You know it's an unusual weather week when the city you live in gets mentioned by name on the Weather Channel at least twice. Let's go back to Friday first, though.
Friday (11th): There's not a lot to say about Friday but I did mow the lawn after I picked Seth up from school and that is noteworthy because there's no telling when I'll be able to do that again. The lawn desperately needs to be mowed again, but it is much too soggy to even think about mowing. Looking ahead, we still have rain forecast for several days so the lawn is going to have to wait.
Last Thursday (or thereabouts; I can't remember the exact day anymore) a hole appeared in one of the parking spots in front of our row of townhomes. I thought it was a pothole when I first saw it, but on closer inspection, it turned out to be a sinkhole. Here's some pictures:
It's at least 3-4 feet deep. This has made all of us pretty nervous about parking our cars out front, especially in the spots on either side of the spot with the sinkhole. There have been numerous calls made to the HOA and Frank spoke to someone from there on Monday, and that person said a contractor would be out to evaluate what needed to be done to fix it either Monday or Tuesday, but I haven't seen anyone out there inspecting it yet (I mean, I could have missed that since I don't sit in my house looking out the front window all day, but no one has showed up to fix it yet either.) I'm not sure if the weather has slowed down whoever was supposed to be fixing it. In the meantime, we are one parking space short in a lot that is already not big enough and we are all hoping we don't go outside some morning to discover all our cars fallen into a larger sinkhole! But at least there isn't a volcano erupting in our neighborhood, so all in all we can't complain too much.
Saturday (12th): This day was super busy. Seth had swimming lessons as usual in the morning. After that, Seth, Jared, Jessie and I went on a hike. We went to a place called Sugarloaf Mountain (okay, "mountain" is used in the very broad sense in these parts), which is about 20 minutes south of Frederick. It was a nice hike; not too strenuous and a pretty view at the top. Seth had already done this hike on a field trip in February (part of a program called "outdoor school") and he had asked to go back so that's why we picked this particular hike. Seth was very excited to go back and kept telling us things he learned on the first hike. (I think he should consider being a tour guide as a profession.) Here are some pictures we took:
After we took those pictures, we asked Seth if we were at the summit, and he said "no". He had been telling us that when his class went on the hike, only 1 or 2 people could be on the summit at one time because it was so small and he hadn't had the chance to go up on the summit. So after asking him if we were at the summit, he said "it's over here". Then he led us over to a large rock and said "here it is! This is actually the highest point on the mountain." I had to laugh about that--here I thought we were going to have to hike some more but it was just a rock! So Seth got to sit on the "summit":
(There's my proof that Jared and Jessie were there too.)
He sat on the summit while we ate the lunches we had packed to bring along, and then we hiked back down to the bottom of the mountain. It was a nice day to be outside (sunny and not too hot) and I'm glad we went. Seth really enjoyed hiking and I think we are going to need to do some more hikes because he doesn't usually enjoy physical activity. He usually complains if we have to walk very far but on the hike he kept getting ahead of us.
After getting back from the hike, Jared and Jessie both had to go to work. (Frederick Keys) The rest of us went to a ward activity that evening, where we enjoyed various family history themed activities.
Sunday (13th): Mother's Day! I had a nice restful morning; we didn't have choir practice and Frank didn't have any meetings. I received flowers and chocolates and a few days later in the mail I got a case and a tuner for my ukulele (or maybe I should say the ukulele Jared is letting me use, since it really isn't mine).
(The small package is a glass candle holder that Seth "made" for me at school. I put that in quotes because he was supposed to decorate it, but he "ran out of time".)
At church the men & YW helped in Primary the last hour so that all the women could come to RS and at the end of the lesson they had us go to the gym for treats and visiting. They had fruit with a chocolate fountain, vegetables with dip, and brownies. It was really yummy! They also took a group photo of us--Frank was the photographer and he used his drone to take the picture.
Monday (14th): This day was just an average day except that we booked our flights for Utah. We are happy to be coming to the reunion and looking forward to seeing you all again!
Tuesday (15th): This was mostly a normal day also, until evening when the fun began. When we were driving over to the church for Cub Scouts, I thought the sky looked fairly ominous. I took this picture from the parking lot in front of our house:
Luckily, we made it to the church before the storm hit (it was only sprinkling a little bit). Shortly after we started our den meetings, the storm arrived and we got a torrential downpour with 1 inch hail stones. I could tell it was raining hard and that it was hailing (we could hear the hail hitting the roof) but I didn't really think too much about it because I was busy doing the stuff we had planned to do for den meeting. It's not unusual for us to get heavy rainstorms, although decent sized hail is not so common. At home, Frank tried getting some photos of the storm.
Before:
During:
Yes, those white balls are hail stones coming down!
Look how dark it is, compared to the photo taken a short time earlier (above).
As we were finishing up den meetings, we started hearing lots of sirens and our phones started getting alerts for flash flood warnings. By then it wasn't raining nearly so hard so I didn't really think getting home would be a big deal but I was wrong about that. We only live about 5 minutes from the church but it took me about a half hour to get home because there was some major flooding on Maryland 355 and on Schifferstadt Boulevard, which are the two main roads I usually take to get home. On Maryland 355, I actually drove through a flooded area (not really realizing how bad it was until I was in it). About that time, Frank called so I had Seth talk to him and he told us I was going to have to find another way home because the intersection of Maryland 355 and Schifferstadt Boulevard was closed. I was actually starting to realize that when he called because I could see up the road that there were fire trucks with their lights on blocking the road. All the traffic on the road was trying to turn around and it was kind of crazy. So then I had to drive back through the flooded area to get out of there! Thankfully, we got through that safely and I found another route home. Even then, we saw lots of emergency vehicles out although we didn't run into any more flooded areas. I found out later (that evening and the next day) that there was a lot of flooding in downtown Frederick and even on Market Street, just a mile or so from our house. Remember the blocked intersection? They had to rescue a number of people from cars caught in flood waters at that intersection. I hear there were over 50 water rescues throughout Frederick County that night. Here are a few pictures from the news media:
This picture reminds me of the area that we had to drive through.
This picture of a girl being rescued from a car was taken at the intersection of Maryland 355 and Schifferstadt Boulevard.
I think this picture may have been taken at the same intersection.
Here are a few pictures taken in downtown Frederick:
That last picture is of Baker Park, which is only a few blocks from Seth's school. His school actually did get some flooding in a basement classroom and in their multi purpose room, which is also in the basement. Apparently they were able to get it all cleaned up in time for school, although someone was up all night making sure that happened. (Several someones, I think.)
I heard that we got up to 6 inches of rain in less than two hours, which explains all the flash floods. The Monocacy River (behind our house) is high, but it actually isn't even out of its banks. At least not yet, although that may change since it is still raining. (Just not raining hard, thankfully.)
Meanwhile, Jared and Jessie were in Brunswick that evening and Jessie was supposed to be bringing Jared home but they decided they'd better stay put for a while when they heard how bad the roads were. Frank decided it would be better for him to go down there and pick up Jared since he's a much more experienced driver than Jessie is. He got there and back safely, but the traffic was terrible and he saw more flooding (didn't drive through any flooding though) and it took a long time so they got home pretty late.
Wednesday (16th): It rained off and on all day, but not very hard. I went to the religion class and did mostly the usual things. That evening I took Seth to an 11 year old scout meeting that one of the other ward's was having. He will be 11 in couple of weeks and at the beginning of June there is an 11 year old scout camp out for the stake. However, Seth will be the only 11 year old in our ward at the time of the camp out and for the camp out they are supposed to be in a patrol and do a skit together, plan their meals together, etc. So I contacted the guy in charge of the camp out and he said he is the 11 year old scout leader in his ward and invited Seth to join their ward's patrol. Since they are starting to prepare for the camp out at their meetings now, he invited Seth to come to their meetings too. So that's what we did. Getting to the church proved to be another adventure, though. In anticipation for more flooding (which did happen later, I think) they had closed off Schifferstadt Boulevard from near our house all the way down to Maryland 355,which was also closed for a large stretch. Because of the road being closed, the traffic was all snarled up and after attempting to go a couple of different routes I kept running into more stand still traffic. I did finally find a way to get to the church, after having to back track and drive the opposite direction from the church for a while. It was crazy!! Seth seemed to enjoy the meeting and there was only one boy from the other ward there (2 didn't make it that evening) so I think the leader was glad to have another boy show up!
Thursday (17th): Again, raining off and on all day, sometimes heavy. Because of all the previous flooding and more rain in the forecast, the mayor of Frederick declared a state of emergency. We are also supposed to try not to use water for anything nonessential, like washing dishes or clothes. (Something about the water treatment plant being inundated.) For some reason, I didn't hear about that until after I did the laundry--oops!! I usually get email notices with any emergency notices so I don't know why I'm not getting them anymore. It was supposed to rain hard again last night so they were anticipating a lot more flooding. Because of that, the RS activity we had that evening was cancelled. In addition, the school system cancelled all afternoon & evening activities and they also decided to have a 2 hour delayed opening this morning. As it turned out, that part of the storm mostly missed us I think so we didn't get really heavy rain (which was a blessing!) It has still been raining off and on all day today and we are supposed to get 3-5 more inches of rain by tomorrow night, so we may have more trouble with flooding before this is over. Anyway, on Thursday I spent a good part of the day doing family history stuff and reading about the temple. I have a book I'm reading about temple symbols and the chapter I read yesterday was really enlightening. I just got a lot of insights and thought about some things I had never thought about before while I was reading it--that was cool! Jared only had to work from 6:00 - 9:00 am (he worked 6:00 am to 2:00 pm Monday through Friday) and Jessie had the day off so they went to a movie in the afternoon and pretty much were gone until late last night.
Friday (18th): Jared was supposed to work at 6 this morning, but he felt sick to his stomach so he called in sick. He was supposed to work tonight at the Frederick Keys, but the game got cancelled. Not a surprise--I'm guessing the field is probably flooded. He's supposed to work tomorrow too; we'll see if that game gets cancelled too. He didn't have to work at the Keys earlier this week because they had away games. Seth enjoyed having two extra hours at home this morning. Tonight there is a Fathers / Sons campout that Frank and Seth were going to go to (just for the evening; Frank can't really camp anymore) but I think they have decided not to go to that since we are supposed to have heavy rain / thunderstorms tonight. Doesn't sound very fun to me. Frank has a meeting with HR today at work to get details about severance and to sign some paperwork. Last Friday they told him a few details about severance--he will get 1 week of pay for each year he has worked at Marriott, so that means he gets 6 weeks pay. He also gets paid for any vacation days he hasn't used (I think that is about another week.) Also, while he is receiving severance pay he will remain on the payroll and will still be eligible for health insurance benefits, which is helpful. After that, we will have the option to continue coverage with Cobra (although of course that's super expensive). Frank has talked to a number of people who are interested in getting his resume so he is working on that. He may still interview for at least one position at Marriott as well. Getting laid off again has been a blow to his self esteem and he is not feeling really happy right now. He has had trouble sleeping, too. So please remember him in your prayers! It's a lot harder on him than it is on me.
Besides all that, I have continued to practice the ukulele. I haven't had a class in a while because the mom of the sister in charge of the group has been having major health issues and has been in the hospital. I'm not sure when we are going to meet again, but in the meantime I can always use more practice! I started making a new afghan this week but I haven't made a lot of progress on that yet. I did some shopping for Seth's birthday. I started a family history project and got pretty involved with that, too. So I am keeping pretty busy. The carpet project for the basement bedroom is at a standstill because Lowe's can't seem to figure out how to get us a quote. They said they had one ready so Frank went in to sign the contract last night and then the guy said "we need to rework this quote". I don't know what the problem is. Hopefully they will get it figured out soon. We are hoping that in another day or two we will see some sunshine again! We are just thankful that our house hasn't flooded because many other people have not been so lucky. Hopefully this coming week will be a lot less eventful.
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