Well we survived the disaster of the week! Earthquakes, Hurricanes and now Floods! We already had the locusts in the form of stink bugs! We enjoyed Tropical Storm Lee-sorry Texas. We would have loved to have sent the rain your way.

Tuesday the kids were back to school, I was off to work and Tom was flying out to California. And the rain had already started on Monday. At least it held off during most of the Labor Day Weekend. Which was a good thing for Baltimore since we hosted our very first Baltimore Grand Prix-racing the NASCAR circuit around the inner harbor. They say it was a successful event, but most of the people that live and work in Baltimore didn't think so since most of the roads were closed for the race track making their commute miserable.

Besides working on Labor Day, I also helped SCott set up his new 10 gallon tank for his turtle. I bought a small tv stand to use for his turtle tank and the tank with the hermit crabs. Just a little reminder of our summer vacation.

Tuesday night I dropped SCott off at his Boy SCout meeting after work. They were having a ceremony to acknowledge all the badges the boys earned during the year, and anyone who moved up in rank. All our new boys earned the Tenderfoot rank as well as Boy Scout rank just since February. And SCott received his 3 badges he earned this summer. We were supposed to have a picnic on Sunday for the ceremony, but we were rained out. I couldn't stay for SCott's ceremony and party, and Tom was out of town so I headed over to SCott's Back to SChool Night instead.

I think he is going to have a very good year as he has a great group of experienced teachers. And he is excited about his first year of Middle SChool too. He already turned in two summer book reports and did quite well-so hopefully he is off to a good start. Even though they did not actually start on the first day because of the power outages from the hurricane.

Allison on the other hand was not having much luck at school. Her field hockey practices and a scrimmage were rained out. The worst was on Weds, the heaviest amount of rain for the week. That was when all the local roads started flooding, including several in our neighborhood. We have some small creeks running through the neighborhood that turned into rivers. I thought I saw the deer floating by on inner tubes with margaritas in their hooves! And I think everyone saw our olde Ellicott City under water. They haven't had a flood that bad since Hurricane Agnes in 1972. My girl scout leader meeting was cancelled that evening due to downed trees and flooded streets. At least the power stayed on! Allison's school had a fire alarm go off during the day and they herded the entire school outside in a thunderstorm. Turns out water leaked into a smoke alarm and set it off in one of the trailers, and all the kids got soaked. I don't know if it would have been worse to get caught in a fire or hit by lightening! The kids strolled back into school sopping wet, the hallways were wet, classrooms leaking and their courtyard flooded into the newly remodeled administration offices. So glad they decided not to rebuild. They told all the kids that walk home to get a ride from their parents. Allison ended up catching a ride home with the sports trainer since practice was cancelled again. The teams usually try and practice inside, but they only have one gym and the second gym is being remodeled. And there are just too many sports teams to practice inside.

ON Thursday the field hockey coach moved their practice to the local county parks that have turf fields. They were not flooded like the school fields. HOwever, I was not able to get off work at 230 to drive Allison to practice, so she caught a ride from one of the senior girls. I picked her and another teammate up after traveling to 3 other parks! (All with the same name). Then I had to go to my PT session for my neck after feeding the kids, and then to Allison's piano lesson. Long day.

Friday I got the kids off to school and finally went back for my first aerobics class. Since I am winding down on my PT sessions, I thought I would try to transition back to class. Seems like I survived-everything hurt of course, but in the right places. When I got home I thought I would take Cookie for a walk in between the rain showers(wrong!). It drizzled the whole time we were out and we were soaked. After a warm shower, I spent the rest of the afternoon sorting through toys and clothes for the garage sale next weekend. Allison had an indoor practice and SCott had his first INtermediate gymnastics class that evening.

Tom returned from California and I think was relieved to hear that our weekend plans were cancelled(due to rain-imagine!). Again! This weekend we were supposed to camp at Chincoteague Island with the boy scouts. I was so looking forward to this trip also. Allison went camping there a few summers ago with the girl scouts and had a great time. This is the island with the wild ponies that wander around the campground and beach area. It is a National Park. Because Hurricane Katia was offshore, the beach had rip tide warnings posted and the scout troop leaders did not feel comfortable taking the boys to the beach. In some ways I was relieved since I would have had to pack up the van with the camping gear myself and Tom would have had a 3 hour drive after getting off the plane from LA Friday night. The scouts were scheduled to complete a service project on the beach with the Park Rangers early Saturday morning, so Tom and SCott were going to leave on Friday. We were all planning on leaving Friday, but Allison had a Field Hockey tournament on Saturday. I thought it was just one morning game, but it was another all day affair.

So instead, on Saturday morning the family enjoyed watching Allison's team play. Saturday night we all headed over to our neighbor's house to catch up with news of the week and eat dinner out on the patio. In between rain showers. I am starting to feel like I live in the Rain Forest. We also celebrated Allison being inducted into the National Honor Society! Way to go Allison! All that ridiculous paperwork we filled out last May paid off. Although now she has to do more volunteer work to stay a member. She was surprised with the news as were the other students at the end of the day on Friday. The students were herded into the media center with a big celebration and flowers. They will have a family celebration in October.

Sunday we enjoyed watching the Ravens football team spank the Steelers. Oh Yeah! We also enjoyed watching the game at our old neighbor's new house. These were neighbors that lived 2 doors down from us and moved to be closer to York PA where the husband was working. He used to work at the Pentagon, and now he was transferred to the Naval ShipYard near the pentagon, so they decided to move back to our area. They had a custom house built which looks very much like their last house. And it backs up to our local large park so it will be a great place for the kids to hang out. So we had a terrific day(and it rained). And we had thought about going to Hershey Park that day to use our summer tickets we bought on discount. Turns out the park was closed all weekend due to weather. Guess we are glad we did not drive all the way up there for nothing!

I need to send out a few very big Happy Birthdays! Happy Birthday to Brother Mike who celebrated(we hope) this past weekend, and a double Happy Birthday to my brother's Dan and Dave who celebrated their birthdays on Labor Day Weekend. Hope you all had time to enjoy yourselves!

That's Allison in goal on Field Hockey tournament day and Scott looking extra excited to go to school and have his picture taken at 8am!

Kathleen