I only worked two days this week and have been on leave since Tuesday evening. I took advantage of a little time in port to make a quick trip to Colorado to visit my parents and to get reacquainted with my beautiful home state. I hadn't been back to CO for almost two years so it was absolutely wonderful to feel the dry air, see the big blue skies, and drive in the mountains once again.
Mother Nature tried to prevent me from going, though. We had a tropical thunderstorm swoop into the Norfolk area on Tuesday afternoon. By the time I got up in the morning at around 3:30 a.m. to head to the airport, our street was flooded. Now, we've seen it flood before but it's only been in the area near our driveway, so I didn't think much of it as I eased into the street. As I turned my car into the street and my headlights lit up the street, only the following words entered my mind, "Oh crap." The entire street was under water and not a little bit of water, a ton of water. I started up the street hoping that my car was not going to drown out and stall. I ended up driving nearly a 1/2 mile out of our neighborhood through the flooded streets. There were times that the water was splashing up onto my headlights and once it went over my headlights as I slowly continued on. I was nervous that I would be missing my flight and spending the day trying to get my car back to my house. Luckily, I got out of the flood and was able to navigate my way to the airport around a few more flooded streets and intersections.
As a result of the flooding in our neighborhood and many other neighborhoods in the area, school was canceled on Wednesday -- a rain day! Another "day" we can add to our list of reasons for school to be cancelled -- snow, heat, and now rain. The rain remained through the day and the water was slow to recede. On Wednesday night, it rained again and reflooded the streets prompting another day of school cancellation for RJ on Thursday. Ryleigh did end up going to school that afternoon, though.
Meanwhile, the weather in Colorado was great with temperatures ranging from the 30s to the 80s depending on where I was at. I had a great visit with my parents and in fact, brought my mother down to Denver with me on Friday to fly back together to Virginia. My Mom is here to visit the kids for a few days and will head back to CO on Tuesday morning.
Since my Mom in town, we've been maximizing kid activities so she can spend some time with them. Yesterday, we went to the Norfolk Zoo and despite the heat (90s) and humidity (nearly 90s), RJ ran around like he had never been to a zoo before. He flat wore everyone out, even his sister.
Today, Mom and I went with RJ to Ninja Zone and then this afternoon took the kids over to Chesapeake City park to let Ryleigh work on her bike riding sans training wheels (it was going well until she just stopped and refused to ride anymore) and to let the kids play in the wonderful wood playground in the trees at the park called Fun Forest. The kids again wore themselves out -- yay for us -- bed time was easy!
As an added bonus and completely unprompted, RJ decided to make his own video for our viewing pleasure. Enjoy!
The kids are back to school tomorrow, and I'm off one more day to visit with my Mom. After that, it'll be another fun filled week of work and preps to go back to sea.
Have a great day/week/month/year (I should be back on the blog before a year!). Happy Fall!
-Jip
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