Another Flood!

So as of next Thursday they, the NWS, is predicting that our friend the Red River will rise to 38.8 feet. After that who knows, could raise higher or crest and go down. The Sheyenne river which feeds into the Red is already shooting toward a record crest of 20-22 ft. So again we wait.

Easter is this weekend and I am so not insired. I don't feel like getting the kids dressed and take pictures, the baskets and eggs haven't been done, and I am just not in the Easter mood. I am sure all the kids will come home muddy from church and the house of course is still a disaster zone. And we have over 360 people coming to the club for Easter dinner where I will be all day long, starting at 9 AM. Oh Joy! But since we don't know what that river will do next week and whether we will be open by next weekend, to work I must go.

The parents from DI are having a meeting on Saturday to discuss our fundraising efforts. We are helping with Bingo Night next Friday at school and the PTA has said we can have the profits from that. I have written the donation letter to businesses and am getting prepared to send that out next week. We have also talked about doing a rummage sale in May and try to have everything donated. Since most people have pulled all their stuff out of the basement we are hoping for a lot of donations. The Forum is putting an article in the paper this weekend talking about the opportunity the kids have been offered and where donations can be sent. I will post that here once it is in the paper.

So a lot of things going on and I am exhausted. This trip is huge and the responsibility of planning it is wearing on me. And the disorganization of the house is driving me nuts. I just want the river to behave and go back to where it belongs and then maybe life can be a little more normal. Whatever that means I guess! LOL

Back to school!

So my kids went back to school yesterday. ASSUME! as Chris would say. (long but funny story) They were excited, I was excited. Ryan gets to make up his three missed days of pre-school and that is ASSUME too.

We have no bus service now for the kids which is a huge pain in the ass for us, but we will make due. Because of the dike down our road the bus could get through, but there wouldn't be enought room for the kids to get off the bus and safely around it to get to where they need to go. And since that dike is going no where for a while, I am picking the kids up from school. Walking home for them isn't an option either as the dike from the school blocks the side walk that they walk on and for them to get to the other sidewalk they would need to cut across the parking lot. All in all it isn't safe. In addition to that I left our neighborhood 5 times yesterday and saw three traffic violations at the intersection by the school. Our road is a one way now due to the dike, and the people that live on the first two turn offs think it's OK to go down the street the wrong way even though there are DO NOT ENTER signs posted. So that is 2 of the violations I saw. The third one was a lady that ran the blinking red lights right in front of our school. I am so irritated with the stupidity of people these days it isn't even funny!

SO the first crest is over and I am back to work fulltime this week. Just waiting for the second crest now which will probably come sometime at the end of next week. Forecasters are predicting another high crest, possibly higher than the first. So we are all sitting here waiting for that to happen. Dikes are in place and are being looked at to make sure they will hold another crest and people haven't put anything in their basements again. I am sure at one point I will get a call from work telling me we are off again because they have closed up our dike in the parking lot. What a mess. We are far from being back to normal. We are just maintaining till we know what we need to do next.

Chris and Kelsi are going to the PTA tonight to get support for the DI trip and I need to get the donation letter started. The paper has also been contacted in terms of getting some media coverage too. We are very excited about this, but there is so much to do yet. AHHHH!

Anyway... off to get something accomplished. Hard to do when your main floor and upstairs is filled with boxes and furniture. haha!

Go Shopping!

Mayor Dennis Walaker says GO Shopping! and rest and relax this weekend. Well damn it that sounds good. The NWS has issued a new crest level for the Red River to hit anywhere from April 15-22nd. They think the river will crest above the record set last Sat. Anywhere from 41-43 ft! Are they kidding me????? Seriously I just want to go back to work and stay back at work. But Walaker is the man and he has watched this river many,many times and he thinks it will crest much lower than that. 37-38 ft. I can do that! I have met Walaker a number of times and he is so nice. He just is such a sweet and genuine man. He says don't worry, I'm not going to worry. Dikes will remain in place and if they need to be topped to 44 ft then we top them, but he is urging all residents to take a break from the flooding and relax. Relax for the next round I suppose. haha!

Anyway, I go back to work tonight and hope we stay open for longer than a night. Chris is at PRACs this weekend and will be back tomorrow. We might actually get all of Meghan's girl scout cookies delivered this week. Don't want to foot that bill till we do get them delivered. I am leaving the house tomorrow afternoon for alone time and will probably start moving some of the stuff into the sunroom till we figure out what this river will do. Good news is as of yesterday we are now covered by flood insurance! HAHA! Wahooo!

The 3rd and 4th grade teams have decided to go to Globals in TN for DI. So now the fundraising begins. I will be working on a donation letter this weekend to go out to businesses, and Chris is working on handouts to present to the PTA on Tues in hopes that we will get some support, as well as some $$. And lucky for me the week we go falls in the middle of a pay period so my checks won't suffer. The kids are excited. We are too. So DI meetings start up again on Thurs. Yeah!!!

I took the kids to see Monsters vs Aliens yesterday at the theatre. We took advantage of the free popcorn refill and brought the extra home. Love that theatre popcorn. They were pretty good. Aaron of course was a pain for a bit but then passed out the last 15 minutes. It was good to get them out of the house. School starts Monday and I cannot wait. They can't either.

Can't believe Easter is in a week. Have no idea where the kids' Easter clothes are and have bought nothing for their baskets. I guess that is what I will do tomorrow. I am letting Meghan help me with the baskets this year as we let her in on the big secret a month ago. Huge blow to her at first, but now she is excited.

Anyway off to rangle the children!

More video

This video is really cool. It is an aerial view shot from a Blackhawk. You can see the Rose Creek area and the dike that Chris helped to build. We went out to dinner tonight and Ryan's favorite place, Buffalo Wild Wings and then to Target to pick up some things. It is messy and dirty and muddy out. Oh and now I remember why we don't all run errands together anymore!

Another one

Things leaning toward normal?

Well Chris went back to work today. Good for him. Promises to pick up my mail. I think he should just bring it home at noon. lol The girls go off to piano tomorrow to start making up the lessons they have missed. Right now they are at the neighbors where they spent the night. I keep pretending it is a school day and they stay away till 3. lol

Aaron has been especially naughty today. I may have Chris bring him out side to shovel when he gets home. He has between last night and now has ripped part of the pillow on our couch, broke a stand off the back of a picture frame, Figured out how to get the canister off the vaccuum and dumped that, ripped the remaining part of a plug off our lamp in the living room. That lamp hasn't worked in weeks, cause the plug part started tearing off and Chris hadn't fixed it yet, well Aaron ripped the rest off today. Has gotten into the kitchen and messed with my espresso machine which is a HUGE no-no! On and tried to order a Penthouse movie on our tv and locked that up so I needed to remember the code to unlock it. That was after he took the batteries out of the remote and lost one. I don't know if he will make it out alive after this flood.

The city is starting to open spots in the contingency dike today. That is the clay one down our street. So it is noisy with trucks again. And I just noticed a Bob Cat clearing out our driveway! I don't know who that is but sooooo cool! We have some heavy snow here.

Haven't heard about the situation at work. Since they are closer to the river than here, not sure if they will open that dike. We shall wait and see.

That's it from here. We might actually crawl out of this mess!