We've had a ridiculous amount of rain. Ridiculous. 

Last night, I was sitting at a PTA meeting at school, which was of course running long, waiting for the conversation about where people should stand to pick up their children after school when my phone rang. I saw that it was Brendan but figured that he was just wondering why I wasn't home yet - 45 minutes after the meeting was supposed to be over. My phone wasn't catching much of a signal, so I let it go. And then I immediately got a text. So I walked out of the meeting to look at it.

Not exactly the best text to receive. As I walked outside, the rain was coming down seriously hard. Roads were flooding. Our street was full of water - it was almost over the curb. I came home to find our basement carpet soaking wet, all the electronics up off the floor (phew) and everything moved away from the exterior walls.

Poor Brendan was outside bailing out our one window well with a pink beach bucket. I took over and he went to the store fingers crossed that they'd still have something to help solve our problem. Water was just pouring in the window well from underground. It simply had no place else to go (we have gotten somewhere around 12-15 inches of rain the last 24 hours!). Thankfully, Bren was able to pick up a sump pump and get it working so we didn't have to bail all night. 

There's no school, and no daycare today. Hopefully there's very little in the way of rain.

Yesterday, the DC metro area got it's first real bit of snow. Since it was a Wednesday, we were teleworking. Turns out that was probably the best thing we could have done. Down here, on the southern edge of the storm, we ended up with somewhere between 2 and 3 [very wet and heavy] inches. But it did come down fast. We had few friends stuck in terrible 8 - 10 hour commutes. They weren't alone. Quite a few friends and family in Baltimore (where they had much more snow) are still without power, and might be through the weekend. (yikes!)  I am thankful our lines are underground and we are all warm.

After a bit of a traipse through the field, we got our tree yesterday from Evergreen Acres.

As Brendan reminded me yesterday, I shouldn't be surprised at his need/want to look at a lot of trees before selecting one. It seems I forget it every year. It's harder though, when I have a child in arms. I'm hoping next year will be easier on us all since Johnny should be an expert walker alonger by then. 

Yesterday we just added the lights, and today, the ornaments. Some favorites.

"Mom," Bridget asked the other night, "why is there a hole in our ceiling?"

"Go ask your father."

You see, we've had this hole in our ceiling in the kitchen for I think about four years. I honestly can't remember what came first, the hole, or the birth of our first child. I think it was the hole. We came home to a water stain one day (our shower in the master bath is right above) and Brendan cut this hole to see what was going on. There's no pipe or anything there, turns out we just needed some more caulk.

So why then, you might ask, is there still a hole in the ceiling? Brendan is very good with drywall repair. Well, it happens that the kitchen and the room off of it (the kids' play area) is the only part of the house with ugly popcorn on it. So we want to replace the whole ceiling. But if we do that, then we might as well take down the paneling (that's thankfully painted cream) on the walls of the play area. If we do that, then we might as well take up the stained Berber carpet that's in the play area and the peel and stick tile in the kitchen. You see, it's not really just the ceiling that needs fixed, it's the whole room.

So we have a hole.

(I have seriously thought about contacting some remodel show on HGTV and begging for a renovation.)

Yup, we got a boatload of snow. I've done more shoveling the past two days than I have done my entire life. And there's more snow coming. 

All our trees look like they are covered in marshmallow fluff. It's quite pretty.

Bridget's had a blast -- she did a little sledding later in the afternoon (photos of that later on in the week, perhaps).

I've tried to get a little inspired with my photos, but I haven't ventured too far. I'm afraid I'll bust my tail and break the dang thing.

There's more snow a'coming tomorrow, so I'll have some more opportunities.

This is what we woke up to this morning; it's still snowing. You can't see the truck tires anymore. It's got to be around two feet at least -- but that's nothing compared to the 30 inches my parents woke up to this morning. Jeepers!

I'm staying inside until tomorrow if I can help it. I don't see the point in digging before it's done snowing. We aren't going anywhere. From the sounds of it, we aren't going anywhere until Tuesday...

Since this weekend is the only weekend in May that we had absolutely no plans made we just decided to relax at home and do a few things, but not too much. So far, it's been a pretty easy task to accomplish.

 Yesterday Brendan took down the Japanese Maple that totally died in the front yard. It was partially dead when we moved in and slowly just kept dying. I know those things are crazy expensive, and I feel a little sad that it died, but when the tree guys were here a few years back they said there wasn't really anything that we could do. Oh well.

Today, I made bagels. I was a little dubious at first, I thought it sounded a little bit too easy, but they turned out pretty great. I am just a little bit proud of myself, actually. 

 Later, Bren and Bridget are headed out to Home Depot for some stuff for the seemingly endless backyard drainage project.  I kid, because it is 10,000 times better than it ever was before, and there is just a little regrading and grass seeding that still needs to be done. Honestly, our backyard is the bane of my existence. 

I love this tree this time of year. It smells lovely and when the breeze blows, little petals float around in the air. It's perfect today.