Here we go again!

Well, once again we have water in the basement. Just a month ago, we went through this! UGH! The Elkhart River is currently at 10.4 feet, (flood stage is a 7 ft), and it has officially made the #5 spot for all time high historical water levels, effectively bumping our Jan. #10 spot, record of 10.07, off of the charts. This is just crazy! We had some snow, but not nearly as much in Jan. and then a couple of days of rain and, up came the water again. At the moment, the water is just starting to creep through the cracks in the basement floor, but the water is just as high or higher in our neighborhood as it was the last time and it came up a whole lot faster…just over the course of today. We just got the basement back in order from the last flood and today we had to get everything up off of the floor once again.

Here is the chart of Historical crests for the Elkhart River from the Nat'l Weather Service site. You can see our Jan. measurement at #10, but as soon as they update this list it will be gone and our record from today will be at #5.

Historical Crests
(1) 11.94 ft on 03/14/1982
(2) 11.87 ft on 02/24/1985
(3) 11.03 ft on 12/30/1990
(4) 10.46 ft on 03/17/1982
(5) 10.33 ft on 07/10/1951
(5) 10.33 ft on 03/05/1979
(7) 10.27 ft on 10/11/1954
(8) 10.20 ft on 06/09/1993
(9) 10.15 ft on 04/04/1950
(10) 10.07 ft on 01/09/2008

The weather in general has been pretty crazy. Twice last week, schools closed due to snow and ice, (Wednesday and Friday) and then Tuesday of this week, they postponed 2 hours due to dense fog. Tonight most of the area churches cancelled their evening services, but since we didn't have church last Wed. we decided to go ahead and have it this week. Halfway through the day today it started to snow and it got pretty bad, but it started to taper off and the roads didn't end up being as bad as what we originally thought. (so tonight our flooded neighborhood is covered with snow!!)

On a good note…we booked our vacation! Hooray…we are going back to the beach! Officially to Topsail Island, which is about 30 minutes north of Wilmington, NC. We are going the first week of May and I can't wait to go. (Now would be really good!) We aren't 100% sure what we will doing along with it, maybe DC, Gettysburg, or who knows, but we have time to figure that out before we leave. I am just very excited that we are going back to the ocean. The home which we have rented is right on the water once again and has its own walkway right to the beach. It is also pet friendly so we will be taking Tucker to the ocean with us! Here is a link to the home which we are renting:
Our Rental House

Here are a few more things that have been going on in the last few weeks, (since I got behind on my postings once again!)

• Jan. 19^th- we had Parent/Teen game night for WOL. We played life-sized Trouble and were able to play our new WOL Quiz Blitz too.
  

  
  

• Jan. 25-26, Mark and I, along with Pastor and Nancy went to Kokomo for the WOL Leaders Training Seminar. (Scott and Lori weren't able to attend.)
  

  
  

• Jan. 27^th, Grandma Eunice's birthday and we met everyone for dinner at Logan's Roadhouse in Mishawaka and then everyone came back to our house afterwards for dessert and just spending time together.
  

  
  

• Jan. 28- I started to come down with a scratchy throat and ended up by Thursday with a fever of 102 and sick on the couch all day. I am still not completely over it, (have a cough and a runny nose), but am feeling better than I was last week.
  

  
  

• Jan. 30^th, even though the roads weren't great today and I was not feeling the best with my cold, Jared and I took Tucker to get his hair cut and Jared and I ate lunch at Burger King. Before we went back to pick Tucker up we went and got Jared a new pair of jeans at Kohl's.
  

  
  

• Feb. 2^nd, we had FIF dinner at Jim and Willa Floras, also with the Wieses, and we had a very nice evening. It was the first time I had been out of the house for a few days since I hadn't been feeling well.
  

  
  

• Feb. 3^rd- Superbowl Sunday. The guys went over to the Jordan's, the ladies went to Chevalier's, and the teens had a Superbowl party at church. Tucker came with me and got to have a play date with Lucy and Peanut, even though he wasn't too thrilled with Peanut, but he and Lucy got along great! (Lucy is the Chevalier's new Bichon which they got after Chloe died.)
  

  
  

• Feb. 4^th- homeschool bowling started up again and Monday evening I went to Hacienda with Julie for dinner. We had a nice evening, but the fog was so dense on the way home, it was quite a challenge seeing the road!