wicked weekend

This was the view out the window on the way to school to get the kids Friday afternoon. Oh, and by the way, the tornado sirens were going off!!! While part of me was freaking out, the other part of me was thrilled. I am a weather fanatic, and I know many of you know my obsession with the weather and local TV weather personalities growing up. Well, the weather still fascinates me. Way back when I was a Junior in high school, I had looked into universities in Oklahoma and Kansas to study meteorology just to be in the heart of tornado alley and be able to be a storm chaser. Then I picked up a book on Cloud Physics...yikes. Needless to say, I am not a meteorologist.


The weather began beautifully Saturday morning; we had a birthday party to take Cal to, and a 5th birthday party for our cousin that Kaycey, Maddie, and I went to. It was hot, and very muggy. Then out of nowhere, it began raining. No big deal, it lasted 10 minutes. The sun came out again. Then it began to cloud up again, and I heard a neighbor's radio talking about tornadoes near West Bend, which is where Cal was for a birthday party. Huh, weird--we all thought. I called the mother right away and everything was okay right where they were. I stepped in the house to check the weather on TV, and WOW--there were tornado warnings everywhere, and minutes later, the sirens sounded for the second day in a row. It was amazing. WHile some of us made our way to the basement, some stayed on the main floor to watch the TV weather. This is the back yard at my aunt and uncle's house shortly after it began raining.





Their yard doesn't typically have standing water after a rain. My Dad called to tell me his street and the intersecting street 3 houses down was completely under water and over the curbs. He & Maria live just houses away from a creek. The next street down was under 2 ft of water. There was word on the radio that cars were floating down streets a bit northeast of us. Also we are on edge at my Dad's because his pump (he now has 2 or 3 going) can barely keep up in the basement, so we moved alot of our stuff up we are storing here to higher groud or upstairs (like all my scrapbooking stuff!!) Another Aunt and Uncle of mine had major problems with sewage coming up through their basement drain and they had to carry hundreds of buckets of water out of the basement. And then on top of all that, I had to pick Cal up 1/2 way to West Bend. The rain was still coming down, and there were so many streets and highways closed because they were under water. My Mom drove with me to get Cal and this was the view driving on I-45:






Seriously, there were a couple officers standing near the shoulder of the highway and it was up to their waist. I wish I would've thought to take video of it with my camera. My camera didn't take great pictures because it wasn't on the right setting, but just to get an idea...







Word is since yesterday there's been between 5 and 10 inches of rain. As I type, it's raining pretty hard still. And it's supposed to keep raining for at least a few hours. And possible heavy rain tomorrow as well. So there is a bit of water in the basement (at Dad's), we are just hoping for no power outages or more extremely heavy rain. Out at the new house, it sounds like some neighbor's driveways are under water, and culverts damaged. Our houseseems to be in good shape and our drainage system seems to be working out well, well it better be after they made us build so high up (which is a good thing I suppose)!! The sky earlier right after dinner while another big storm moved in.



By the way, alot of the baseboard and casement around doors and windows is done inside the house, except for where the cabinets will go (Mike and his Dad were out there yesterday, Mike was out there today). I saw my cabinet door and drawer (Mike's Dad brought a sample), and they look awesome, except the color didn't seem to go with the floors, so he's going to try a different color.

more pictures

Kaycey had her kindergarten graduation yesterday.

(Kaycey's in the middle, her two best friends are with her, Amanda and Madison)

Cute picture of Maddie and Cal.

The front porch ceiling is coming along...(the holes are where recessed lights will go)

Some doors are on upstairs (Cal's room below), no handles are on yet, though--I still have to pick those out...

Front door is here!! Yea!!! Still needs to be painted, though....I have to pick a color yet. The interior side will be white, not sure about exterior.

Hardwood floor view from kitchen into Mudroom and Laundry room

Appliances are officially purchased and will be delivered and installed on June 26th. We bought a Kenmore double wall oven, an Amana French Door Refrigerator (freezer on bottom, side by side fridge on top), a Kenmore Elite dishwasher, and a GE profile cooktop. We ended up spending more on a cooktop than we would've liked because we got one that didn't have knobs sticking out of it, it's all touch button controls on the side. Not sure if you can tell in the picture, but here it is...

I'm pretty nervous about having such high tech appliances since I am as high-tech as a Pilgrim (no offense to the Pilgrims). So I have my fingers crossed to start moving in that weekend after the appliances are delivered. The kids start baseball in Vernon next Wednesday. The only reason I signed them up was because I thought we'd be in the house by the time they started :(

Anxious...

Okay, I am slowly approaching the point of insanity now. I am sick of living out of boxes, backpacks, and laundry baskets. Once the kids are out of school, I am really going to go crazy. They are done next Monday. Mike has been spending up to 15 hours a day at the house Friday, Sat, and Sundays. Yesterday though was a *measly*-haha- 13 hours. He is out there again today. He is now off of work on Mondays and Fridays instead of Thurs/Fridays. The hardwood is taking forever, the one night all he was able to get done was a small 3 ft section. The problem is that the planks are only 2" wide, much narrower than a typical wood floor.

Bad news, Mike's truck was broken into last week. It happened while he was working his day job, he was parked on the lakefront. Someone smashed the passenger window and rummaged through everything. Luckily Mike doesn't really keep anything valuable in the front, there was a small saw stolen though.

I haven't really been on the computer a whole lot lately. We stayed at my grandparents part of the week and I don't bring my computer along. I also bartended twice this past week, and it was crazy busy. We shopped for appliances one night. We did pick out the appliances officially now, though we are waiting to actually purchase them this week because there was a 20% rebate being offered this week.

Cabinets are being started today. Oh, that's not starting to be installed, that's starting being built. He says it'll only take 3 weeks or so, which is hard to believe, but that would be fantastic. I met with him last week, and saw a sample of what our bench will look like and laundry room cabinets because he had another job with similar cabinets. They looked really nice. I am going to see if he can make us a custom kitchen table to go with the bench, so we aren't struggling to find a table that fits just right. I am hoping that cabinets is what we are waiting for to get in the house, but I doubt it because lots of flooring needs to be put in, the porch needs to be done, and the stairs need to be rebuilt, just to name a few things.

Good news is I have some pictures--hardwood floors are done in the dining room and entryway, and started in the kitchen. Just need to finish the mudroom, 1/2 bath, and laundry room, and I think maybe we'll do the upstairs hallway if it's not too late to order more flooring. Then at least the hardwood floors will be done. Still have to do the carpet and laminate though in the rest of the house.




The woodwork isn't on yet, but this is what it looks like placed against the wall--a 5 1/4" wide white baseboard.




The interior doors were delivered and are sitting in our garage. Mike's Dad started hanging some of the doors upstairsover the weekend! I haven't been out there since Friday, so hopefully I can get some pictures after school today.