To drain or not to drain

Last night they had another meeting at the high school to discuss where everyone is on building their sand bag walls and to discuss what our biggest concerns. While we are still waiting to see if the flood waters will reach us they are positive that the ground water will be a problem. So that means that all of our septic tanks could be compromised. About a week ago Jer and I discussed whether or not we should drain our septic tank and after hearing everyone's advice about the tank floating up and breaking through the ground, or draining it affecting the leech field (whatever that is) etc we decided not to drain but after last nights meeting I think it might be a good idea to empty it. It something is floating in my back yard I would rather it be water then poop!! So I had the septic guy come out and drain our tank. He said to let the water run for about an hour and we should be good but we will have to drain it again after the flood is all over.
Mike went to get the missionaries at 10 and to get some more water and gatorade. It is going to be 100 with high humidity so we will need to keep everyone hydrated. Mike said the Hamilton exit is closed...there is water on the road. I cleaned out Megan's room so we can move Mike and Amy's bed up stairs. We took down her bed, put her clothes in a suit case and all of her American Girl Dolls in a bin and took the furniture out to the garage.
I spent a large part of the morning looking for temporary housing. No one has anything available. I had heard that the University of South Dakota in Vermillion about 30 minutes away was offering temporary housing to flood people (I don't like to use the word victim). I called about 20 times and left 3 messages and they called back and we are going to rent a 4 bedroom with a kitchen for 200 per week. We are still not sure if we are going to have to leave but if we do I really needed the peace
of mind that we had some where to go and no to the Red Cross shelter at the high school gym. I will go up there tomorrow and pick up the key. They will rent it to use on a weekly basis so we will have it when we need it. It is furnished and so we won't have to bring a bunch of stuff with us.
We had dinner and the kids were going to go swimming at our neighbors pool and then Jer showed up with the missionaries (7 of them). They had been working all day with no food so I hurried and made then chicken tacos. We finally go to the pool at about 7:30. They kids were so happy to just swim and forget about all of the craziness around them. I am hoping tomorrow I can get the house in order so I can feel like there some normalcy here!

Sunday

Last night when Jer got home from helping our friends that live in the Dunes he told me that everyone in the Dunes were not being a bit over cautious by moving out of their house and leaving for the summer. The 5 dams to the Missouri river are overly full and so they are going to need to let water out of them so they don't break. They will start releasing the water next week and there is a good chance that the houses in the Dunes could be under water. My next question then was were we going to be affected by this? Jer said "possibly" . They still are not sure how high the water could get but It could possibly make it into Wynstone (where we live). We looked at the map and realized there could be a possible threat of flooding especially in our basement. So We spent the day moving all of my brothers stuff out of the basement (we moved it all in there yesterday) and then moving all of our stuff to the garage. My sister in laws piano was moved into the garage (it has been moved 3 times in the past two days). We moved all of the stuff in our storage room up to higher shelves. We moved my treadmill to the garage and the couches. I'm not sure if there is a real threat of us getting water into our basement but we thought we would move most of the stuff up high...just in case.

And it begins...

I got a phone call from a lady on our ward this afternoon who lives in the Dunes ( a community just up the road from us where a lot of our friends live). She was frantic!!! She said that her house was going to flood and she wanted to know if my brother (who had just moved here from Arizona yesterday still had her moving truck). He didn't have to take it back until Monday morning. He said he would be happy to let her use it. Jer and Mike went over to their house tonight to see really what was going on and if they could help. They were packing up everything they owned. They tore up the carpet in their basement and even took out their furnace. This is the first we have heard of any flooding in the area. The Missouri river has been pretty high but it was like that last summer.
While I was finishing my lesson for church tomorrow I got a text from Jer letting me know that church has been cancelled and that everyone needs be helping those who will be affected by the flood. Church cancelled??? Church never gets cancelled. I actually thought he was joking (Jer would cancel church every Sunday if he could:-) It wasn't until I got a text from another one of my friends in our ward that I realized church really was cancelled. Could this be something that we need to worry about???

Just a few more:-)

More pictures of Hawaii

Hawaii

It has been a month since we have been home but there is just something about Hawaii that deserves a blog post.
After some very cold months in the frozen tundra of South Dakota Jer and I sent out on a 9 day trip to Maui. We met our great friends J and T in LA and so we left late on Friday night and flew to LA. We spent the night in a boutique hotel on Sunset Blvd. We ate at a great sushi bar and we were in heaven.
We met J and T the next day at the airport and we flew straight to Maui.
We sent a week enjoying the sun, pool and the beach. We had some great meals. My favorite has to be Mama's Fish house. YUMMMM!! We went whale watching, zip-lining and even took the paddle longs boards out for a while. We snorkeled, read books and enjoyed each others company. A huge thanks to my sister for coming out and watching the kidos while we relaxed in paradise

Where have we been????

Totally a ligament question!!! It has almost been a year since I last posted anything to my blog. Life has slowed down considerably in last six months since we packed up our beautiful house in Cali and headed east....to South Dakota. Actually the Iowa, South Dakota, Nebraska border. YEP, it has been quite a change. We are doing well and have adjusted for the most part. We decided we like our dad being home more than the beautiful sunny weather in California so Jer took a job doing pain and anesthesia. We have LOVED having him home more. It has been such a great thing for our family.
My goal is to do better about blogging. There are so many crazy things that happen here that I really need to share them. So.. from now on I will be updating my blog a ton more. So stay tuned!!!