Our Little Place In The World: Its been a wet week

- or at least the week started off that way. It *may* have made the news wherever you are, but on Monday, Phoenix received a record setting amount of rain in a single day in the history of the city. While this may not seem like a huge banner event to you if you are used to seeing rain drops falling from the sky, it was a HUGE deal here. Because of the ongoing drought and sporadic rain as it is, when we get a lot all at once, there's no where for the water to go (the ground is too hard, and can't soak it up fast enough), and therefore lots of flooding follows.

I woke up Monday morning at 3am due to the torrential downpour and massive gusts of wind (unfortunate because my alarm wasn't going to go off again for another two hours). I left my house at 530 for work. I live 10 minutes from a Park and Ride where I pick up my coworker for carpool. It took me 30 minutes to get there due to the main road being closed and everyone being re-routed through the neighborhoods, which were also flooding. When I picked my coworker up, we opted to take the local roads into work because the freeway was closed due to flooding as well. My normal, 30-ish minute commute took me 2 hours that day. Schools were closed, and more importantly (to J anyway), Tot Town was canceled. Fortunately for him, Justin took him outside during A's nap to splash in the puddles flooding the back yard. The good news, our citrus trees have never looked better!

Tuesday the was a overcast day, with a few more small showers here and there. But because the temperature had dropped a bit, the kids got a lot of outside play time with Grandma, and then again when Justin and I got home from work.

Wednesday was another nice-ish day, so we ventured out again. Not as cool as the previous days, but tolerable.

Thursday I took J to get his hair cut (can't have it all shaggy for the upcoming wedding!). He had a blast playing with the toys waiting our turn, but to say he enjoyed his haircut would be a huge over exaggeration - you would think we were torturing the kid based on his screams…funny how he changed his tune when he saw the lollipop afterwards - maybe I'll use that during next time...

On Thursday we also, finally, broke down and purchased the wooden tracks that go "with" the train cars he's obsessed with. This has taken his obsession to a whole new level. He has slept with the train cars for the last few nights and naps, and has spent countless hours playing with the trains and reconfiguring the tracks. We just have to keep A away from them - he's not so much a fan of when she reconfigures the track for him.

I think A has gotten quite used to the outside time the kids got earlier this week, because Friday through today she has been indicating that she would like to go outside. Unfortunately, the temperature has creeped right back up, and it isn't nearly as desirable to be outside, unless we are in the pool.

She will stand at the back door, pointing and shrieking. J tells "shoes" (because we don't let him go out without shoes, he won't let her out without them either). So she goes and finds shoes (any shoes, hers, J's, mine) and brings them to me. Once she has shoes on her feet, she goes back to the door indicating again that she wants out. J tell her "hat". So she goes and finds her or J's hat, puts it on, and goes back to the door. Then J tells her "No. Too hot", and goes back to playing. A few times after hearing this, she has brought me her swim suit. Other times she throws a temper tantrum.