You were worse than I was expecting.
You showed up Sunday. And yes, it rained all day, but, at our house anyway, the ground sponged up the rains pretty well.
My two oldest boys hunted frogs and played in the backyard puddles for TWO HOURS.
Ready to hunt...
Meanwhile my youngest watched a movie and I read a book.
Nice rainy Sunday afternoon. I may have even been sipping a glass of red wine as I read.
And my husband, who had to drive back from Tampa Sunday evening, got home safe and sound.
As far as we were concerned you were a nice, peaceful tropical storm who was simply going to bring us a few rainy days.
But today you kicked it up a notch.
Why did you do that?
In the morning it alternated between light drizzles and no rain at all.
Then I had to bring Blue to school and the drop off line was longer than usual. We waited. And waited. And then ONE MINUTE before I opened by van door to send him on his way, the sky opened up. Or a feeder band slid over us. Whatever. This was the first of many, many rain bursts that would result in serious inches of rainfall. But I didn't know that then. Toby and I continued on to Target and waited out the heavyness until it returned to a drizzle. As I pulled Toby from his car seat, I laughed and said, "Toby this rain is called Isaac, isn't it funny when rain has a name?"
When I should have been buying groceries I was buying the hubs some Old Spice and some Swiffer refills. Not exactly storm essentials. We returned to the car and rather then push Toby and hit Publix, I decided I'd go home and visit a few more coupon sites to better plan my list - we could get to our groceries later in the day. Ha, ha, HA.
Or not.
At home I cleaned a little, laundered a little. Toby watched some Sesame Street. Then I got hungry and instead of the usual snacking I do, I decided to cook us a real lunch - quesadillas, refried beans, fresh salsa. Toby seemed to think the beans were more for squeezing and patting into the table, so then more cleaning...
Anyway, I didn't notice that you'd dropped so much rain our ditches had overflowed and the water was coming up our driving, taking away our front yard.
Lake front property is nice and all, but when I finally opened the garage door to look outside I was surprised to see I actually owned some.
Around 12:30pm. Um, where's the street?
It didn't take long before the water was up past that line in our driveway. And then a passing truck sent WAVES which toppled our basketball net.
Oh look the water is now inching towards the back of my van. How nice.
That's when I started arranging for Blue to be picked up early. Wasn't gonna wait for more water to build. I figured my van would probably be high enough - I'd seen vans pass in middle of the street and make it, but I still didn't want to risk a stall out with Toby in the car. Kevin left work early, got Blue, got food, parked around the corner at a neighbor's house and came home a little about 2pm. Whew.
Kaden was set because the people we carpool with drive a huge truck.
I still felt a whole lot better when 3:15pm rolled around and everyone was home.
It was STILL raining afterall.
But around 5pm, things started to clear and the boys just needed to get to those puddles.
So we let them.
Good times.
Except for when I waded out there to take pics and stepped on a worm. Ew. Also didn't particularly like seeing tadpoles swim past my toes.
And then, in spite of what I saw on the news about feeder bands continuing through the evening, night, and morning... we haven't had a drop since dinnertime, our drainage has caught up, and you can see our street again. Welcome back, street!
And we never lost power.
Ok, so maybe you weren't that bad afterall.
But excuse a gal for worrying. I've never seen so much water creep so close to my own property before. Nor have I ever had kiddos off at school where the roads could be cut off by flooding before I could get to them. That part just wasn't fun.
But, ultimately, we Floridians appreciate you going west and leaving us with puddles and a few good stories. I'm thinking the Lousianians aren't gonna want much more either, so uh, go easy. Ok? You've got nothing to prove. At the end of the day, you made my boys happy and they are happier still that school is canceled tomorrow (school district wasn't gonna make the same mistake twice!). How about keeping it at about that level for those other guys?
Please?
All Best,
A Port St Lucie Mom who still loves the sound of the rain - just not all the bleepin' frogs that comes with it.
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