Jim (our other business partner) took a boat to retrieve some things from LP this morning and took a lot of photos. I will upload those and post a new link.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=hjvfbtb.b97uoy03&x=0&y=q4b2ac&localeid=en_US

The Flood of 2008

Many of you have called or emailed asking if we are safe. The good news is that our house(s) are in no danger of being flooded. But unfortunately that is where the good news stops. In a nutshell we are expecting significant flooding at Lucky Pawz which has already begun.

Here is how it all began. Last Saturday Jim (our business partner) called and said the river behind LP is expected to flood so we should be aware. We all sort of joked that we might go under. By Monday we were frantically sandbagging as we knew we might get some water but it shouldn't be a lot. We built a wall around all our buildings 3 sandbags high, it took us about 8 hours and we had probably 30-50 people helping. Many of those people were friends and family of ours as well as friends and family of our employees. Also we had a few people just show up and ask if they could help, genuinely nice people who had no vested interest in saving our business. To our friends and family we appreciate all your hardwork and devotion to helping us. We had been told that our buildings took on no water in the flood of 93 and at that point no one though this flood would be worse, in fact at the beginning of the week we thought water would be lower than in 93. So we sandbagged "just in case."

By Wednesday we started getting projections that the flood was going to be worse than anyone thought. Downtown Cedar Rapids had been evacuated due to their rising flood waters and Jake had a difficult time even getting home due to traffic. We immediately headed down to add more layers to our sandbag walls, we built them from 3 high to 6 sandbags high. The outpouring of volunteers was again overwhelming. We had many of our own customers out helping, and many people from the community along with the previous help from Monday. We probably had about 75 people helping out. We never imagined that the water could go over our wall with the new height. We opened for business as usual on Thursday and started developing our potential back up plan if we were evacuated. Our landlord had a small building that we could move dogs to if we did have to evacuate. We started unloading file cabinets and moving computers. About 3pm we got word we were being mandatorily evacuated starting at 4pm. We immediately put our plan into high gear; we moved kennels to the evacuation site and began constructing a temporary location for our boarding dogs. We called the owners of the daycare dogs and gave them the bad news. By Thursday night we had moved all 26 boarding dogs, cleared as much of our important items from Lucky Pawz as possible, shut off the gas and electric and vacated. I think at that point we were all numb.

Jake and I headed home down the Coralville strip as usual, we didn't expect we would be driving through a foot of water in the road. So many of the restaurants were under feet of water, it was and still is surreal. By 11:30 last night we had contacted all of the owners of the dogs we had moved to inform them their pets were safe and dry. They were so thankful we had taken good care of their dogs. Although we closed our daycare operation we have so far been able to honor all our boarding reservations at our temp location. It isn't ideal and it definitely isn't the Lucky Pawz everyone is used to but we are helping many people who can't get back to the area or others who themselves have lost their homes to the flood.

Today we operated out of our temporary location and got everything in order and organized. Our temporary location is in Iowa City down by the Volkswagon dealership off Hwy 1, it is not in the 100 or even 500 year flood plain but we are keeping an eye on the water because we know there is a chance we would have to evacuate once again. If that happens it might get really loud in our basement as we have NO where else to go.

As far as Lucky Pawz, it is now surrounded by water. We have been told that the water is just below the top of our sandbag wall and the river is expected to rise another 5 feet before it crests on Tuesday. At this point we are hopeful that the water will go down as quickly as possible so we can assess the damage and get a plan in order to get back up and running. Unfortunately we have no idea how high the water can go, but we are not going to let the water stop us from getting back up and running. We have a lot of work ahead but we know we can do it!

If you would like to keep up with what is happening you can always go to our website http://www.luckypawz.com/; http://www.kcrg.com/; or http://www.press-citizen.com/

At this point we are exhausted mentally and physically. We are trying to stay positive and see the light at the end of the tunnel. I have some amazing pictures which I will upload as soon as I can and as I get more I will try to get them on here. Please keep everyone in our area in your thoughts, we could use some right now!

Thanks to all of you for thinking of us and sending emails and leaving phone messages. Overall it's been one of the hardest weeks of our lives, but as Jake said, it could always be worse.

Wildlife refuge

One of the best parts of our new house is all our new wildlife friends. The kids are constantly looking out the window to see what is out there. We have seen many animals, deer, turkeys, many birds, and we even saw and heard a coyote several nights. Our latest fascination is a momma deer and her baby!!! We see her about once a day and the fawn is so cute. It bounces around playfully and then stops and nurses and then bounces some more. They like the tall grass at the edge of our yard, but I caught them walking one day and got a nice close up (through the window) so I thought I would post these cute pictures. Today as I was watching the mom and baby I noticed another deer in the distance that has 2 babies! Poor momma I wouldn't wish that on anyone :) But they are so cute and I am thrilled we have even more babies to watch. Here are some pics!