The Flood

The flooding in Nashville definitely left it's mark upon our house, but wow, it could have been a LOT worse! The following videos show how deep the water was around our house. Front yard first, then back yard. Both videos were taken prior to us figuring out how to prevent the water from getting into the house.

As it was, the neighbor whose wood fence you can see in the backyard video ended up tearing down part of his fence due to the pooling it was causing in his yard. Once the fence was down no more water came into our house. We ended up with about an inch or so all along the wall we share with the neighbor - the entire length of the house (in one of the bathrooms and both bedrooms). I'll post pictures when we get them off of the camera.

I won't lie, it was scary because we felt so helpless. The water just kept coming and it kept raining. We received 13 (some areas got 19!) inches of rain in 2 days. Thankfully we live on a hill, so we only had to deal with the water as it flowed down to the lower spots, but the pooling in the backyards due to privacy fences is what got us.

Springtime fun!

Lots to see in the following pictures for you to enjoy. Here is the Sunday after Easter - The kids were hamming it up outside of the church building. I love their smiles and we have a great time together.

Below, see Ironman. He came to visit one day after Daddy made very technologically advanced armor. Notice the duct tape. This armor had a one-time use. The adorable girl to Ironman's left just wanted in on the photo-taking.

He really does walk around saying, "I am Ironman!" and then you hear him vocalizing the guitar riffs from a Black Sabbath song.

Does this make us bad parents?

Here they are making a fort under Daddy's desk. Notice the plethora of stuffed animals. They all decided to come along on the adventure of hanging out in the fort. Oh, did I mention it is a mobile fort? Notice the box in front - there is actually an invisible steering wheel attached to it and they drive wherever they want.

Our first popsicle worthy day! The backyard is still a mess since it hasn't been warm on a weekend yet to mow it, but it was a beautiful evening and the kids loved their treat.

Notice the bruised lip? He bumped himself while he was jumping around the living room. He is definitely all boy.

I love this picture of K's back. She is diligently working on that popsicle.

And finally - the yard. I'm glad it's finally Spring!

Easter Egg Hunt in the TN Wildlands!

...aka, our backyard!

Welcome to Spring in Tennessee. This means the grass isn't completely grown in yet because we haven't yet had enough rain, so please excuse the patchy grass. The yard hasn't been mowed yet either, because up until very recently it's been too darn cold and the grass hasn't actually grown! And now you have an understanding of our lack of landscaping, so let's get to the good stuff.

We had an Easter Egg Hunt!

We took leftover candy...let me interrupt myself to say we're not big on eating Candy in our house, so don't be surprised if some of it is leftover from Halloween. Yes, it's been in Ziplocs in the pantry and despite an occasional stale piece, it tastes just fine. I know, I was the taste-tester...and filled the Easter Eggs with a peice of candy per egg. Miguel hid them all over the over-grown yard and the kids had a wonderful time.

More White Stuff

We got more snow! I think this is the most we've seen since we moved here and it stuck around awhile. All of the snow you see here appeared in about 24 hours. The last 2 or 3 pictures are the next day after it had snowed all night. Yep, life in Nashville shut down.

I didn't want to just make a long list of pictures, so I fiddled and created a slideshow. No music, so if you feel a need for a soundtrack, click Play on the music player to your right. Enjoy!

Snow! ...well, a sprinkling

The kids played in our first snow of the year! They loved it, and Katie ran around until she got cold. Josh played with Sarge (see video) and enjoyed every minute of it.

oh yeah, blame Miguel for Katie's dirty face.

Visit from Grandpa..and Halloween

Grandpa was able to take vacation and came to our house for 2 whole weeks! We celebrated 4 birthdays while he was here. He also spent a lot of time getting used to being around a preschooler and a toddler again, cause it's been awhile for him. He spent a lot of time going on walks and was even stopped by the cops twice! I kept telling him at least he's making memories of good times in Tennessee...haha.

He took walks everyday and on one of the walks was stopped by a policeman making sure he was okay. There aren't many sidewalks here and the officer wanted to make sure he wasn't stranded. The second incident was a bit more interesting. He'd hopped a fence to take some pictures of an historical property nearby, and was caught! Though, in my Dad's defense, he had looked for a formal entrance and ticket booth to legitimize his presence prior to hopping said fence. Nevertheless, he was placed in the back of a squad-car and taken to the ticket-booth (which was quite a distance away, across a main highway, on a separate historical property).

This is the thing great memories are made of.

Halloween was fun - I wanted to make costumes, but work has been insane and I'm grateful to have time with my family and I don't want to squander it with crafts taking me away from them...and I'm lazy- teehee. Katie was Batgirl and Josh was a Jedi.

Here are some shots of good times while Grandpa was here along with pics at the Branch Halloween party, the kids in their costumes, and Birthdays. Enjoy!

Also...Blogger is smarter than me and not allowing me to format today, so I'm very sorry for what seem to be the giant run-on paragraph that is this blog post. Have a great day!

Water Guns in the Afternoon Sun

I love our backyard. The dogs don't add to the landscaping, but it's a wonderfully big space to allow the kids (and dogs) to run WILD, and they love it.

Of course my son loves water guns. He would play with them all the time if I allowed it and he just doesn't understand why not in the house? We had a lovely Sunday afternoon in the backyard after dinner and I was able to snap some photos.

Josh-isms

Just from today:

Miguel is cleaning up after the 3 dogs in the backyard, into an old USPS flat-rate box. Seeing this, Josh asks,
"Are we going to send the box of poop to Grandma in California?"
"No, Josh"
"Why, cause she will be mad?"

After Miguel picks himself up off the floor from laughing so hard, Josh runs back into the house to use the restroom. In an effort to get back outside as quickly as possible, Josh opens the backdoor and Miguel realizes he has nothing on but shoes from the waist down.
"Josh!!! Go put your clothes on before you go outside!"
"Why, cause I will go to Jail?"
Later in the day I asked where Josh got the idea he would go to Jail. I guess Miguel told Josh a few weeks ago he needed to put clothes on when he went outside or the police would take him to jail. I guess he remembered...

I love this age. It's my favorite kid-stage.

A Trip to the Park

It was cold, but we had a fantastic time. The playground was wet, but Josh didn't care because for some reason he's quite a cautious child...I suppose he is his father's son.

I took the kids to the park at the local library. It is the closest park to our house and it's a pretty good park, as far as new parks go. I miss merry-go-rounds and equipment you can hurt yourself on. I miss slides that are hot from the sun beating on them. I don't like fiberglass slides that shock you as you scoot yourself down, and cause your hair to be standing on end by the time you're at the bottom. Oh well, I'm sure kids find ways to hurt themselves on the new stuff too. It's a good thing this park-thing isn't about me. Ok, I'll get down from my tiny soapbox and move back to the topic I started with.

Anywho - Josh ran around climbing everything. Katie was quite content to watch Josh as he climbed and ran and hollered, "Come on Mama, over here!" as I followed him around. Katie isn't scared of the swings. Josh didn't want to go on the swings unless he was on my lap. It's the same with slides, he isn't interested unless he has someone with him. I'm sure he'll grow out of it. He will go on the smallest of the slides at the park, though. At least that's a start.

Notice the mohawk? I wonder if it will last the winter. It's pretty cold here already...I guess we'll see.

Our Recent Visitor

I don't know why, but I never named her. I don't know why I assume she is a her, either. She's huge. Seriously, the biggest spider I've ever seen in my life. I know, I'm a wuss from California and the country bugs and animals are new for me. I didn't believe my eyes the first time I saw one of these spiders. This spider is, seriously, at LEAST the size of a silver dollar. Big enough to make me shiver just looking at the pictures.

They are called Yellow Garden Spiders and other than being extremely gross, they make the coolest webs I've ever seen. HUGE webs with zig zags and they're amazing. Nothing in the bushes when I come home from work, and a nice bug-trap when I leave for work the next morning. I know, I contradict myself with my amazement at the industrial nature of spiders, and just how completely creepy they are to me. The web in this picture is nothing compared to what we had earlier this summer. At one point we had 2 of these spiders living in these flowers which line the side of the house. They made webs easily 3 foot tall. I keep expecting to open the front door and have a web on the front porch and one of these giants in the middle of it. Yep - made myself shiver again.

These pictures are from this morning as I was getting ready to leave. She had moved her web almost onto the front porch - finally at an angle I could capture digitally for the world to see...well, at least, the part of the world who reads my silly blog.

Summertime

Summer has finally hit in middle Tennessee. The Magnolia trees are in bloom. I hear the 17-yr cicadas are returning, but have yet to see any evidence (though I'm not upset about that, as I hear they are messy and stinky as they die off). It's averaged 80+ degrees the past week - in between thunder storms, of course - and muggy is an understatement. This is the life.

I don't know how this happened, but I haven't ever noticed the blooms on our Magnolia tree before. I notice trees, I enjoy their beauty, and to think I never noticed giant white flowers on a huge evergreen tree before? I think I must be walking around wearing blinders or something. Oh well. I noticed this year, that is what counts. It only took me 2 years...