Update

Still living in hotel - only different hotel because we were booted out of the 1st hotel since they were already booked for Labor Day weekend.
House still smells like poo. (raw sewage in flood waters. nice.)
Still waiting on decision about my car. (water in the dash and 6 inches of standing water in the floorboards, but let's make sure we consider every possibility)...and now, it's a holiday weekend. of course it is.
garage cleaned out. scavengers trolling neighborhood going through everyone's trash. classy.
flood policy doesn't cover paying for our hotel. right.
lost the will to capitalize.
must sleep.

Seriously?

And our house was broken into. Not kidding. Back door busted in, looks like an FBI search was conducted. Good news: only relatively minor items taken. Bad news: we have even MORE to clean up WHENEVER we get to live in our house again AFTER we have to buy a new car. So that's all I have to say about that.

Used Honda Accord for Sale: Recently Detailed

No reasonable offer will be refused. Must provide own watercraft to recover.

After 22 inches of rain in 24 hours, this is what our car and front yard looks like. We're not sure if we can salvage the car but ultimately, it's not our choice. Click here for the rest of the flood photos.

Tropical Storm Fay hit Friday night. It started raining in the middle of the night and stopped this morning around 8am. The heaviest rains came on Saturday. Everything seemed OK around lunchtime. Emma and Jackson went down for naps and since there was a lovely steady rain, Andy and I decided to lie down too. I went to sleep at 1:30. At 2:23 Andy came in to get me because he had fallen asleep on the couch for 40 minutes and during that time, 6 inches of water accumulated in the front yard. It took us 50 minutes to pack up and get the hell out. During that time, the water rose to knee level in the front yard. Yikes! Luckily, the house is still dry but the garage, as you can see from the photos, is under water. We're currently in a hotel (same hotel that we called home while waiting on this house last summer) until things dry out. We'll find out if the Honda is salvageable tomorrow and what drying out the underneath of the house will entail in the coming days. God be praised! We, the kids, and the cats made it out. We spent last night with some friends (who have a hole in their roof from a huge oak in their front yard) and have done a lot of thankful prayer that we and the house survived the rising waters. When water was splashing over the hood of the Explorer on the way out of the neighborhood, I wasn't so sure. God is certainly protecting us. The truck that tried it after we did got stuck. Take a look at other photos (including my car with the Hog on the trunk) at the Tallahasse Democrat Gazette website. Photo 5 of 33 is our friend Oscar's house on the corner of our street and 24 of 33 is my car. Andy took a boat (yep, a boat) to our house this morning with a friend to gather a few things and take the photos. They literally motored up to the front door and he unlocked the bolt while standing in the boat. We are well. Heading to work tomorrow in jeans and a Razorback t-shirt. At least I'm dry and my kids are OK. Enjoy the photos. Talk to you all soon.

What do you mean, "Back to work"?

So, we're not dead, we've just been gone almost all summer. The kids and I left Tallahassee on July 9 and were gone completely from home until July 31. We spent time all over the state of Arkansas and even spent a week in Aspen, CO with my parents. Then we took a shorter trip to our favorite place, Destin, FL with MK and Scott and my mom. There are a few things I learned from the longer trip. (1) I miss Arkansas and all of our friends and family. (2) 8 days is too long to spend in Colorado with 2 small children. While the weather was magnificent as well as the scenery, there wasn't enough that the kids could do because of their youth and size. Maybe a few years from now will be better. (3) 22 days is entirely too long to be gone from my husband, kitties, and home. I doubt our trip next summer will be as extensive. And some of you people are going to have to drive to see us next year! But Andy did get an incredible amount of work done around the house with us gone with the help of his dad. Our house is magnificent! My husband is a magician. And he now absolutely ABHORS wallpaper. Our next home will either not contain wallpaper or we will LOVE IT. We have renovated bathrooms, kitchen sink, and painted bedrooms complete with princess border for E. It all looks amazing.
The trip to Destin was a fantastic cap to our summer of travel. It was a close trip so the drive wasn't horrible for us or the kids. Mom came with us to act as "au pair" for the 4 days we were there. She loved it, we loved and the kids loved it. I'm not sure if there was a downside for any of us. Mom got some R&R and got full solo access to the grandkiddos. We had a great time with Scott and MK as well.
I'll post pics of the house and trips later. For now, it's back to work for me and back to school for E and J. Emma went to school Friday and was sent home from school today with a cold and fever. Typical. Happy working.