We live pretty close to the Meramec River; this is the first flood that has directly effected me. On Easter Sunday the river had swelled over a major piece of road nearby. We had to reroute our path to church…nothing compared to all the people whose houses were covered, and they were rerouting their lives. Just thought I would share a few pictures. If you click on any of these you will get the bigger versions.

Look closely that is Hwy 44 going over….see the traffic lights. This was our road to church.

This is the entrance ramp to the highway as well as an outer road to a few fast food places off to the right.

These are a ton of old businesses, and the water covered quite a few blocks beyond where I am standing before every getting to the river banks. The building behind Asher was lucky to be up on that hill, almost like its own little island. Notice the sandbags all around.

Another road we drive on all the time. Thankfully, though it got really close it never went over, just lapped the edges.

Had to sneak in a cutey one of the little man.

Had to sneak in a cutey one of the little man.

Our basement took a hit with all the rains in the last month. The Tuesday before Easter, Lance texts me at BSF to let me know we have a little water in the basement. Not but a few minutes later in comes another text…..”A lot of water.” I was helpless needing to stay and teach. He was at home putting our furniture up on blocks and peeling up carpet to start the floor pump going. (This happened once before, same situation where we just had a ton of moisture, unheard of for the normal monthly totals.) Lance monitored it all day and when our neighbor got home and saw the extended piping from the sump pump he called Lance and offered him another floor pump. It stayed an inch to 2 inches deep all afternoon and evening with the sump pump running and two floor pumps. We worked side by side into the night and went to bed hoping the pumps wouldn’t run dry. Lance got up every few hours to go the basement and check them. By morning the water had stopped coming through the floor, and we had a mess.

I can’t complain, people all over our city had water in their basements. By Easter weekend, a lot of people had water filling their homes and businesses. We opted to just rip out all the carpeting and start from scratch on the “finished side”. Thanks to family and friends who joined me Wednesday night and ripped up all the carpet and helped me haul it upstairs. We will eventually tile down there…then we have the empty canvas to finally do our basement with the Cardinal theme. When the old stadium was torn down I bought my husband seats….so they will get mounted as well. We are excited for the possibilities that the flooded basement has given us. My only complaint is that it will be a work of patience, and it had been Lance and I’s movie/Wii space. BUT none of our things were ruined, so the complaining stops here.

I check a ton of my friend’s blogs regularly, and every few days they have a new tidbit or set of pics. Why is this so hard for me??!! It’s not like I don’t have material to post…I mean come on, I’ve got an 18month old. Every day he is doing something that makes me die laughing, and I have to run for the camera. Our basement flooded back before Easter, I have Easter pics, and we took a trip to Turkey Hill to visit family. I’m gonna try harder. I always think of things or read a devotional I want to share, but if I don’t sit down in that moment it escapes me. So here is a post to help remind me that this is something I want to do, and need to get to it. So keep your eyes open, starting next week I am going to post some of the past and start moving forward to be more regular.

Here’s a teaser: his first bubble bath