Flash Flood

I thought we had a lot of water last week!
Whew, it was raining most of the morning yesterday but then at about 4 or 5 it started pouring. So much rain so fast. By the time Merrick got home at 6:15 the backyard was a lake. This is how it looked this morning, about a foot deeper than last week and a much larger area.

In the back corner of this picture below you can kind of see that the creek that runs by our house is so full that it's overflowing into our backyard, where it's normally at least a few feet lower than that.

What a crazy storm. Freeways were closed down, Merrick said the roads were covered and on each side of the road were rivers flowing. Our unfinished basement had some water down there but nothing got damaged. It was mostly just leaking down and soaking some of the rugs that were on the floor. I can imagine some people got it much worse.

So... anyone want to go canoeing or rafting in our backyard today? :)

Strawberry Festival

In June we went to the Cedarburg Strawberry Festival. It was a hot and humid day but we had a great time with the kids. Our favorite area of course was the kid zone. We got their faces painted and colored on the mural...

Merrick made wands for the girls...

They got to try on some beautiful dancing costumes... (believe it or not, this is the best picture we got - silly Avery).

The kids got to play on this bouncy house slide for 5 minutes... (Can you believe it cost $6 for two kids to play for 5 minutes? What a waste. Oh and the guy who was timing our turn shortchanged us and said our turn was up after 3 1/2 minutes. Oh well.)

We bought some food to feed the goats at the petting zoo. Camryn was giggling as the goats licked her fingers!

And we also built a periscope with a free Home Depot kids workshop kit. After that we were hot and tired so we took a 10 minute hay ride to rest our feet.

And that's all the pics I have but we also ate strawberry shortcake, bought fresh strawberries, kettle corn, and a lot of other junk food. Avery got to see Hello Kitty and got a balloon. It was very family friendly and we love going to this festival every year (despite the crowds and the heat).

No Swings Today...

Last night there was a big storm that came through. There was a Tornado watch, flash flood warnings, etc. It looks like we got about 4-5 inches of rain in that one night! Check out what it did to our (and our neighbor's) backyard:
I guess we won't be playing on the neighbor's swingset today. The girls, of course, were excited to see the new lake in the backyard.This is why we have such a huge backyard - it's a floodplain. I guess one time a few years ago (before we moved here), the flooding was so bad that the water got halfway up that yellow slide! Crazy.

All this standing water can not be good for our mosquito problem. Great.

Swimmin'

Last week I took the girls to Menomonee Park to go swimming in the Quarry Lake. It was a perfect day, the water was warm, and we had fun splashing around.

Camryn was a little shy getting her feet wet at first so she played in the sand on the beach while Avery showed off her skills.

But eventually Camryn got in and had an absolute blast. I didn't take any pictures after that because she was dangerous! She was walking around in water up to her shoulders and if she tripped at all she went under! So I had to stay within arms reach once she got in.

It was a beautiful place, kind of crowded but not terribly so. There was plenty of shade, a playground right on the sand, and it was free (I had a coupon for the entrance fee). I think we'll go back there several more times this summer, especially since it's less than 10 minutes from home!

Sussex Lions Daze Parade

Last Saturday we went to the Sussex Lions Daze Parade. It was about 2 blocks from our house, so we walked up.
It was mostly advertising and election campaigning but the girls got a TON of candy. I brought a little 4" bucket and Merrick thought they'd only get like 2 pieces each. They filled that bucket probably 4 times over! I think it was mostly because we were at the beginning of the parade route. Too bad it was mostly Tootsie Rolls and bubble gum.

I had to take a pic of these "Dancing Grannies", I think they were called. Pretty silly.

We had fun, we got free otter pops to keep us cool. It was a nice family activity.

Arrrrrrr!!!

Fourth of July

We had a great 4th of July weekend with great weather! Merrick had half of Friday and all Monday off so we had lots of fun on the long weekend. Avery got a big girl Princess bike and helmet for her birthday and she is quickly becoming a pro bike-rider!
On Friday we went to see Toy Story 3 as a family and we loved it. We're big Toy Story fans in our house and so the kids were both pretty great during the movie. There were a couple times when I thought Camryn had fallen asleep because she was so still and riveted on my lap during some parts! On Saturday we test drove some minivans in the morning and then while Camryn napped in the afternoon, Merrick and Avery got out the slip n slide and had a blast!

It so was funny to watch them together! On Saturday night we went to the fireworks in Menomonee Falls. We didn't really know where the fireworks were going to be coming from exactly, so we just picked an empty spot and waited for them to start. When it got dark, the first firework went off and we were right in front of them, which was great! We got some cool pics.

The kids loved them, especially the Grand Finale of course. Here's a cool picture of Camy watching them.

On Sunday we went to a friends house for a BBQ and on Monday we just stayed home and played. It was a nice long weekend!