Greetings from the Bottom of the Ocean

We've seen a lot of rain around here. A LOT. It's been a particularly rainy year here in San Antonio, where we have had more rain in the first six months of the year than we get on average in an entire year. Compare that with the last two years where we have had major drought conditions that lead to water restrictions and blistering temperatures and you've got one wild weather pattern.

Luckily, it's really kept our temperatures down. By this time of year, our temperatures are usually in the mid- to high-nineties with heat indexes of over 100 degrees. It's usually downright miserable and while the humidity here has been pretty nasty lately, we've only had highs in the high-eighties. The idea of temperatures being in the eighties during summertime in South Texas is absurd, and yet we're living it. It's fantastic!

All this rain, though, has caused some major problems. Just up the road from us, near where we vacationed at Lake LBJ last year, in Marble Falls, there have been major flooding issues that made it onto the likes of CNN and the CBS Evening News. Nearly 15 people have died in all of this, as our ground is so saturated that any rain that falls can't be absorbed into the ground and has to find alternate places to go. In a hilly place like San Antonio and the rest of the Texas Hill Country, running water can become very dangerous very quickly.

Last Thursday, it started raining around 7:30 in the morning. And I mean pouring. You know those storms that you get that dump an inch of rain in a half-an-hour and then clear out? Well that was the kind of storm that we had, only it didn't clear out for nearly 12 hours. It just poured and poured and poured without stop. Thursday alone, we got around six inches here in my neighborhood.

Today started out with a nice morning, but this afternoon the sky began to darken and the wind started to blow. Sure enough, the sky opened up and dumped another hour's worth of pouring rain on our city. Our across-the-street neighbor, Kurt, measured three-and-a-half inches in just over an hour. Yowza.

As it was coming down, I was looking out our front windows. True to form, our next-door-neighbor, Zach (14 years) was running around, enjoying the downpour. When it's not thundering or lightening, the kids on our street just love to play in the rain.

I saw a person following Zach and assumed it was Dillon, Zach's ten-year-old brother. But I looked more closely and realized that the bathing-suit clad person wasn't Dillon, but rather Billy, Zach and Dillon's dad.

I laughed out loud at the site of the grown man playing the rain and Todd asked what I was laughing at. I told him and BOOM! quicker than lightening, he had gone upstairs and come back down wearing his swim trunks and holding Devin's. Dev quickly dressed into his trunks and out the two of them ran into the pouring rain, to meet up with Zach and Billy.

You have never seen a group of kids (that word includes the adults out there, since they were just as bad as the kids, if not worse) have so much fun. The water rushed down the steep hill on our short cul-de-sac and made little rivers in our front yard and rapids near the storm drain at the end of the street.

Kurt and his five-year-old son, Nate, and eight-year-old Daughter, Emily, joined in the fun and I was able to catch a few pictures of the melee.

Hans and Franz (we know them better as Todd and Billy)


Zach surfs down our street


The photo doesn't do it justice, but this area of water was actually flowing with a small area of rapids and everything. It was quite a site.


Water running down our across-the-street neighbor's steps


Kurt gives Todd his weekly hose-down


Todd and Emily down near the storm drain. The water was about five inches deep after only 20 minutes of rain.

As far as the rest of the family goes, all is well. Last week I had to take the girls into the pediatrician's office to seek out the cause of fevers they both woke up with on Sunday afternoon. Sure enough, they both had double ear infections. We went through this with Devin and as Todd put it, "Break out the ENT's number -- we're getting tubes!" I'm sure we're heading down that road.

Faith's second tooth has finally shown up and Gracie's second tooth (her first one appeared when we were in Galveston on June 7) is trying to break through. Poor girls...I know it can't feel good.

Devin is quickly coming upon his 4th birthday and every day I have to convince him that, "No, today is not your party," and, "If we show up at Inflatable Wonderland they will not just spontaneously throw you a party. We can't have the party until the 14th, when we have it scheduled." Reasoning with a three-year-old ain't easy.

We're looking forward to the Fourth of July and are hoping that the rain holds off at least a little while so we can do some fireworks.

And Finally...Devin's Doozie

Tonight we are spending family time together in the living room, with Todd and Devin playing and me typing. We have "Titanic" on TV and Devin goes in and out of being interested in it. The idea of a ship sinking piques his interest, but the movie as a whole is a bore to him.

A moment ago, he asked Todd, "When is this thing gonna sink?!?"