Celebrating Pete's Birthday

Before I start this post about our wonderful day, let me update you a bit on what we've been doing the past couple of days.  The kids loved being at the American Legion so much on Wed, that we helped out there again on Thursday.  And, instead of packing 500 lunches, we made 500 sandwiches!  There were 4 assembly lines going and the our clan was one of them.  It was so hilarious to hear them banter about their different jobs, always making sure that they were staying on target.  It was really cute and,again, they loved it!  Loved it even more than packing lunches. :-)  They also joined me on Friday when I had to teach.  Madie and Noah decided to spend that time playing their Ipods in the other room, but Livie was a great helper and saddled up to one of our new students and helped her with everything.  It was really cute!  She painted her hand for her handprint picture and tried to help her draw a flower.  I told her she should come with me every week!

But, anyway, that's all we did the past couple of days.  The town is still recovering and will be for many weeks to come.  If you are ever on FB, you can see some of the videos posted that show what our town is facing.  Kinda crazy, but we've definitely seen the best of people this week.  So much kindness and generosity.  It really has been an amazing thing to witness.  So, on to today's adventures:

Today is Pete's birthday!  It literally is today, on a Saturday, which opened up all kinds of opportunities if you ask me.  Pete really wanted to go hiking, but the road leading to Starved Rock was flooded and the debris left on the road is beyond description.  Easily a full foot of limbs, branches, and muck cover the road. So, I suggested the zoo and everyone thought that sounded fun!  First things first, though... presents!

We got him a snow cone machine with syrups and cups.  We can't WAIT to try that out!

The best part was Livie's painting.  She really wanted to paint something for him, so I got her a canvas and paints and let her do her thing.  This is a picture of him golfing.  The heart in the sky says "O+D for Olivia + Daddy. :-)  He loved it, of course.

We left early, so we could get there when it opened at 10am.  It was already a beautiful, sunny day.  They called for it to be in the 60s, but ended up being in the low 70s.  Seriously the best day for a zoo trip ever!

We decided to visit Stingray Bay before the crowds came and we got there at feeding time!  How fun is that?!

Look at all the stingrays that came our way!  They kids loved touching them as they swam by.

We bought a few cups of fish, so the kids could feed them.  Kind of freaking them out at first, but they thought it was pretty fun.  The stingrays would just come right up and suck them out of their hands.  One tried to eat Livie's finger. hehe

One of the reasons I suggested Brookfield is that they have a dinosaur exhibit this summer.  It just opened this month.  All the dinosaurs are animatronic, so they roar and move around.  Pretty cool.  Livie liked waving at them when they would start roaring.

You can kind of see the girls in front of this big feathered dinosaur.  Amazing to see how big they were!

I was less shocked at the size of this one and more amazed at the size of my son!  Can't believe my 10 yr old is almost as tall as I am.  He's literally an inch away!

We rounded a corner, when looking at the dinosaurs, and saw this broccoli-saurus.  You know I could not resist getting a photo of that!  If I had known it was there, I would've brought my can of spray paint and added the word "Weed" beside it.  Just so the kids weren't confused as to what it actually was, of course.

You can imagine how excited Livie was to see the T-Rex!

Love this picture of Pete and the kids.  Love this family of mine. :-)  We took this one by the big fountain in the center of the zoo.

We bought a special zookeeper card for each of us, which gives us free admission for the rest of the year and free one-time-use tickets to each attraction.  We saved a few for our next trip, but they really wanted to ride the carousel this time, so we hopped on.  Madie picked the wolf - her very favorite animal!

Noah picked the gorilla, because he wanted something that was related to a monkey - HIS favorite animal!

Livie just liked this one.  Of course, she didn't notice that it was beside the CICADA one!  Yeah.  That's Pete leaning on the cicada ride.  What the *blank* kind of carousel has a cicada?  And, it didn't just have one.  It had two!  So wrong.  So, so wrong.  And, did I mention gross?!

We saw tons of animals today, but I won't post all of them here.  Too many to share, but I had to share this picture of Madie on the wolf outside their exhibit.  This is her favorite animal, so she was super-excited to see several of them today.

As we were walking down to have lunch, Livie got especially tired, so Noah, being the great big brother that he is, carried her for a little while, even though he had a low blood sugar and was pretty darn tired himself.  What a good boy!

After we ate, we headed over to the dolphin show.  We haven't gone to this since the kids were little, so it was like seeing it for the first time.  They all loved it and really loved it when the dolphins would swim up and splash us.  They thought that was the best part!

Before we left, so we could get home and let Tater out after 8 hours!, we stopped at the gift shop to get a couple souvenirs.  When we saw the sign that say "Poo sold here", we knew we had the right place. ;-)  We had a great day and were so glad to celebrate Pete's birthday as a family in this special way.  Happy Birthday to the best husband and father I've ever known!  Love you, babe!

Saga -- Day 3

Yesterday, we were finally able to put our hands to work and not just our money.  We've donated several items like food and cleaning supplies, which is always good to do, but we wanted to get in there and take some action.  The flooded homes are in such a state that they really aren't letting people down there that don't live there, so we headed over to the American Legion to help pack lunch sacks.  Each day they not only provide meals (lunch and supper), but they are packing up to 800 lunch sacks a day and taking them down the flood zone to pass out.  Walmart is donating tons of food every day for them to do this and they let us join in and help.

I'll be honest and say I wasn't sure how much my kids would participate.  They've been back and forth about whether or not they wanted to help, but they jumped right in and got to work!  They created an assembly line that had apples/fresh fruit, chips, granola bars, cookies, water bottles, etc... (later we added sandwiches) and tied the bags up loosely and set them on the floor, before going back to the head of the line and starting over again.  We all did this for a while, then Madie pulled away and starting working on another area.

They needed someone to put the bags we were filling into boxes and counting them, so they could write down how much each box had.  She took this job over all by herself and was a rock star!  When we were leaving, they said, "Wait!  We can't lose our counter!". ;-)  Noah took some time to help carry the heavy boxes filled with lunches and put them in the spot they needed to be.  Noah's the first to tell you that he can be lazy at times and not want to help, but boy did he get in there and work hard!  I was so proud of him!

At some point, we ran out of cookies/desserts, so I made a quick run next door to our little market and bought a bunch and brought them back.  Everyone decided to get lunch while I was gone.  Our first job that morning was putting cookies and brownies and stuff into little baggies for the lunch sacks.  Made the kids hungry!  So, waiting another 2 hours after packing cookies to eat wasn't easy for them, but they did it. :-)  The volunteers are allowed to eat what they have set out for people to come and eat, so the kids loaded up on that.  The boxes in front of the kids are the boxes that Madie counted and packed.  I think, in all, we packed about 500 lunch sacks, maybe more.  We had to go back through all of them and add a sandwich, which we did for a little  while, but the kids were pretty tired by then.  We had been there for 3 busy hours and only had a couple hours before Madie had to leave for Scholastic Bowl.  So, we said our goodbyes.  The best part of watching my kids help others and serve is that they loved it!  They loved it so much they decided to pass on going to the free movie for the MES students and pack more lunches instead!  So, we're headed there is a couple hours to hopefully work as hard as we did yesterday.  They might not be in school, but they are getting an education all the same.  Only instead of studying math and reading, they are learning about the gift of service and volunteerism.  Real life learning. :-)

The Saga Continues - Day 2

The tone of tonight's entry about our "Flooding Spring Break" is a little different from yesterday's.  Yesterday we were enjoying the beautiful weather.  We were getting things donated and setting up ways to help.  Today we were faced with a bit more of the reality of what's going on around us.  First, I'll start by telling you about some of the fun things we did.  I painted the bay window area!  That's fun, right? ;-)  This is my *before* picture.  It's sucks, but it's what you get when you realize halfway through the set-up that you forgot to take a before picture.  So, you get what you get.  I don't have an *after* photo yet, because it's not finished, but hopefully it will be later this week.  We went to my school and got things set up, then hit McDonalds for lunch.  Livie had dance and we just kind of hung out the rest of the time.  It was pouring down rain all day, so there wasn't much else to do but hang out.  I heard, at the last minute, about the school board having an open meeting tonight, so I decided to go, so I could get an idea of what the school looked like and what the plans were moving forward.  I walked away from that meeting with two things.  One - we have an amazing group of Administrators that obviously have been working tirelessly to get things moving in the right direction for the school.  And, two - that the state of our school is MUCH, MUCH worse than I realized.  The whole thing for me tonight was overwhelming.  The band room was flooded with over 2' of water.  The mud and river residue is still on the band chairs.  The gym floor has buckled and created a 3' tall bubble with its floor.  There is mud everywhere.  The boiler room was submerged.  The cafeteria and K-1st grade classrooms (one of which was Livie's room) are unusable.  Totally covered in mud from the flooding.  The water had reached the door knobs there.  There is no chance, even with the clean-up crews working feverishly, that these kids will be going back to their school building before summer hits.  Many ideas were discussed about how to move forward.  The one that they were leaning to (and, of course, this could all change as the days go on) that they will split the grades up and send them all to different buildings in town.  Busing will be crazy, not to mention feeding them, but they don't have a lot of options right now.  So much is still up in the air.  We really don't have any idea what is really going to happen yet.  I just know that this saga won't end this week or probably even next.  It's hard on the kids too.  They are enjoying this little break to some extent, but they are worried about their school, their friends, what changes are coming.  And, these past two months have been hard for them.  They lost their beloved social worker to suicide in March and here we are unable to go back to school, because the school is a disaster area.  Literally.  So much to pray about.  I'll be praying, not only for the victims of the flooding, who have lost homes and belongings.  But, also for our teachers and administrators   They need wisdom in the coming days as to how to proceed.  They need strength of mind and body as they face these tasks.  And, of course, our kids need prayer.  So much has happened to them and you can see the uncertainty on their faces.  They're scared and worried.  It's a lot to handle.  So, there's our Day 2 update.  Hopefully tomorrow will bring with it hopefulness.  We need a little more of that.

The"My School is Flooded and I Can't Go Back" Saga - Day 1

We are day 1 of our break from school due to the flooding.  How long will we be out?  No one knows yet.  I did talk to one of the school secretaries today and she said there is a good 2" of mud covering the hallway floors, so it's going to be a little while.  But, I thought I'd report on our daily doings as we enjoy this unexpected break.

No, this is not Livie roaring like a dinosaur.  She is trying to show you her new expander!  Our first day off started with an early 9am appt at the ortho's building.  She got her expander and handled it like a trooper.  She's having some difficulty navigating her ability to eat and, considering eating is her very favorite thing to do in the world, she's been a little unhappy.  But, other than that, she's doing really well.

See?  She still has a happy face. :-)  They played outside and went on a walk.  We did a little shopping and did a little laundry.  Dropped off some fruit for the clean-up volunteers and flood victims, and now they are laying around the house, playing on their devices.  So far, they seem to be enjoying this little hiatus from school.  It was amazing to see how many kids were out and about on this beautiful day.  On a normal summer day, you'll see kids out and about.  But, today?  EVERYONE was out!  It was really cool to see!  Anyway, that is a quick recap of Day 1.  We'll see if by Day 4, I'm drinking or still smiling. ;-)

Another Flood Update

I hope I'm not boring you with all these pictures of the flooding.  It's just not something that happens to a small community like this.  Yes, we had massive flooding back in 2008, but at that time, that was the biggest flood on record.  This one has surpassed it and with that *new* record, we're seeing lots and lots of damage.  It's sad to know how much it has affected this community.  So, anyway, to those that are interested, I have more pictures to post.  The water peaked sometime in the middle of the night - some say 1am, some say 10pm.  Either way, it is now receding and we're now just beginning to see the damage the flooding has caused.

Yesterday morning there were news helicopters flying overheard and one took this picture of our town.  You can definitely see how far the flooding went in this photo.  To the far left is our school, which took on water.  More about that later.  The police, fire, and Nat'l Guard helped evacuate around 1,500 people from our little town of 5,000 late Thursday night as the flooding became an imminent reality.  The levee breeched around midnight that night, with many, many homes taking on water.  We ran into a gentleman today when we were out surveying the damage and he was able to get back into his home today, but his basement is filled to the ceiling and there is water on his first floor as well.  He said he thinks the field at the elementary school took most of the water and that's why his house wasn't worse than it was, but he's still trying to decide if he should fix it or just take the insurance money and find another home.  With it being his childhood home though, he's having a hard time deciding how to move forward.  Just think of how many people are facing that same decision today.  Such a sad time.

The kids and I drove down to look at some of the flood waters as they were rising throughout the day yesterday.  The emergency workers and police officers were being very strict (and rightly so) about letting anyone pass the railroad tracks, because everything south of there was taking on water quickly.  I was able to take this picture at the bottom of the hill we're on and you can see the water in the background coming up the street.

This morning we took updated photos.  This is exactly the same photo Pete took on Friday morning on his way to work.  The waters had moved over the road by the time it peaked last night.  It's now back to where it was 24 hrs previously.

The baseball diamonds are completely underwater.  And, not just by inches, but by a good couple of feet.  There's a creek that runs by it and, trust me, it's never THIS high!

Since the waters have begun receding, the police were letting people cross the tracks, only keeping us a street back from the flooding.  We were able to drive by the side of the school today.  The front of the school was still suffering from flooding when we went by around 10am.  And, obviously, from this picture, it's about where it was 24 hrs ago too.  The back playground area, classrooms, gym, and cafeteria are still surrounded by water.  Next week has already been called off, because of the flooding.  They will have to go inside and access it next week to let us know how soon the kids might able to get back into the building in order to finish the school year.  We're praying for a rapid recovery, so they can get back into school, but we won't know more for several more days.

As you can see, we were able to get within a street of the flooding, but it's going to take a few more days before all the roads are clear again.  That means, people will be unable to inspect their homes until next week, even to see what the damage is.  We have a long road of recovery to come.

You can kind of see here how much the water had come down by 10am.  When we went back by around 3pm, most of the water in this specific section was gone, but looking down the road, you could still see a considerable amount of water still there.

The big bridge, crossing the Illinois River was closed since Thursday night, but it reopened sometime this afternoon.  We drove to the other side when we were coming back from Ottawa and were quite pleased to see it had reopened.  There were lots of people out checking out the river and the barges.  We went to the park and started off further away from the barges, wanting to see the homes that had gotten flooded as well as see the school.  All of which was across the river from us at this point.

We could kind of see the barges up against the dam here, but it was hard to see.  If I didn't mention it in any previous blogs (because I'm not sure at the point what I've posted on FB and what I've posted here!), but one of serious problems we've had, because of the flooding, is that SIX barges got loose and rammed into the dam by our downtown area.  Three are still afloat and jammed up against the dam.  Two have practically sunk, and one has completely sunk.  It's quite a mess and there was a lot of fear that the dam would break, but it sounds like it's ok - thank goodness!

Here's the line where the water reached.  You could see this definitive line of leaves all along the grass like this.  Kind of put into perspective how high it really got.

It seemed to be down more in some areas that in others, but guess that's just because of the way the water is flowing.

I tried to give you an idea of how high the water still is by using Livie as my guide.  The stick she's using is supposed to point at a tree.  It's actually directly below the tree I wanted to point out.  That thick tree above her stick is a point where a path begins.  The river's edge is usually right past that cluster of trees, so it is really, really high right now, obviously.  It's running back into the forest right now.  Ducks were back there swimming all around.  They are probably enjoying their new swimming grounds. ;-)

We drove around to get a better view of the barges.  Those rounded rooftops are the tops of the partially-sunk barges.  Hard to believe that SIX of those things are clustered there.  Barges are HUGE, long things.  Unbelievable!  I tried to remind the kids, who have seen their fair share of floodings in their life here, that they won't ever seen (or hopefully won't ever see!) anything like this again.  We could hear these barges struggling in the water when we were picking them up from school on Thursday.  They struggled most of the afternoon.  It's was the sound of groaning metal.  Very spooky and weird.

A big tugboat was on the shoreline, but I'm not sure why.  They might be getting ready to start trying to do something about the barges, but the current is still so strong, I'm not sure if they'll be doing that for a few more days.  I wanted to get a picture of my kids, but some of them weren't smiling.  I told them to show me the smile they had about their school being closed for a week and this is what I got! ;-)  Guess they aren't too sad about missing out on a few days!

Pete decided to walk on the bridge to take a few pictures.  I'm not a fan of heights or bridges, so I opted to stay in the van with the kids.  He got more pictures of the dam.  You can kind of see the barges in the background there.  They are on the other side.

Look how fast that water is moving!!  Reminds me of the water at Niagara Falls which was zooming past at crazy speeds.  SO SCARY!!

We saw this big stuffed dog on the little bridge and it was so cute there!  It was pretty waterlogged, so I'm guessing it must have floated out of a house or out of someone's yard and someone rescued it and left it here for someone to claim.  Sad to think of that child who lost his/her stuff animals, but nice to know someone rescued it.

We took a few pictures in Ottawa too.  This is the YMCA that is right behind our church.  You'll see the black fencing.  That is the fencing for our church/preschool's playground.  The water got awfully close to it!  The Y took on water, so it's going to take time to get that cleaned up.  The water is now completely covering its parking lot, as you can see.

Where Pete is standing is where the leaves left a trail.  That is how high it got.  This isn't the Illinois River though.  This is the Fox River.  It got dangerously high too!

Hopefully you can click on this picture to see it better, but this is the bridge that crosses the Fox right before it merges with the Illinois River.  The water was literally at the bottom of the bridge yesterday.  Because of that, the bridge was closed for 2 days.  It just reopened today.  The east side of town was also cut off on the other end/entrance of it, because of flood waters, so for two days it was virtually an island!

This is one more view of the Fox, down closer to the hospital.  This road always seems to flood and the homes along with it, whenever we have really bad flooding.  It affected more homes this time though.  The record set in 2008 was surpassed by this flood by another foot and a half.

So, there you have it.  This is what we're dealing with in our area.  Many towns look just like this one, though I think our town took on the most flooding, from what I hear.  With all the news focusing on what happened in Boston, and then TX, and then here, it's been a difficult week and an emotional one.  Hoping the coming days bring more news of heroism and community spirit and compassion.  We've seen that in the midst of these tragedies and I hope to see and hear more of the same.

Video

We heard a helicopter this morning, flying over the river.  Just found the footage they shot.  At the beginning, you'll see the flooded school, not to mention all the flooded homes.  Then you'll see the barges that are jammed up against the dam.  We want to pray that the dam holds strong, so the situation doesn't get worse.  Click on the "flooding" link below to see the video.



Flooding

School Photos

Just got this photo from a friend.  It's a picture of the kids' school taken LAST NIGHT!  That means, if it was already starting to flood last night, then it's absolutely taken on water today, because it's risen several feet since this was taken.  Wow.

Another view of the school - again taken last night.  Can't even believe this.  The street signs on this street are now under water.  That will give you an indication of how high the water has risen since last night.

That is the cafeteria and playground.  You'll see the playground equipment is almost completely submerged.