My sister-in-law, Helen, came to visit us for a day last week! She lives in Alaska but travels for work and had a conference in Phoenix. So she booked her flight and hotel a day early so she could spend some time with us. Two days before she came we had a pretty good monsoon that cut our power a couple times. The night before she came, we had a historic monsoon that kept us up all night. The lightening flashed every second, literally, for I don't even know how long, but it was bright in our room as often as it was dark. The power went out again and I heard the boys screaming in their room. Bryce is really afraid of the dark. He can sleep through the fire alarm, babies climbing on his head, I can flip on his lights and put away laundry in his room or whatever, but the second his nightlight goes off he senses it and starts to cry. So he was crying and I think Gabe was feeding off of him and was upset. But it was understandable, it was actually kind of creepy to go from such pitch black to such bright flashes so intensely. So I rounded up the candles and flashlights again and tried to get them back to sleep and head back myself. I knew it rained most of the night, but I had no idea just how much.
The next morning it was still raining and Marty headed off for work and to take BandB to school like he always does, I didn't think much of it. He called after he dropped them off to say how rainy it was and how bad some of the roads were. I worried about it a little because I once caught myself in a bit of a flash flood. It wasn't raining when I went to the store, when I came out it was, and by the time I was driving home it was the "dumping" kind of rain. I didn't know the streets in QC very well yet at that time and I picked a bad one and I honestly was not being able to tell just how deep the water was. The water came up so high on the car it really scared me, but somehow I made it up on the drier side and was fine. But since then I've been able to see why you have to be careful. ANYWAY. When Marty got to school he called me again and said that his school was cancelled, they just wanted everyone to stay home and be safe. So at that point I hopped online to see the news and the facebook feeds and everything. This is what I saw:
I had friends with flooded basements, with water retention areas filling up to their front door, with landscaping that honestly looked like waterfalls. So then I started worrying about Helen's plane coming in and whether I'd be able to get the kids later on in the day. I almost went to pick them up early, just in case it got any worse but I'm glad I didn't. By the time I went to get the kids it was still raining, but not as hard. There was really only one street I saw that was pretty washed out, but I was always totally comfortable. At that point it had become the wettest day on record, the governor declared a state of emergency, and there were even a few fatalities. It was also being called a "slow moving disaster," because it took a while for this to happen:
Lots of people out of homes, and many more without power for days at a time (and it's still HOT here). I really felt for what people in Mesa were going through, and was grateful we didn't get the worst of it.
But I knew our chances of seeing Helen on Monday would be pretty slim. Luckily for us, she rearranged her schedule and got out of some things Friday so that she could be here Thursday night and Friday morning before flying back out. It was sooo good to be with her!
Ok, I love my brothers and everything, but I waited a long time for sisters so I actually loved having time to chill and chat just with her. Thursday night we played apples to apples and got the kids down and chilled. Then Friday morning we had a yummy breakfast of eggs benedict at the QC Olive Mill down the road. We got to sit and enjoy the morning before it got too hot...and then I got the pleasure of chasing the babies around the olive tree grove when they decided they had had enough, haha!
Then we picked up the kids from school early so they could have a little more time with her before she had to take off. And I was just hoping her travels would be a little smoother on the way home. No floods or shuttle wrecks or crazy Pedro. ;)
Thanks for making it work, Helen! We all love you so much and are so glad we could spend time with you!
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