Weather or Not...

Sunday, June 15, 2008

It has been another crazy weather week. Tornadoes and flooding everywhere in Iowa.

I forgot to write last week about our lake trip 2 weeks ago, that was pretty interesting. It was a beautiful day for boating, but when we got there the parking lot was under water, along with the beach, the outhouses and the boat ramp. We asked around and found out that there was a dock open up the lake by the bridge, so we put the boat in there. On past visits to the bridge, we wondered how people climbed up under the bridge to spray paint messages, but now we realized that it would be pretty easy during a flood, you just had to park your boat under it and stand up…sure enough, all the dates written on the bridge were 2008 and 1993 (which was another big flood year).

So we had some fun swimming and water skiing in the chilly water (Chris’s ankle was still bothering him so he opted out this time), and when we were done we thought we would do some exploring of the flood plain. We had tried going there before but the water was only a few feet deep and we had hit mud. This time, our depth finder told us it was around 30 feet deep, and the flood plain looked bigger than the lake, it was HUGE! And a few days ago we heard that the water was going over the spillway above the parking lot…CRAZY!

I took Chris to Iowa city on Tuesday to catch a ride with Mark up to Duluth, it was his first time to Duluth but he never got to sight-see because the next day they had to come back to Iowa. Someone had gotten stranded in the flood at the Cedar Falls depot and the waters were rising. For the next few days they stayed up late hours working to move things out from the flood.

Tuesday night we had a funny incident, Solei opened the front door and a bird flew in! We spent a few hours trying to get that thing to fly out, and ended up with a house full of bugs because we had the door open so long.

On Wednesday Solei left for girls camp and then we got the carpets cleaned, it had been a year so they were getting pretty dingy. Hopefully our next house won’t have such light carpet.

We had 2 realtors come to the house on Thursday but we haven’t picked one yet. I am not looking forward to showing the house, there is still a lot of work to be done. The hill is only about 2/3 done so that will probably take another week, and the garden needs major weeding. Things grow so fast here, it is hard to keep up. Here is a photo of part of the hill that I have done, this is just a small corner of it, so far I have used 45 bags of mulch and need probably 25 more. It's a lot of mulch!

Girls camp was semi-cancelled the next day because the weather got bad and on Wednesday night, 4 boy scouts were killed by a tornado in Western Iowa. So the girls here packed up camp and took it to the church in Dubuque. I was scheduled to go up Thursday night but Chris wasn’t able to get home in time, so we had Mark’s daughter come over to babysit. A little while after she got here, we heard there was a tornado watch, which is not as severe as a tornado warning but still I was not too thrilled about leaving. I told the kids to stay in the basement and waited as long as I could and then left for Dubuque (an hour north). After I was about 20 miles out I heard the tornado watch had been upgraded to a warning, so we kept in touch on the phone until it was over. Chris was on his way there but then they closed I-80 due to the fact that it was under water. When we drove it a few days before, the river (or, should I say, lake) was about to bury the road so I wasn’t surprised when they closed it. Anyways, it took him longer to get home because of the detour. I think he probably gave the babysitter a big bonus for hazard pay.

Girls camp was still fun, even though it was indoors and they cut it a day short. Solei talked me into sleeping in the “all-nighter” room (gym) and playing “Apples to Apples” and “Big Buddha”. I finally found a corner around 11:30 and somehow managed to fall asleep. I woke up around 2:30 and saw the silhouettes of 2 girls still awake and saw that one was Sarah LaMere but the other one I wasn’t sure. The next morning I found out that it was Solei, she had been eating candy all night and was on such a sugar rush. The theme this year was “sweet is the work” and there were piles of candy everywhere!

The next day we all piled in the cars and drove to the arboretum for hikes, I went with the 5 mile group but our pedometer wasn't working too well and I don't think we were too accurate on our mileage.

We got home Friday afternoon, Chris had taken the kids to his office with him, where they met some of Chris’s coworkers and watched videos while he got his work done. Sierra said they drove by some houses that were under water.

Yesterday Chris left for scout camp in the boundary waters, which is way up north by Canada. His pack was so heavy I think it weighed more than him. They stayed in Duluth last night and went to church there today, but now they will be out of contact until next Saturday. I hope he can stop worrying about work long enough to enjoy himself up there. I think he regrets making this commitment, he just has so much work right now. I hope he can let go and relax, fishing isn’t meant to be stressful.

We took a detour on the way home from church today to see the flooding downtown. It is not as bad as other cities but a lot of stuff is under water still. The baseball stadium is surrounded but the inside is dry, and they have built a temporary walkway across the water to get in. It is strange seeing things sticking up out of the water that normally are on dry ground.

Sierra has been really freaked out about all the weather lately, every time it starts to rain, she wants me to get on the internet and check for tornado warnings. She was really upset the night I had to leave for girls camp, poor thing. She is always the first one downstairs if the sirens go off, and has shed a lot of tears worrying about these storms. Hopefully after we move she can leave all this behind, but she says in Minnesota you have to worry about freezing instead of tornadoes. I guess you can't get away from everything! :)

Not much else is going on, Ella is starting to potty train now. Taron and Caden are just the best of buddies and do everything together so I don’t have to entertain them much. The house is a mess because I wasn’t feeling well yesterday so it’s a good thing we haven’t started showing the house yet. So much for clean carpets!