July 4th

 

What a rainy, soggy mess this past week has been!  The whole Roanoke area is officially saturated (like much of Virginia).  On the morning of the 4th, Matt and I woke and checked the news.  We found out that the Roanoke River had flooded entire sections of the city, Bent Mountain had multiple mud slides and road closures, and the 4th of July celebration was tentative at best. 

We stayed inside for the morning because it was --- you guessed it --- raining!  Finally around 11, the rain stopped.  I looked at him and said, "if we don't get Katie outside right now, it might not happen again for the next couple of days."  So, we headed out to the park for a couple hours of amazingly wonderful SUNSHINE!!!  Katie was thrilled to be outside playing for the first time in a couple days.  We "fished" in the puddles at the playground, slid down the slides, and swung on the swings.  After 2.5 hours we decided to head back to the house because clouds were forming again.

For those of you who know Matt well, you know he is a bit of a weather bug.  Any sort of extreme weather scenario in our area and he MUST see it in person --- and usually take commemorative photos/videos of the event.  So, on the way home from the park, we stopped by my usual running route (The Greenway) to see how bad the flooding damage was.  It was unbelievable.  See picture below.  My normal running route is between the parking lot and the line of trees on the left (the river is supposed to be to the LEFT of the trees). 

Finally, Thursday night we met up with one of Katie's preschool classmates, Carter, and his parents.  Together, we sat outside in the rain and watched the fireworks show together.  I didn't even realize you could launch fireworks in the rain, but they managed to pull it off!  Katie loved the fireworks, but she was so exhausted by the end of the show (10:00) that she actually asked to go home.  We said good-bye to Carter and wished them all a Happy 4th of July.