News, Love, Snow, and a Friend—January 2013

The cub scouts went on an outing to a TV news station.  It was a trip that Jim worked hard to set up, only to be set out-of-town for training, so he didn’t even get to go!  It was pretty cool to tour the studio and watch the filming of an actual news broadcast.  All the kids had to sit very still and very quiet for the whole taping.  They did a FANTASTIC job.  I was impressed (and surprised! The boys’ troop is pretty big and rarely quiet!)



We even got to wave at the camera as the show closed.  Pretty cool!

While Dad was gone, we tried to send him a picture or video each night before going to bed.  Here’s one of them.



It snowed a little that month too.  Everyone EXCEPT ZACHARY went out to play in it.



We also had the pleasure of having our friend (and pediatrician) Miss Molly and her daughter Bella over one night for dinner.



All in all, it was a pretty good way to start the new year!

Birthday Surprises

The kids’ party was the weekend before their actual birthday, but that was not the end of the festivities!  We had more surprise up our sleeves!
We went to VBS that morning (at Farragut where my amazing friend Michelle was in charge this year.  Every year I am blown away by what they do for VBS there!  It is quite an impressive production!)  So we had a big fun morning there, where I’m certain they told everyone they met that it was their birthday and they were FIVE!
Then Happy Meals for lunch!
Then a NAP to rest up for the BIG AFTERNOON SURPRISE!
Someone’s coming to see you for your birthday!  Who could it be? 

BUD AND KAYKAY

AND

KINLEY AND KALLEN!!!

The kids guessed that it might be Bud and KayKay, but the cousins were totally unexpected!

It was a short visit.  They arrived Monday afternoon and left Wednesday morning, but it was a blast!

The girls, playing with mermaids

The boys, building with Legos

A story worth noting: Tuesday night after dinner, we all settled into the living room to watch the kids’ birthday slideshow.  While we were watching, it began to rain outside and got quite windy.  I happened to look out the front door just in time to watch the tree in our front yard bend almost over to the ground!
I yelled to Jim in the playroom that maybe we should check the weather, about the same time that he yelled something very similar to us in the living room because he had noticed the trees in the back yard.  About that time the electricity went off and Jim sent us all to take cover in the bathroom.
Now, our guest bathroom is not that big, in case you’re wondering.  At least, not when you cram in six small children and two-four adults, depending on whether the menfolk are in there or not!

Luckily, there were enough flashlights for every child to have one!

Also, luckily, the tornadic activity that occurred in Knoxville that evening did not happen near enough to our house to cause us any problems AND the loads and loads of trees that went down all over the neighborhood also did no damage to our house.  So we were safe!

We all waited around for awhile for the power to come back on so we could finish the slideshow, but it never did.  Eventually, Bud and company went ahead and left to go back to their hotel (our guest room is now a kids’ room.  One more change that happened this summer).  They had a terrible time getting to it though!  The downed trees blocked their way!

That was June 21, by the way! If you live in Knoxville, you probably lost your power that night too!

Oh, well!  It gave us a little unusual excitement!  And it was a great visit!  We wish they could have stayed longer!

And the Fence Was just Gone

Apparently we didn’t do much in February, except mourn the loss of our fence.
You see, it rained a little that month. And a little more, and a little more, until eventually there was A WHOLE LOT OF RAIN which created A WHOLE LOT OF FLOODING.
I was just leaving work one afternoon when I got a call from my neighbor Liz. She wondered if I had been home yet, and since I hadn’t she said we’d had some flooding in the neighborhood and she thought something might be wrong with my fence. Then she said she and her husband Chip would be home and to call if I needed any help.
Help? Surely I wouldn’t need any help!
As it turned out, she was speaking conservatively about the flooding that had occurred in our cul-de-sac. She said later that she didn’t want to freak me out.
When I got home, I freaked out anyway.

You couldn’t really tell from the street that there had been any damage, but I could see the backyard through the kitchen window as soon as I got inside.
I gasped. Literally. My hand covered my mouth.
I called Jim. I don’t think I actually panicked, but I must have sounded like I was on the verge of hysterics because he left work and came right home. I also must have been babbling because although I’m certain that I told him on the phone that the fence was GONE, he was shocked to come home and find that the fence was REALLY GONE.

Two whole panels had broken off and were lodged on the bank on the other side of the creek.

The rest of the fence along the creek had collapsed towards the creek. LOOK AT THE DEBRIS ON THE FENCE! You can imagine the water rushing through our yard, trying to get back to the creek, crushing against the fence until over it went. And don’t fail to notice that the timbers that bordered our play area are now resting on the fence too!

Part of the problem was that not only had our fence collapsed, but so had our retaining wall! See the posts sticking up in the air? They used to be horizontal and covered by yard!

The deluge started here, in the overflow ditch. You can see where our fence fell down into our yard, pushed over by the water rushing to fill the ditch. When the ditch overflowed, the water went two directions: across the yard toward the play area where it then crashed into our fence headed back to the creek and between our house and Laura's where it knocked open the gates on its way to the street.
According to Liz, when she came home from work, the entire cul-de-sac was flooded and she couldn’t even get to her house. The water covered the whole street and flooded the entire downstairs of the house across from us! That poor couple had JUST MOVED IN within the last month.

Here you can see how high the water was as it rushed towards the street! UP TO MY KNEES!!!!!

And here along the back of the house! We can't believe none got in! At least we know that our house is watertight!
So in the end, we only had to have the fence repaired. This also involved Jim fixing the retaining wall. Interestingly, the only portion of the retaining wall that wasn’t damaged by the flooding, was the part on the end nearest Liz's house, the part that Jim had constructed himself! The part we paid someone to do had not fared as well.
So Jim rented an excavator and got to work! And with a little help from me, he made the wall better than ever! (He even taught me how to drive it! Now I have a skill to fall back on if the teaching gig doesn’t work out!)

We’re so thankful the damage wasn’t any worse than it was!
And I’m glad I was at work when it happened! I can’t imagine being at home and watching all that destruction while it was happening! STARING IN FEAR OUT THE WINDOW WHILE THE WATER SWEPT CLOSER AND CLOSER TO THE HOUSE AND DESTROYED MY BACK YARD RIGHT BEFORE MY VERY EYES AND THE EYES OF MY TERRIFIED CHILDREN!!!!!
Yeah. I’m glad I missed out on that.