wow... rain!

On Tuesday, we had some thunderstorms roll through.  Understatement.

We had a severe thunderstorm hover over us for about 3 hours.  Three hours of intense lightning paired with immediate cracks of thunder.  Three hours of insane NC rain coming down in sheets.  No, buckets.

At lunch time, the kids wanted to go swimming int he afternoon.  We had done some errands in the morning and it was hot and sunny.  It still was at lunchtime even.  So, as they were almost finished, I said I'd go outside, drain and wash the pool, blow it back up and then refill it.  It would be full when they got up from their nap for an afternoon swim.  It takes about 20 minutes for me to deflate, drain, wash, blow up and start the hose in it. Then it takes a while to fill up.  But, during the 20 minutes I was out there, it started to thunder and was getting a little cloudy, so I figured they weren't going to get to use the pool after nap.  So, I didn't refill it.  All I did was put 1" of water into it just to keep it from blowing away since it was blown up and too big to drag inside to store.  I headed back inside to find them both done with lunch and actually in bed asleep for nap already!!  How crazy is that???

Well, about 2pm, it started raining heavily and the lightning started.  Gretchen woke first.  By the time Carl got up, it was so bad I had turned off the computer and unplugged the power strip from the wall, but I was still willing to watch TV.  They decided they wanted to watch a video we had from the library.  Well, it didn't even get through the previews before the power flickered and knocked out the cable box.  So, we shut down the VCR, too.  A few minutes later, it was getting worse and louder so we decided to head to the little hallway in our bedroom wing.  (Oh yeah, I talk like that... Bedroom Wing.  La Dee Da.  But, really, we do have a bedroom wing.  We have 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms that can all be closed off from the rest of the house by closing a door.)

We grabbed snacks, drinks, the wireless tablet thing (internet was still on), 2 cat beds, 2 cats and a bunch of books and shut  ourselves in the hallway.  We had the chance to look up the local weather and see on the radar that we were indeed in the middle of an intense storm, but once it passed, there was nothing coming behind it.  We also looked up the live webcams from 2 local beaches... didn't even look like it was raining at one.... before the internet got knocked out.  The phone got knocked out, too.  Our land line.  I texted Lew and learned it was not that bad at work 8 miles north.  Typical.

Luckily, we never fully lost power, so we had snack and read books in the hallway until it was over.  Then, we headed out to peek at the back yard!!!!

Whoa!!!  Check it out!!!!

 We noticed after only 1 hour, this was overflowing.  It is 8" deep.

 This shows the pond flooded right up to our deck.  It was 3" deep at the deck.

There's the pool that I said had only 1" of water in it... it now measured 14" of water.  And, beyond that little picnic table - about halfway to the fence, we have 4 azalea bushes that are about 2' tall.  You can't see them because they are completely submerged!

 All that gross brown gunk that was floating on the pond is now floating in our yard.  Gross.

 See the double kid swing has water up to the base?  9" deep there.

 View from the upper part of the deck.

 And, it rained inside, too.  Neat, huh???

This is during - I stepped out onto the front covered porch for about 15 seconds.  You can see the water is up to the bottom step at this point.

Here's a shot out the window when the wading pool was filling.

After checking out our back yard, we headed our front because we could hear so many neighbors out there. Here is the view up our street from our next door neighbor's front yard.

We chatted with a lot of people.  People had to park in front of our house and walk home because you couldn't drive through it.  We watched a tall pick up truck try and it was so deep even he had to admit defeat and back up.

Different people had the same warning for us:  Snakes are now going to be looking for higher ground.

By bedtime, it had subsided about halfway down the backyard and there was no flooding in the yard by morning.  The ponds are still very high, though.  Neighbors agreed, this was the worst flooding we've had in a long time.  It was just so fast.

"I wonder who got Lori?" aka Happy Birthday, Lew!

In my family, we used to draw names among the cousins for Christmas gifts.  One year, after everyone had their name in hand, Roddy (who was, oh I don't know... probably 6) innocently asked, "I wonder who got Lori?"

Well, Carl is into giving away secrets when it comes to gifts.  Lew knew what his Father's day gift was long before he unwrapped it.  So, when we got one of Lew's gifts, we swore Carl to secrecy.  He insisted he was going to tell Daddy.  So, I had to threaten him.  "If you tell Daddy about this gift early, I will take your Legos away until we come back from NY."  It seemed to work.  I mean, we're talking about almost a month from now before we would be coming home from vacation.  It worked until 3 seconds before he opened the gift.

It was a Lego mini figure.  Now, at our cool favorite toy store, they have this insurance policy on those Lego mini figures.  If you open it right there (proving you bought it from them) and you wish to, you can trade it in for one of the ones in their little case of already opened mini figures.  It has saved us a few times.  Well, the other day, the kids were playing and they didn't see me feed my addiction buy one.  I opened it and "Yippy!"  I got the little nerd guy.  He comes with a laptop and a mug with a smiling emoticon on it.  It was the one Gretchen wanted.  So, my first thought was to give it to her, but when I showed the kids at home later, we all decided to give it to Daddy for his birthday.

Now, when you buy the Lego people, there is a paper in the package that shows the entire series.  Each series has about a dozen different people.  We're on Series 7 now - we started collecting during Series 5, so not long ago.  So, I had re-taped the package and just wanted Lew to open it before Carl blurted out the surprise, but Lew says, "Bring me the picture list so I can guess."  Well, that delay was too much for Carl, I guess......

"I wonder where The Nerd is?"    and following that, Gretchen.....   "AACCKK!" and she ran off in tears.

**Since it really was Lew's fault and Carl did not actually say "It's the Nerd!!"....  his Legos were not confiscated. 


Here are the photos of the Big 45th Birthday Bash!!!

decorating a big sign.  they wanted to make a second one that was a huge 45, but I talked them out of it.

 This is one example of a "look up and smile for me" pose.

 We brought the sign outside while it was thundering but not raining....

 ... and hung it on the garage door.

 Right where daddy would see it when he pulled in.

We were heading downtown to the opening reception for a photography exhibit that I have a photo in before dinner.  Well, by that time, the rain had started.  Cats and dogs were falling, but we drove downtown anyway.  We almost didn't go because we couldn't get a parking spot, but Lew dropped us off and drove around a few more times and found something half a block away.  We had fun visiting with the other photographers, having some hors d'oeurves, and having Gretchen soak up her celebrity status... that came from the fact that her smiling face it hanging on the wall much larger than life.  Once the heaviest rain stopped, we headed home for dinner.

Steak Three Ways:  tube steaks, tenderloin steaks and tuna steaks.  Yummy!  You should have been here!!

 Then, the kids got on their jammies before the singing and dessert...  jello with Cool Whip on top.

 No, Angus!!  No candles for you!!!

 At the time, I did not see Carl licking the container of Cool Whip while Lew served the jello.  Oh well.

Snoopy card, of course.  And we gave him the Lego Nerd, some candy for his desk at work and a cartoon book... all wrapped in the funnies.  They thought that was a riot!

Happy Birthday, Lew!!!!  We love you!!!

the dashboard color experiment

We've been having the same heat many people are going through... temps in triple digits or close with heat indices of 115 - 120.  Well, even though it is more normal for us to have sweltering summer heat, this is still above average for us.  And, we never said we wouldn't complain about it.  But, this is not a post to complain about the heat.      

You read that I used a jarred Yankee Candle on the dashboard of the rental car to melt the wax and make the car smell a bit better.  Well, after we got my own van back, I was still thinking about melting wax.  I got Gretchen to help me with a little experiment.

We grabbed the bag of crayons and found some broken older pieces.

Unwrapped some, broke them even smaller and put them in a muffin pan.

We brought that pan outside after first checking the weather... heat index of 117.  That seemed like a good temp for our experiment.

Gretchen placed them on the dashboard and we closed them in.

A couple hours later, we headed back out to retrieve the muffin pan and see what happened to our crayon pieces.

They came out cool, but it does seem that some of the wax separated up to the top layer.  The stronger color is definitely on the bottom of each heart.

 with a clear wax coloring layer on top.

But... they work great!!

I believe you are supposed to make these in the oven.  230* for ~15 minutes.

Or, try a Honda dashboard on a summer afternoon!  Our experiment was a success!

PS - yes, we have to retouch her nails.  Swimming always chips them on her.  She and I have rainbow toes right now, too.  It was on our summer poster of events.  Happily checked off already!

reading to service dogs

Last week the kids got to participate in a really cool program at the public library with the Canines for Literacy dogs.  We stopped in to sign up a couple weeks ago and they only had 1 spot available, so the kids were going to share the 20 minute time slot.
         
Turns out, that morning (Friday 6/29), they called and said the dog was sick and couldn't come in, but they were rescheduling it for Monday.  The cool part was they had 2 spots to offer us. (20 minutes each) So, each child was now going to be able to read at least 2 books to Catalina, the black lab.

These service dogs go through a 16 week training course before they can test to be accepted into the work program.  They sit in the room with their owner(s) and the child and just listen to the child read a story or two to them.  The owners are there to help coach the kids if needed, but really, it is all about reading to the dogs.  Dogs don't judge.  Dogs make good listeners.  And, Catalina seems to really enjoy hearing stories and looking at pictures.  It was really cute.

I stayed outside that morning and took a couple pictures through the window.   Catalina had 2 owners with her, so the woman sat to the side and held the kids' books.  When it came time to read one, she called Catalina over and gave the dog the book in her mouth.  Catalina then carried the book over to Carl (or Gretchen) and the man dried it off with a towel before handing it back to the child.  The kids were a riot - stopping at each page to show Catalina the pictures.  After, she got a treat for being such a good listener.  Turns out, that day, she also was given a stuffed animal by her owner to give each child - it was Catalina's way of apologizing for cancelling on Friday.  It was a nice surprise, but I had to make sure they were not going to expect a present if we ever got a chance to do this again.  Catalina also spoke when asked to and shook hands with the kids before they left.

Turns out, we did get another chance for a spot on the full schedule.  They had 1 opening the next day with a yellow lab named Earl.  Earl is newer to the program.  This was only his second day listening to kids, but he did good.  He was not as into looking at pictures, though.  I stayed in the room and snapped some better (non glare) pictures that morning.  Then, we lucked out and they had 1 cancellation on Friday to read to Catalina again so when the lady in front of me at the children's counter declined the spot, I grabbed it.

By now, the kids were pros at reading to dogs, so I did not let them pick books they practiced and knew well.  I chose books for them that were a bit more challenging for each one.  And, they did great!  We also brought thank you notes with drawings for Catalina for the stuffed animals.  They easily understood that was a special treat.  Phew.  (Those are the 2 Beanie Babies they are holding in the car seat pictures from the rental car post.)  She had a new trick to show them, too.  they were able to coach her to roll over with a couple simple commands.  She is definitely a sweet doggie!

So, the August calendar is not up yet and as of Friday morning, they did not have any more openings in July. Maybe we'll get another chance to read before school starts again.  The program is very cool.  The librarian said they have tracked kids' progress who have participated for a year and the improvements in their reading abilities are amazing.  Or, other kids sign up who may be somewhat afraid of dogs because this is a very controlled and calm environment to interact with a dog.  Then other kids, just love dogs and may not have one at home.  Hopefully, we can have more opportunities to participate.

 Catalina bringing Gretchen her book.

 High-five!

Earl checking out Carl's book about a pigeon who wants a puppy.

*disclaimer* I did not put those socks on him.  He is very independent when it comes to his clothes and shoes.

the rental car

Renting a car is a good thing.  Good because it gives you a real opportunity to realize that the deep, heartfelt love you have for your own vehicle is truly justified.

I can say, with absolute certainty - I will never buy a Chevy Aveo.  I can almost say, even if you offered me one for free and all I had to pay were the taxes that I would reply, "No thank you."

Carl loved it.

OK, Carl is 6.  And a car freak.  And would have loved the idea of anything new we got to ride in.  And, of course, it was only a few days and we knew that and it was fine.  But, holy cow...  that thing couldn't get out of it's own way to save your life.  And, the a/c didn't work very well at all.  Yes, I know it was 120 heat index all that week, but it still was that hot when I picked up my dear Odyssey and all this week we have been loving the cold a/c.  The Aveo had sucky a/c.

Anyway....   when we picked it up the guy said, "Don't smoke in it or bring animals in it so we don't have to clean it when you drop it off."  OK, so you would think he meant "so we don't have to deep clean it..."  but, after we drove home, I realized he meant "we won't clean it at all".  The steering wheel was funky and the smell was definitely old smoke and just general blech.  The windows were filthy.

But, thanks to us....   they were not going to have to clean it when we dropped it off.  The license plate was correct!  YUK!!

I placed a cool whip container of baking soda on the floor to absorb some of the odor and then put this Yankee Candle on the dashboard when I was not driving. (I didn't want to put an actual air freshener in it because I was afraid they'd accuse me of making it smell funny based on the intensity of whatever I put in it.)

With this heat, you put the candle up there and within an hour, a good 1" of the wax melted!  We managed to get the grossness mostly out.

Happy riders...  I'll explain the animals later.

Happy Fourth of July!

Yes, just more pool pictures.  I have a few shots from the kids reading to the service dogs, but I haven't gotten time to put those together.  Too busy!!

Hope everyone is having a relaxing holiday.  After an early dinner, we're heading downtown to the children's museum.  They are going to be open from 5:00 to 8:30 so you can play (and hopefully get a nice parking spot downtown) and then be ready for the 9:00 fireworks.  The list of events they have planned sounds cool.  I am not bringing my camera... so, tomorrow, you do not have to see any attempts at fireworks shots or shots of the kids playing at the museum.  At 8:00, they have it planned that we are going to skype with elephants in Thailand!  I am psyched!