Flooding 101

Now, being from OK I've never really had to deal with flooding. Of course there were the spring floods that would swell the streams, creeks, lakes, etc. around us, but not really ever a big deal. There were also the rainy seasons in Mexico that left the streets flooded, but once again, not really serious.

Today driving home I got my first real flooding experience. It was just barely raining as I left work and picked up the baby girl. As we drove up the mountain it was obvious rain had been coming down a while. On many of the streets there were rivers of water. Then once I hit the continental divide all bets were off. They are doing a lot of construction (taking out part of a mountain to make a 4 lane highway kind of construction) demolishing old rock, taking out a lot of trees, etc in that area. So the run off was drastic. I should have known something was going on when I was concerned about being in the lane because the gutter on the side of the road was spilling a ton of water into the road. There had been a few spots with trees or debris in the road, but nothing major really. Then the 10 miles between the divide and home were harrowing. Several trees had been downed and pulled a fair amount of dirt with them outside of Tweetsie. So much dirt in fact that the state troopers were being reinforced with plows. Then I got the the intersection of Wal-Mart and there were starting to be single lines of traffic since the street was flooded. Then I tried to go around and they had orange cones in a parking lot because the lot had flooded up to people's side windows, for those poor souls who couldn't move their cars. At this point the major intersection in town that I was trying to get through closed down. I ended up taking refuge at a grocery store until the rain stopped enough for my wipers to keep up. The fact that the store is on the side of the mountain, if not the top was also part of my plan because there was no way I would be stuck in water in that parking lot. Chris got home and discovered our basement to be flooding. Thankfully my cello was still dry, as were a lot of other things. However, now we get to rearrange our basement. Thankfully a couple of weeks ago we moved everything off of our hearth because the damper is leaking. So, the dehumidifier in our basement will be on until Easter, but we are faring well.

Of all the snow, ice and crap I've ever driven in, torrential, flooding rain is the only thing that really makes me nervous. When I finally got home I felt like I'd gone for a distance fun unprepared. I took swimming stuff to work with me in hopes of getting a lunch, who knew I'd need it to get home.

The End Is Near

 This week has been exciting. A has been potty training with a vengeance. It is almost as if something has clicked in her brain, "If I go potty then I don't have to have a diaper change or sit in a wet/poopy diaper." She hasn't ever really been one to let us know she wet/pooped her diaper, preferring to go with the flow (no pun intended, but it works well). Because of this we were sure we were going to be changing diapers until she started Kindergarten. For the month of January we have been having a horrid time with our diapers. She has been growing, the water has been weird (we don't live in a city big enough to have consistent water), it is winter, the stars aren't aligned properly -- or some combination of those and other unforeseen or imagined reasons. Whatever the reason, we've been pulling our hair out trying to get diapers to work for us. We've adjusted them down and she goes through three pairs of pants a day. We adjust them up and she goes through three pairs of pants a day. We make the waist tighter and she goes through three pairs of pants a day. We make the waist loose and she leaves puddles under her bed during nap time at dayschool and still goes through three pairs of pants a day. So as opposed to really pulling our hair out, we started pushing the potty training. For several months if you catch her bearing down to poop, or wondering into a corner while she thinks no one is looking, she would poop on the potty. Last weekend since Chris was staying home an extra day for MLK, we decided to work on the potty training thing hardcore. This week she did quite well at dayschool -- so much so that the teacher was impressed at how quickly she's done it. She will line up with the other kids, do her business, and get on with her life. She came home two days this week in the same diaper she wore to school. The other two days she was with strange teachers so she probably wasn't as comfortable asking to go potty. She even used the toilet at church this morning, a totally different environment than either home or school. She kind of surprised them since she just got in line. She is quite insistent when she has to go, and likes to look at her accomplishments. She also likes tissue and washing her hands. We have stared using cloth trainers occasionally. She likes to go through as many pants as we have trainers a day, but she'll get more reliable with time. Here she is modeling a set after a bath.

Everyone should be proud of me -- I managed to get clearance trainers that perfectly matched the bee towel she got for Christmas! I mean, how often do I put together a matching outfit?

Weather wise we have had a rough couple of weeks as well. Everyone keeps hoping that winter is ending, but I like this weather and hope it is just getting started. We have gotten snow/ice the past two weeks. They have cancelled two Fridays in a row of school for the K-12s in the area. It was actually bad enough on Friday that they called work for me. Snow days working for a company that doesn't give many vacation days in a year are simply cool. I managed to get a lot of laundry done and do enough that this weekend we were able to relax some. :)  The new car has done wonderfully. It regularly makes it up the drive while the Focus has to be parked by the basement door. I haven't had any issues with ice or piled up snow that got in the way. The biggest issue is the wiper blades, but that will be fixed the next trip to Costco. 

Work wise Chris has started his new term. He checked students in this past week, so now the fun really begins for him. He will be doing a lot of prep and Tuesday nights promise to be eventful. Chris has also really started working with the media team at church. He likes it and is working with some people to get stuff done on both Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings. A regularly goes with him and is a huge help. (Yes, an almost-two-year old can help do things -- she will help him with cables and packing things in boxes and such.) Everyone on the set-up and media crews watch out for her and give her little things to do. He has also really started researching some projects, more to come on those in the future as they pan out.

Work for me has been hectic and it doesn't show any sign of letting up any time soon. We have a few products that are highly stable, so highly sought. Busy is good, I just pray they don't kill us in the process of trying to go highly commercial. There are so many hours in a day and so fast that machines can run. I have started helping take down the church set-up so A helps out there a lot.

It is hard to believe that we've been in NC a year now. Sometime this past week was our anniversary of being here. Not quite sure if we like it, but we are definitely recovering from our trials in Chicagoland. We not quite sure if this will be home indefinitely or not, we will have to see.

Anyway, A is asleep so Chris and I can do something like snuggle on the couch, so I'm going to go. I hope you all have a good week. Maybe next week I'll get to put up another good blog post. :)

Teef!

Yesterday baby girl came into the kitchen and was chewing on something. I asked her, "What's in your mouth?"

"Teef!!" With lots of giggles, "See?!" as she opens her mouth wide to show nothing but her tongue and teef.

Chris then said, "What's in mommy's mouth?"

"Teef!" at the top of her lungs.

How do you discipline a smart mouth like that? I mean you can't help but giggle at it.

Snow!

We got a few inches of snow with the system that came through this week. It rained Sunday through Thursday. We are talking raining a ton. I feel bad about us getting so much rain while the plains have so little. We actually have been having flooding issues, then Thursday afternoon it turned to snow. It was enough of an issue that we got to go in late on Friday. Since we had to get up and check the weather A and I went out to play in the snow. It turned out to have a nice icey layer on top and unpackable. A really liked the snow, though more on the Chris end of liking it than the Carolyn end.

A has really grown the past few weeks. She is starting to fill out her 18 month clothes since she is 20+ months old now. She is liking daycare and seems to want to stay there some days rather than go home.

School started for Chris this week so it was busy. The town has also come alive again as the population has now tripled in the last week and a half.

Work for me is busy. We are putting a lot of new stuff out on the market so it will be busy. Busy is good though, so it will hopefully keep going.

Snowmen

Well, we made it up the mountain after the snow had started today. It had only been snowing about an hour and slush abounded. This was the car after about 20 min of snow. The fact that it has been raining since Sunday night is more of an issue with the freezing temps...

Park 1

We have unseasonably warm weather so the park it is!

Christmas in Pictures

 After driving for two days we decided that A needed some good old fashioned park time. Especially as it was a balmy 65 and beautiful! Lo and Behold! We ran into my cousins and their five kids, so we got to chat and catch up while the kids played. Here are some fun pictures around the park.

After the park we all went home for short siestas and went to Panera for our family gathering. Santa showed up and brought everyone gifts. A definitely wasn't so sure about him.

All the kids from the different families, well these are the kids of the kids in reality.

My niece and A

For Christmas Eve we visited my father. He has this door jam with everyone's height on it. So we added A's and here she is helping draw the line bolder. 

For Christmas Eve Dinner we went to Chris's cousin's house. She had it decked out fabulously and was also willing to help A unwrap gifts. A got this wonderful red puffy coat. She kept getting clothes and wanting to put the clothes on which is why she looks a little like a stuffed sausage here -- she had about four layers on under the coat, but had the have the coat on as well. We hadn't managed to find a good coat for A yet this winter so it is a great blessing that she got on for Christmas. Since we've had a lot of snow and wind the past couple of weeks I imagine it will come in handy the rest of the winter.

 We all know how helpful A is in the kitchen so here she is helping her uncle peel pearl onions for dinner one night. She didn't cry or anything!