RAIN!!!

As you might have guessed from the title of this post, we have had a lot of rain recently.  In fact, we have had so much rain that quite a lot of our new grass, yes, the very grass I had boasted about in previous pictures, has all drowned.  I was going to take photos to show, but it’s just too depressing.  So that will require some serious action, as in, cutting down some trees. I mean, it’s just no fun to have a yard that is all mud even when it isn’t raining.

So this rain deluge all started when Jan and I were in Minnesota.  Actually, it has been raining in Indiana for seemingly forever, but the intensity ramped up significantly on our visit.  The new-Minnesotans, my parents, have never lived in tornado alley before.  Us jaded Hoosiers (that’s folks from Indiana) were unimpressed.  Jan slept through the whole thing while I tried to and my parents camped out in the basement watching the NBA final!!!  That’s the channel that was showing tornado information.  To be fair, the tornadoes did come within a town or so from where my parents now live in Rochester.  So, close-ish.  That’s nothing compared to a couple days ago here in South Bend where the tornadoes went through our old neighbourhood!  THAT was really close.  David and Jan and I were all glued to the screen that night.  Jan kept saying, “what this show?” The screen was showing nothing, of course, that made any sense to him. David has been able to get very little done on the house what with the power outage and the amount of rain.  He doesn’t want to use a tile saw inside the house, understandably.  Oh yes, did I mention power-outage?  We were without power, which means water, from Friday 5pm to Monday 5pm.  If you are prepared for this and expecting to be camping, it’s no big deal.  If you are inside your house and not expecting it, it’s a different situation.  It’s one of those “do we go into full-fledged camping mode or do we just expect it to come on any minute?”  We got 10 kitty-litter buckets full of water from church.  Most of our church family was without power too if not for even longer.  And apparently the storm was only a half hour long.  Goodness!  Here is a photo of the power outage time.  Notice the bottles and bottles of water lined up. Also visible is the propane lantern and the propane stove with the camp toaster on it.  It’s kind of a mess because our house is pretty dark even during the day in the summer what with all those trees, so you cannot see the dirt.  That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

Jan and I have spent each morning doing things like grocery shopping after throwing away everything in the fridge, shopping for summer school, planning for summer school.  This past Friday, however, we went to Bremen Bounce.  This is a big warehouse about a half hour – 40 minutes away full of giant inflatable bouncy things.  Jan’s been before with his daycare, but I hadn’t.  Clearly, as these pictures show, he thinks it’s the greatest thing ever.

Lots of photos of him going down big and small slides, climbing through a tunnel and yes, having a time-out.  I’m just that mean, or maybe he’s just that naughty.  Actually, it wasn’t anything too bad.

And there you have it for another little while.  Action, adventure and mayhem.  Never a dull moment.