RACE FOR THE CURE

Over three days this coming November, I will be walking 60 miles in the Breast Cancer 3-day walk being held in Phoenix, AZ. This walk will be much more than 'just a walk' - it will be raising money to support Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the National Philanthropic Trust Breast Cancer Fund. I will be walking with my friend Michele, her Aunt Becky that was diagnosed with breast cancer in November of last year, along with other friends from high school and their moms. It is sure to be something we will never forget.

According to Susan G. Komen for the Cure, nearly 40,000 American women will die from this disease, and more than 200,000 American women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year. I have 5 younger sisters that mean the world to me and even though we don't have a history of breast cancer in our family, the chance is still there that one of us could be diagnosed. Only 5-10 percent of breast cancers are due to heredity, the majority of women with breast cancer have no known significant family history or other known risk factors. That's why I have chosen to walk 60 miles, to do something bold about breast cancer.

I know this is totally a random post but I am really excited to do it AND an extra bonus will be seeing my bestie Michele and her cute mom and aunt. Fun had by all!

Bored

How does one entertain a 2 yr old for 4 days when it won't stop raining?? We make a fort under the kitchen table of course! I remember when I was little my brothers and sisters and I would make our whole family room one big fort and sleep in it. Sometimes I would even make a little one next to my bed so I could sleep in it. (I always loved sleeping on the floor when I was little, weird I know) Anyway, I put pillows in there so that she wouldn't bonk her head on the chair legs and she thought that they should be used for naptime with all her favorite animals. She's so funny. We ate in the living room for 3 nights just because she refused to let me take it down.

Let There be Rain

This is our backyard, you can't even see the grass. Our house is surrounded by broken branches and parts of trees. Four hours after I took this picture you can't even see the back patio.
This is the yard at a church down the street from our house.

This is the ditch right in front of our house. A lot of rain is not unusual for the south so pretty much every main residential road has a 3-4 foot deep ditch on both sides of it for the water to sit in. They aren't drains they are just somewhere for the water to go. Ours has only filled up one time the whole time we've lived here, until this hurricane. I took this picture about 4 hours ago as well. Now the water is so high it has actually gone across the street and reaches the median. We have a police officer parked in our driveway with his lights on so that people will slow down.
Tim thinks I'm crazy because in the middle of a tropical storm I decide I want to drive around the neighborhood to get some good pictures. That's also why the next few pictures are blurry. This picture is of a golf course we go to.
This is a side road a block away from our house.
This is a circle subdivision across the street. You can't even see where the road and their yards and driveways start and end. I've never seen rain like this before, and it looks like it's not over yet. Like I said I took these pictures hours ago. I really need to invest in a camera that will take better pictures at night because you would not believe how much more it has rained. I drove down the street that Brynn's school is on and the water was so deep it came more than halfway up the door of the truck. Tim was so mad, he thought for sure I'd flood the engine. Our power went out at midnight last night and wasn't on again until 1 this afternoon. To say the house was hot and muggy would be an understatement. We are very fortunate though because I know there are people even a few houses away that are sweeping water out of their house. It's crazy how fast this stuff can happen!

Hurricane Gustav

So we are feeling a little unprepared. Maybe it's because we didn't take all of the warnings seriously or maybe it's because we have never been remotely close to a natural disaster but we weren't ready for what we saw at the grocery store yesterday. Everyone there was stocking up on gallons of water, the bread shelves were empty, one lady even had her cart full of every type of frozen meat you could buy. (an odd choice for natural disaster food but they do everything different down here) From what we heard the hurricane was supposed to miss us completely and we were just going to get some rain. We had 10 inches of rain in August so hurricane rain wouldn't be much worse than that right?? The good news is that now that it's actually made landfall it doesn't look as bad as the weather channel thought it would be so I'll keep you posted on the after-shock, if there is one.