The Flood of 2016

The weather was forecasting some rain, but nobody thought twice about it. Then, it started to rain and rain and rain and rain! It seriously just wouldn't stop. We got a call around 4:30am from the girls' school that school was canceled because of flooding. Cory woke up to check the back of our house because we tend to have some drainage issues, and he found that our house had water in it! It's a good thing that we have all tile back there, so nothing was ruined, but it was a a bit of a mess. Once we woke up, we realized just how bad it was! There were houses near us that had over 3 feet of water in it. I went for a run that night, and I just kept having to run in circles because so many roads were flooding. The school was closed the next day, too. The girls were getting a little antsy, so we decided to go for a walk and bike ride. I was surprised to see that the roads were even more flooded than they had been on Monday! The girls' school looked to us to be flooded, and there were houses in every direction about 1/2 mile from us that had water almost up to the house. It was crazy. The bayous and creeks were still rising because we kept having more rain and everything was draining towards us. Long story short, we were out all week long. We had many projects, experiments, and outings once the waters receded. The girls even baked lemon bars with Cory one day. We were so lucky, and so many around us were not. It was so depressing to see all the ruined furniture and flooring and everything out by the streets! I can't even imagine! We did get water in our storage unit, but luckily everything that got ruined was just Cory's car parts and random things that we probably didn't need anyway. So grateful that we were all safe and sound when so many others had such devastation!

 This is the bayou trail that we usually run on. There is typically (maybe) a 5 foot wide little creek down there!

 The girls in the flood waters - their school is in the background, and it was up to people's waists! Their school did not get much water in in though, thank goodness.

 It took us about 6 tries to finally successfully complete a game of Life without anyone running off crying or throwing their money down.

 We had to get out of the house during the day on day because we were going crazy! We decided to go to Moe's Irish Pub. This is Kacy on the dance floor, getting crazy!

Volleyball Pictures from Pops

Thank goodness Dad and Kris came to town to watch a volleyball game, so I could have some pictures of the season! :) He loves taking pictures of all the girls' stuff, and I am glad he does. Coaching and being a photographer at the same time is a tough task to handle!

Brooke's 4th Birthday Party

Brooke's party was at a gymnastics place by the house, and we all had so much fun! We didn't have any organized activity, and we just decided to let the kids run wild. They all had so much fun on the trampolines, in the ball pit, and just running around. Three of Brooke's preschool friends came, and they were so cute running around and playing together. It's so nice to have parties away from home. You just show up play and leave! I love having them at the house, too, but it's so much more work! Cleaning up before, decorating, cleaning up after. Much easier to go somewhere and have them clean up after you! Brooke had so much fun, and she didn't want it to end. Sweet fun and sweet memories!

Mud Run Fun

Dana and I decided to the the Mighty Mud Run at the Sam Houston Race Park this weekend! We had a good time running through the squishy mud, crawling in mud under barbed wire, swinging on ropes, and climbing up walls. We did almost all the obstacles except for the rope climb. There was no way that was happening! We both jumped up the rope as high as we could, and then went nowhere after that. There were no knots in it, so there was no way to get up it without some serious upper body strength or some technique that we didn't have! I also struggled on the muddy incline wall. Luckily, Dana made it up and helped me over! The other thing that we couldn't do was the rings at the end. I blame the design :) It was way too close to the ground to do it without holding yourself way up off the ground. We were a little nervous about the warped wall. It was right at the end, and there were a ton of people watching/waiting to go. We watched for a while, and we saw a lot of people not making it up and just sliding down the wall. It seemed pretty embarrassing, and I definitely did not want to go out like that. There were quite a few people at the top of the wall helping people that didn't quite make it. We decided to go for it at the same time. We knew we had to get some speed and just give it all we had. We went for it, and it ended up being super easy! Both of us made it up to the top bar! I was seriously proud of us for doing that. We didn't even need anybody to give us a hand at the top! I know a lot of people do these mud runs just for the fun of it, but I like the challenge. Even though it's not crazy hard like some of the other races, I still feel proud of us for doing it!
The guys brought the kids, but they were bored and couldn't see us anyway, so they got to go to the car to watch "Tom and Jerry" while we were running and getting dirty. They came back out in perfect time, and got to see us do the warped wall and finish up. They were all waving and clapping for us as we finished. It was really cute! As usual, none of them wanted to hug us, but they at least stood with us for a picture. :)
It was a fun race, and I am glad we got to do it together!

Spring Festival

Saturday was a super busy day! Mom and Greg were in town, and we started with volleyball in the morning, and then it was time for the Spring Festival at school. As soon as we got there, it started raining, but we didn't let that stop us! The rain stopped pretty quick, and the weather was fine after that. We were a little late, so a lot of the games were out of prizes and closed. We still had a lot of fun playing some games, getting their hair spray painted, and seeing friends. Cory and I worked at the ring toss/drink toss game, so we split time doing that and going around with the kids. Adilyn won two drinks, and Kacy tried and tried to win, but never had any luck. It was great to have Mom and Greg see the craziness that is the Spring Festival!

Brooke's 4th Birthday

Brooke was so excited for her birthday! I woke her up for school, and she immediately said, "Am I really 4 today?" She was so happy to be 4, and she can do all sorts of things now that she is 4. Brooke at 4 has so many different qualities. She is brave and nervous, and she is outgoing and shy. At school she still talks quietly and seems shy, but at home she never stops talking and tries to get her way at all costs. One of her favorite things to do is steal people's spots when they get up. Whenever we are with the Hrobars, and Shane gets up, she will run over to his spot and jump in it and wait with a smile on her face. She also absolutely loves her stuffed animals. Any chance she gets to add another one to her collection, she does! Another funny thing she loves is hats. She wears ski hats to bed all the time, and she loves wearing a Santa hat that somehow got left out of the Christmas boxes. She still loves to color and draw, and she loves to play with playdoh. Her cute little giggle might just be my favorite part of her! 

Here are her birthday question answers for this year:Favorite color - purple
Favorite song -
Favorite movie - "Frozen"
Favorite princess - Elsa
Favorite food - chicken nuggets
Favorite TV show - "My Little Pony"
Best friend - Calla
Favorite thing to do with Kacy - Play with her
Favorite thing to do with Addy - Play with her
Favorite animal - Puppies
Favorite snuggler - Lemon, big puppy
Where would you want to go on a trip? - DisneyWorld
What really scares you? - Ghosts
What dessert do you love? - Ice cream

Double Winners!

Volleyball has started again! This year we are the Storm and the Jammers. We have quite a few returning players and quite a few new ones. It's always an adventure getting to know the kids and trying to figure out how they need to be coached. The teams are bigger than we have had in the past, so that is a little bit challenging as well. I hate having the kids sit during the games so much, but there is not much I can do about it. The parents are still great, so that helps a lot!
We had our first games, and both teams did fantastic! Kacy's team has some great servers, so that's all you really need in the 1st/2nd grade league. She has been doing great with her serving this year! She is so much stronger and consistent than she was last year. The new girls that we have are also pretty consistent, and they are very sweet!
Adilyn's team also had an incredible first game! They were serving great, and they were passing really well. I was so glad that we won our first game, since last season we struggled so much to get some wins. The girls were all very proud of themselves, and they should have been. They played great! We'll see how the season goes, but it's off to a great start!