Week in the Life: Wednesday

Nuts. 

That is the only word to describe yesterday.

It started off fine. It's been raining like crazy. Nick was running late so he took the kids to the bus stop.

Rocky sighed & rolled his eyes & ignored me because he didn't get to walk with the kids.

I worked - a lot & didn't take any photos because I planned to capture more in the evening. Besides, how many pictures of my messy office & annoying puppy do we really need?

I grabbed one on the phone after art class. Between the bus driver & art class, the kids are getting a lot of candy this week.

The girls were happy to show off their still life art work.

She was very proud of her shadows.

He didn't finish his so he didn't want a photo of it (first week, lots of rules to go over). He's relaxing on the couch listening to a little Mumford & Sons.

For some reasons, the kids don't get homework on early release day. I was busy with a work project so the kids were playing Minecraft. We don't have many bad weather days here so I don't feel that guilty to allow a bit of screen time when the kids are stuck inside & I am working.  All was well until I heard screams. I came upstairs to find tears streaming down faces. Apparently, someone was feeling left out & decided to burn down the village.  All electronics were removed for the night.

Did I mention it's been raining A LOT? The new gymnastics schedule apparently coincides with the train schedule in the area.

Between the Minecraft disaster, rain & the train, we were late for gymnastics. But, she was much happier afterward that I am glad we went.

His ride came before I could capture one with a less cheesy smile.

After dinner, chaos.  The rains picked up tremendously. The girls were watching a soccer game with Nick & they came running upstairs. The flood warnings we had told Greta weren't likely since we lived toward the top of the hill started to come true. We had about 4 inches of standing water in our backyard & water was gushing into our window wells at an alarmingly high rate. 

Our basement isn't finished, but the kids play down there often so it is full of stuff. The girls & I picked up as much off the floors as we could & piled it on the ping pong table. As many cardboard boxes as possible were piled on top of the plastic storage containers. Nick was in the backyard trying to divert water away from the house & down the hill. I came out to try to help move buckets of water, but it wasn't doing a thing. The water was above my ankles.  The water level in the window well was steadily rising so the girls collected every blanket & towel in the house & tried to create barriers in the basement so that if the water came in through the window, it would be diverted to the drains.

Rocky was anxious all night (Ella said it was because he could sense the danger).  Ella woke up with every flood warning that came across our phones (two rooms away). They were sure they wouldn't have school this morning. I told them there was no chance school would be canceled - and I was right (at least for our school district). The neighboring county was hit even harder than we were which means that school district (i.e., the school across the street from our school) is closed.

This morning, the standing water in the backyard & window wells are gone. The basement is dry & we are feeling very lucky. Nick said the damage on the drive to work was impressive.

This is the bucket I left outside about 8 pm when I gave up trying to divert the water.
And the rains continue today.