Mom

Happy birthday, Mom

WE LOVE YOU!!!!

Back to summer

The wacky weather this year has made for a beautiful showing of tri-colored flowers on my Hydrangea bushes out front. Lavender, pink and blue together on each of the plants.

Things are starting to get back to "normal" around here. Last week was alot of dealing with insurance adjusters and FEMA. Neither one is going to be able to help us with the Kensington house. We knew the insurance would deny the claim - as we didn't have flood insurance. FEMA insists it is our "secondary residence" and has it listed as a rental property since they don't have any way of putting it as a land contract sale in their data base. That means that the drywall, insulation, carpet, furnace, water heater, electrical and electric panel, etc. all will not be covered under FEMA's help because Amy is considered a "renter". They referred us to the SBA for a loan, but we are not eligible for that, either. So Amy will be having to pay for these things out of her own pocket. On a lighter note - her church has been wonderful in helping with clean up and repairs. They already have offered to put up drywall once the basement floor has had a chance to truly dry out. In the middle of all that last week I took Katie and Jaime to IU for freshman orientation. Never done that before - didn't attend one myself for Univ. of Cincinnati. I think they both felt comfortable on campus. They got to stay in the same dorm building they will be sharing come fall. They were both a little surprised by the smallness of it all....but already have plans on how to make the most of it.

I spent the night with Lauran and Cory and had a great time. It was a nice to be able to spend some quiet time getting to actually talk with Cory. With all the crazy stuff going on this summer and Megan in summer school until July 17th! - there really aren't any vacation plans for us. So I broke down and bought a three person slip and slide for the girls this week. As you can see it has already been put to good use with their friend, Katie. Tons of summer fun right at home!

Flood Pictures

Our internet is finally back up and running!!!! Thought I'd just post a few of the pictures we took of the flooding in our neighborhood.

The front street was a total lake Saturday. It was amazing how fast it all rushed in. This is about the point that two of our neighbors had their basement windows implode in.

This is a view of the "road" behind the house. The big pipe in the picture is from a construction site half a mile away. The water actually came up even higher. Eventually the MPH part of the sign was totally submerged.

This view is from about 6am Sunday morning of Kensington Ct. in Windsor Place. We have a land contract sale on our old house there - so the title is still in our name. The basement had about five feet of water in it at this time. We weren't able to get into the house until later that afternoon as the current owners had been evacuated Saturday night and weren't back this early. When we got back over there in the afternoon I didn't have my camera but the water was half way up the stairwell.

I finally remembered to take my camera back over on Monday when we were able to get into the basement and start hauling stuff out. The picture you see is of the storage room. You can see the high water mark on the back wall.

We were so very, very lucky to have made it through this unscathed. This is of the neighborhood next to Windsor. These houses have to be gutted down to their studs inside. It has been wonderful to see how people have come together to help each other through all of this. Times like this can bring out the worst in people - like the bastards that were arrested for looting. The ones arrested had their pictures and names on the front page of the papers which should make their families so proud. Cheers to the Republic for doing that!! But mostly what I've seen is people acting at their best. Family, friends and even strangers came out of the woodwork to help with the nasty clean up work and all that goes with it. I'm very proud of our town with the big heart. Thanks to all of you that called to check on us and sent your prayers our way!

Quick Post

I just wanted to let you all know that we are FINE! The flood was crazy - - but we are blessed! We are the ONLY house in about a one mile radius that did not get water in it. It had been touch and go for most of the day as the water table rising got all the houses around us through their basement floors. The sump pump has not stopped in - I was going to say how many hours then realized that I have absolutely no idea what time it even is....we were less than an inch from it over-flowing the sump pit for many, many hours but it has gone down. We spent the morning moving furniture upstairs and trying to put anything we could up on top of plastic tubs, etc. in the basement. Our biggest concern last night was the Katie and Emily weren't home with us. But we are all fine. We have spent most of the day helping friends and neighbors rescue or recover whatever we could. Thank you for all of your prayers! Probably won't be able to post again for awhile as we are without internet or cable - I happen to get a connection on David's laptop and decided to post while I could. For any of you that have been damaged - our prayers go out to you and please let us know if we can help you in any way!

She did it!

Sorry about the delay in this post. I was waiting for David to upload the pictures from the video camera to see if they turned out any better than my digital. He hasn't had a chance to get to it yet - so I thought I'd post a few pictures anyway. For some reason the color (and lighting) look really bad of the actual graduation. Although it looks like they are wearing green, the colors of the cap and gown are brown. Katie looks a bit pale, as well! I heard several others at the ceremony talking about how dark their pictures were coming out and funny coloring, too. The ceremony went well and the weather cooperated, too. Well, the graduates were saying it was way too hot while they were standing in lines outside in cap and gown for over half an hour waiting for it to start. The ceremony was over in just under an hour, which was suprising since there were 262 students graduating. Same faces as prom - just much less expensive (yet just as pretty) dresses. That's Sarah, Emily, Jaime & Katie.

Weather didn't stop anyone from going outside to eat or play bocce

ball at our open house. That's David & Zane playing against my brother, Kevin and Jaime's boyfriend, TD. As David put it, "Zane was able to dragged me through to a win."

I think I can guess who dragged whom to a win when Kevin, Lisa, Emly and Sarah played....actually Emily and Sarah have been pretty good at it since last year.

Later we grilled out and enjoyed a perfect evening on the deck. Emily and Sarah convinced us to play a few

board games. My first thought when someone suggests that is oh yeah, no! But I always end up having a good time. We actually had Upwords going and started asking each other trivia questions out of another game at the same time. Talk about trouble concentrating! Kevin & Lisa were able to spend the night which gave us much appreciated extra time with them. After we stuffed our faces once again at breakfast, they headed back to Milwaukee. My ankle better hurry up and heal so I can get back to running to work off all that food I ate over the weekend!

Thank you to everyone that made it over (and those that kept us in their hearts that day!) to celebrate this great day!