A Rainy Summer Day

A couple of weeks ago, we had some summer rain. It was the kind that is warm, but also cools everything off. 

The boys became restless and bored, as little boys are prone to do when they've been cooped up in the house too long. I decided to initiate a treasure hunt so I hid their toys and made them maps. I then basked in their happy squeals as I returned to my housework certain that I would not be interrupted. Oh silly Mama! In less than a minute I heard, "Mama, help!"

I first helped Elijah to read the map and figure out where the toy was hidden.

Then came Beniah's turn. 

This game was so fun that they wanted to play it over and over and over....
Unfortunately, I realized that our carpet was turning into lava, so blankets and pillows had to get brought out which ended the treasure hunt game and gave me time to finally clean the kitchen.

Watching the Rain

This past weekend was predicted to be rainy, so I decided to finally make the weather chart that I had been eyeballing on Pinterest and talk with the boys about rain and other Pacific Northwest weather.

They love the chart and have come up to me and said, "Mama, I think the weather is somewhere between cold and burning hot!"  Yeah, an outside thermometer is next on my Home Depot shopping list.

Since the weather app on my tablet said that we should expect 1"-4" of rain over the weekend, I made our own rain gauge using one of my canning jars, a permanent marker, and a ruler.  The boys were so excited to watch the jar slowly fill up with rain.

Monday morning, I brought in the jar to see how much rain we collected.

We collected 1 1/2" of rain over the weekend. Beniah begged me to put the jar back outside so we can collect more rain. I'm thinking a rain gauge is going to become a permanent fixture in our garden.

Stormy Adventures

   The first major storm of the fall season has hit the Pacific Northwest. Rain has been pouring almost all day long and flooded some neighborhood streets. Massive gusts of wind have knocked down some tree limbs around our apartment complex. We also had the thrill of enduring a power outage. Thankfully, the thrill of losing power and pulling out flashlights and candles outweighed the irritation of the computer shutting off during Beniah's abcmouse.com playtime.
After calling the power company to report the power outage (and finding out that there were 3 other sections of town out of power), Tim and I started pulling out candles and our flashlights since we had enough daylight to rummage through closets.  The boys were super excited about the candles and begged me to light them. As I was lighting the candles, Elijah excitedly whispered, "Fire!" like a semi-crazed caveman.

Then they found the flashlights.

   Dinnertime was approaching so (being the pregnant Mama that I am), we hurriedly left to find a restaurant that had some power and hot food. Along the way, we saw some of the damages of the wind. There were downed tree limbs too, just not at any stoplights.

It seemed like all of Vancouver was out looking for warm food and electricity, so we ended up at a Baja Fresh and enjoyed our Mexican dinner.

 

After dinner, we ran an errand and headed home. As we walked up our sidewalk, we were greeted by a wonderful sight!

Puddle Jumping

For the past couple of days, the boys and I have been cooped up in our house due to torrential downpours. (Ok, so maybe torrential is a bit over-dramatic, but I've been in the house with two energetic little boys. Dramatics are acceptable.) This evening Tim and I put shoes on the boys and let them get as wet as they wanted. In hind-sight, we should have put their galoshes on, but who needs 20/20 vision anyway?  The boys had a blast!

Taken about 5 seconds before he put his finger in his mouth.

The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful.

- E.E. Cummings  

 “Some people could look at a mud puddle and see an ocean with ships.” 

- Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston)

 “You can't tell how deep a puddle is until you step into it” - Unknown