Dear Miss Dinah,
Two nights ago we had a little weather. In fact, the TV shows the thunderstorm warning area in yellow - it is
only our county!
Sure enough, we had huge rain and winds (70 mph!?) come through not long after. We ran over to Aunt Julie and Uncle Jeremiah's first so we wouldn't have to be alone, as Daddy was still away working that night :(
Our house is probably a little better equipped for a big storm: it has less windows and is better sound insulated. But, we'd rather have the company!
We heard the in a city just 30 mi. north of us they had flooding in the streets so bad that peoples' car engines were dying when they tried to drive through it. They shouldn't have tried anyway, as the police were trying to direct people away from the water. Apparently, this street flooding is not uncommon when rain like this comes.
After the storm passed, which wasn't long, this was the scene out our side door. Little pebbles of hail were covering the ground up against the house. "Rocks!" you exclaimed.
When Daddy got back late Thursday night he said he was ready for fun this weekend :) He has been working so much lately, and the work is finally letting up a little bit, so he was ready for a well-earned break!
Friday morning we went to "Learn and Play" at the library. The theme was zoo animals, and there were all sorts of games and activities going on in the room. The program is for very young children, so everyone there was probably 0-4 years old. It is a pretty small room, and at one point Daddy made me laugh so hard because he said, "Wow, it's REALLY noisy in here!" I hadn't even given the sound a second thought, but he said it was worse than being around his machine all day (which is very, very loud, and you can hardly talk over it!) I said, "So does that mean you don't want to be a stay at home dad?" :D
Friday night we went to the Wagon Wheel Cafe & Bakery which is about 25 miles away. It is staffed by young Mennonite ladies, and they have the most delicious cookies, breads, cinnamon rolls, and of course are known for their pies. They offer about 10 different varieties of pie. They are open weekdays until 3, except Fridays when they are open for dinner. They were packed (like usual) and so we ended up sitting with a nice older couple who has driven from a city about 40 miles the other direction. Dad had the brisket, and I had chicken fried chicken (for the first time!) and mashed potatoes, you had grilled cheese (and a homemade biscuit) and cottage cheese for your side :) Everyone loved their meal ;)
This morning we went to a lake about 2 hours away. The drive was all back roads - 2 lane highways. It was beautiful! We were trying to decide what the scenery would be called. A prairie? A savannah? We finally decided that it was a
range, as in 'home on the range.'
Pictures from my phone from the car could not do it justice.
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| Notice the red color of the earth on the sides of the road. This is really close to Oklahoma where they are known for this red dirt. |
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| It was beautiful (and mostly green) like this the whole 2 hours! So much land! |
Mamma forgot to back your swim-wings, so we stopped at Dollar General and improvised, which worked out great!
Here it looks like we're on the edge of the water, but actually we are on a sandbar out a ways from the shore.
You can see the distance to the shore here.
I tried to get us all in the picture, but that was really hard. Here we're making faces at each other.
This was the best that I could do.
We swam around a bunch and had a fun time "getting" each other in the water. First we chased Daddy, then me, then you... Daddy would also go under the water and hide. You would say, "Where'd Daddy go?" and then wait expectantly for him to pop up. I went back to shore once while you were still out and as I was coming back out to the water again, I could here you yelling something to me and waiving. When I got back out, Daddy told me you were saying, "Mamma! I good swim!"
Yep, you did good swim :D
I love you,
Mamma <3
