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There's nothing like sleeping in your own bed after being out of town. We got home very late last night after spending more than a week in good ole Iowa.

The trip in summary:
Waterloo: 5 nights. Urbandale: 1 night. Ankeney: 2 nights. Gas $ (don't want to think about that). We stayed with family, saw old friends and finally met new ones in person (Isabelle, Brigette, & Josie)! There were; 2 birthday parties (baked 40 cup cakes), 4 cook outs, gallons of sunscreen, mosquitos the size of Cessnas, a trip to Parkersburg and New Hartford to see the tornado damage, a trip to Iowa City/Coralville to visit with our college friend Amy and her gorgeous daughter Isabelle~who is already 2, a trip to Train Land train museum in Colfax, visit to the Cedar River (sand bags in Cedar Falls, broken train bridge in Waterloo), 2 malls, 2 pools, 1 trampoline (lots of bruises on Alexander), 3 serious potty/diaper - car seat issues (Alexander had 2, Sophie just 1). Good thing they are both easy seats to clean, yuck!, 1 set of lost keys (car and house), 2 bonfires, many s'mores, mojitos, and a bazillion pictures taken.

Today we have to unpack, clean up the cat messes (clumps of fur all over the carpet and a hairball on MY Bed/Blanket that I was too tired to do more than take off the bed last night). My Google Reader is Full. Yes, Iowa does have internet access so stop making jokes about not having electricity. They got electricity and running water at least 50 years ago people! Need to reschedule Sophie's ST and PT today as both kids have colds. Oh, and we're leaving again in a week for Tennessee.

More pictures to come. In the meantime, here is what the sky in Iowa looked like as we approached Waterloo. Ya, I took car photos of clouds. What?

Floodgate '08 pt. 3 Cedar Rapids

Cedar Rapids, IA flood. Wed. and Thursday. June 11-12, 2008.

Posted on YouTube by hawkfan428

Floodgate '08 pt.2

Here's a slideshow of pictures that my sister took with my other sister and her 2 kids.
Photos are of the flooded creek behind the dike at my parent's house, flooding of Hope Martin Park, and the W4th St. area of Waterloo, IA.
More updates forthcoming.

Ride'n the Storm Out

As if recovering from a root canal wasn't enough joy for the evening, our area is in the middle of thunderstorm and tornado alley (with about 4-5 waves of bad storms coming our way). Right about bedtime for the kids we heard the sirens and the tv confirmed that we should take cover immediately. In my youth I've been known to LOVE good storm, stand outside in it and wish for strong (but not destructive enough to hurt anyone) forces to show themselves. After the destruction of half of Parkersburg, I'm - shall we say - gun/storm shy.

The kids DID NOT understand our decision to have a slumber party in the basement. Alexander protested LOUDLY and Sophie simply hung in till nearly 11. Thankfully we have plenty of space in our basement. It's fully refinished and has a spare bedroom, living room, storage area, extra fridge/storage room, laundry room, and bathroom. It has never flooded in the past 60 years till yesterday. Tonight Every room is wet.

Shortly after the sirens went off, friends of ours called and then came over with their cute little puppy to seek shelter. They do not have a wet basement to go to, so ours was a blessing. We decided to make the most of it. We uncorked my fav bottle of wine and the guys had a few brewskies. We popped popcorn and watched local tv so we could see updates on the weather.

So far tonight, at its worst, the lightning and thunder were more than constant, but overlapping. It was pouring AGAIN. We finally got both of the kids down (Sophie in a pack-n-play and Alexander in a twin spare bed- but not HIS bed) but our friend's puppy wasn't having it and shivered and tried to escape.

We shared stories to pass the time. Ironically our friends had heard of the story Tom recently shot in Brasil (please check out his blog as his is one of my favs and is the 1st blogger I followed after being introduced to the blogging community- having a son near to Sophie's age with DS and being a very interesting guy and an AMAZING writer). I had heard of the story because of Tom, and our friend had simply - heard of the story. Folks, it is a small world.

The storms let up just as MORE water poured into the basement. With the help of our friends, we moved even more stuff out of the path of destruction. The kids are sound asleep and that's good because we are right in the line for 1-2 more waves of this band of storms. It's going to be a long night.

Help! I Can't Find My Flood Pants!!

It's POURING rain again, and that's a very bad thing as our basement is WET. Not standing water wet, but squishy, 6 fans blasting, had-to-pull-out-all-of-our-stuff from the many wet areas, including 2 wooden bookshelves and a 1880 steamer trunk that has a wet bottom - wet. It looks like a bomb went off down there. This house does NOT have a history of flooding, which is one of the reasons WICD-TV wanted to come over today and film it.

huh?

Ya, brilliant me sent an email to the local tv channels with a story idea. Actually, my idea was about the park just a few blocks from us. As a way to introduce myself I made a comment about my wet basement and then went on to attach photos of the flooded park that I took this morning.

30 minutes (or less) later I get a call from WICD-TV asking if they could come over and film my basement and interview me as a part of the story they are going to do on the park flooding. (How neighbors in the Hessel Park area are affected, etc.)

If you are what you eat then I guess I'm a chicken. Heck No you can't interview me or show anyone what my basement looks like! Show my photos of the park, give me credit, that's fine. But show the woman Behind the lens? Nah. Not today. They thanked me for the story idea and photos. The story should be on tonight at 5.