Its been nice actually...

I don't suppose anyone else been watching the weather a lot lately? Or is it just Floridians?

The weather updates are on every channel, scrolling across the top or bottom, at one time or another thru out the day. So we cant HELP but to know whats going on out in the Atlantic.

More Hurricanes! We feel like we are in a game of Dodge Ball! The tropical storms outer bands, have brought us cooler temps.

Lately every morning, late afternoon, and evenings have been beautiful! Even mid afternoons have been surprisingly very tolerable.

So tolerable in fact, that we have spent alot of time out doors this week!

The boys are really enjoying their "Papa Bill Jeep" that's what they call it since Papa Bill (AND Mama Ginny!!) bought it for them.

Can't you just SEE how nice it feels outside?!Mikey worked in Boynton Beach Mon-Wed. He got back very late Wed night.

Thursday afternoon he and Caleb said they were going to take a nap. I GUESS! How any of the 4 of them can sleep like that is beyond me!

Saturday we went to the Science Center. As always, it is an enjoyable learning experience.Zachary was off to explore the entire KidZone. I could hardly find him to take his picture!

Caleb spent most of his time here..... playing with the boats and water...

and here.... Figuring out how all the parts go on the car.

Aww, isn't this just too cute?

Thats the girl kitty, PeekAboo.

We have really been in an organization project mood lately!

We did the boys closet last week, this weekend we cleaned out the garage. There is so much room in there now! We may never get two cars in the garage, but there is plenty of room for our Durango, bikes, Papa Bill Jeep, and we can still easily walk around in it! While we were cleaning the garage, the boys were playing. It sprinkled off and on all day. But never enough that it stopped the ducks from continuing to come visit us. Yesterday was Labor Day. We labored reorganizing my closet. Mikes is next!

Then last night we were to have a Bbq. But when Mike turned on the gas grill, he quickly turned it off, because there was a loud hissing sound. Apparently there is a hole in one of the hoses. I bet a critter chewed it. (I went out back a few weeks ago, late in the evening, and heard rustling by the bbq, and saw a possum (I think) that nonchalantly walked out from behind it, and over to the trees.) So I had to George Foreman our brats. Just not the same.

Tropical Storm Fay

The beginning of the week brought a lot of anticipation about whether or not Tropical Storm Fay would turn into a hurricane.

Yes it was. No it was not. Yes it was. No it was not.

It was coming up the central part of Florida.

It was going to hit Tuesday.

All schools were cancelled.

The government offices were closed.

All the ma and pa stores closed.

The Media warned all day and night,

"Look out!"

And....

Nothing happened.

It sprinkled....

For a min or two.... Here and there....

Boring!

Then it was supposed to go out to the ocean and be gone.

HA!

Wed night it hit the Atlantic Ocean and stopped going east, paused, then headed west.

Directly over us.

Then it stopped.

And rained...

And rained... All day Thursday...

And rained.

And rained.... All day Friday...

And rained.

Yes Caleb, it is still raining. Its Saturday....

Look at the house across the street in the picture. See the lake behind it?

Your not supposed too...

This is today. It is still raining. But the winds are gone.

There was no school Tuesday or Wed. Then, because the storm missed us, they said school was in session on Thursday. It was raining so hard Thursday morning, I told Christina to stay home. She didn't want to, of course, so I drove her to the bus stop, along with some of her friends we saw walking on the way.

By the time it was Zachary's turn to get on his bus, the storm was so bad we said,

"I don't care what the school says, we are not letting him go to school in this!"

By early afternoon, Seminole County announced that any student that missed that day, would NOT be counted as absent. The storm was so bad that most of the kids didn't show up.

Christina got home safe and sound but was mad that she COULD OF stayed home without consequences!

This morning we woke to partially blue skies.

Then it started raining.

Again.

The things we noticed about this storm. There was no Thunder or Lightning. None.

The News Media go way way OVER BOARD in the storm coverage. I record Days Of Our Lives on DVR everyday. Not once, all week long, was Days on. Nope. All storm coverage. It was hundreds of miles from us on Monday, but Tropical Storm Fay was the center of every TV station. There were no daily TV shows on all week. Even the cable channels had banners scrolling across the top and bottom of the screen.

We do have weather channels for crying out loud!

Good Grief! I can only cringe when I think about what storm coverage will be like when we have a HURRICANE!!

We have had a lot of flooding in the surrounding areas, but our neighborhood seems to have been planned very well. We have a lot of little lakes and most of them were pretty full. With one being about 2 feet from the top.

So far our rain fall total from TS Fay is 14.73 in. Wow! Our yard was great! You'd never even know it had rained looking at the grass. Our front door however didn't fare so well. We have a porch over our front door that extends about 6 ft out. The wind kept the rain coming in straight at the front of our house. We had to put towels down in front of the door to prevent getting water in the house. We went thru 12 towels. Beach towels! I washed the first 4, and kept the cycle going for 2 days. We will be emailing the rental company that they need to weather seal the door. I'm glad we were home!

So, I guess I can say, that us DRY ARIZONIANS have survived our first tropical storm, without too much damage! Lets hope we can be this fortunate for all the future storms that will come this way!

Hollywood here we come!

Thursday we went to Hollywood.

Hollywood Florida.

I want to come here again. It has a 5 mile boardwalk.

No cars. Only people.

There are stores galore, and every kind of eatery you can imagine.

We rented this bike and rode up and down the boardwalk for 1.5 hours.

Then there was this playground the boys played at. It was a boring one. No slide or swings. So that ended fairly quickly.... Because they discovered this on the other side of the playground.

Mike and I sat in the shade and watched them and the people. Once they were thoroughly soaked, we took them to the beach to get even wetter. Then we discovered that the bag with the extra clothes in it was still at the hotel.

So they got to pick their own pictures/sayings on clothes at a cute little shop. Caleb loves pictures of sharks and Zachary was excited to get a shirt saying Daddys best buddy.

Monday was back to school. Zachary started 2nd grade, Christina 11th!

We took Zachary back to school shopping, and he picked out all his own outfits. Isn't he a sharp dresser?

Well, we had our first 'major' storm, although it turned out to not be too bad at all.

Tropical Storm Fay came in very very slowly Monday night, Tuesday, and it's still here today. Some decent winds, and a good amount of rain. But no thunder. No lightning.

This was last night. We are in the area of the last 'O' in Orlando. You can see the eye south of us. Luckily, it veered off to the east a little bit, so we didn't get much excitement. But I stocked up just in case. Lots of water, and easy food. Made lots of ice. We have so much camping equipment and supplies, that I am not worried if we had to be without power or water for a week. I guess the water is the biggest issue after a storm because of bacteria that easily gets in it. Yuck! Nascat is finally getting use to the kitties and is starting to play with them. Although they still think he is being mean. Maybe he is still being a bit of a bully. Nascat kept wanting to go out in the storm last night, so we let him out back. It was raining pretty good, but he didn't care. He came back an hour later soaked. What a wierdo! There is no school again today.

Yesterday Mike and I took apart the boys closet and replaced the shelf about 2 feet lower, and added 2 new shelves. Then we pulled out their beds and furniture and gave the room a floor to ceiling cleaning.

I don't think that Mike wants to do any projects today tho.

I just asked him and he just smiled at me. heehhee!

My sister in law Michelle is doing better.

Here is the web site to get updates on her and baby John.

Continue to pray for them.

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/michellemattingly