Nor'easters Are a Pain

Not too long ago we had a little thing called a Nor'easter come through here. Now, being from the Chicago area, I'm not too used to what these storms can do or what they're about. I was here for the hurricane in 2003, but that one didn't effect me very much. This recent nor'easter however proved to be a real monster for us and dropped so much rain that we ended up with our own swimming pool (and to think Kara wants to pay someone to put a pool in for us... silly girl).

The rains really started on thursday, and were coming down all day. Kara was out of town on a business trip, and so when I woke up friday morning, I was amazed at how much water was out on the ground. I even took a few pictures. Little did I know, that all that water was nothing compared to what followed.

A few hours later, all our drainage ditches were full, and the water was creeping toward the house. Our backyard was so saturated that the entire lawn looked like a giant puddle. A little while after that, the yard was just water. In the front of the house, the water had come up to our house and in to our garage. I fought gallantly for over an hour trying to stem the rising waters, but being a nor'easter virgin, I was a little lost on what to do (fyi, if this ever happens again, I have the gameplan down and things will go a lot smoother than last time).

The water started climbing in the garage. Fortunately, I was able to move anything of value up out of the way, so nothing important got ruined. Then the water kept climbing up the side of the house. It spilled up on to our front porch and started approaching the door. If you looked out the back, it was just a giant lake. Kasia's plastic picnic table had up and floated away, and I was forced to rush out and get it. The water in our yard came up to my knee. Against the house it rose about eight inches. And the scare thing was that it was still raining.

Fortunately, the rain didn't last much longer, and the water never got close to coming in our house. Our garage got quite a bit of water, but nothing important was ruined. Unfortunately, some of my neighbors were not so lucky as some of their houses sit just a little lower to the ground than ours and suffered quite a bit of water damage.

For us, it was kind of a blessing, because it forced us to clean out our garage, and it was neater and more organized afterwards than it has been in years. Though, this is a blessing that I hope I never get again.

Word Up!

Attention to all you parents of youngin's out there. I know that todays TV for children is dominated by channels like Noggin and Nick Jr, but if you have not watched Word Girl on PBS, then you're missing out. This show is perhaps THE greatest cartoon ever made for kids. Why? Because in the end, I don't think it's made for kids. It's made for the parents who watch cartoons with their kids. It's hilarious. I mean, it's milk out of your nose hilarious. I highly recommend you check it out.

Happy Halloween

This year for Halloween, Kasia decided that she was going to go as a "Cute Witch." I think that every little girl in her life time has to dress up as both Raggedy Anne as well as a witch for Halloween. Luckily for Kasia, she has checked off both those boxes on her "things to do" list.

Kasia was extremely excited about Halloween this year and really got in to everything that hadto do with Halloween. She wanted it all. She wanted the pumpkins carved, though she didn'twant to have to smell them. And she really wanted to go Trick-or-Treating, but she didn't want to have to actually say the words.Kasia was skipping and excited to get to the house to get some candy, but then as soon as she sawsomebody standing there, she froze. In a voice that was barely above a whisper she would say, "trick or treat." And then after she got her candy, she would the say again in that whisper voice, "Thankyou." As we were walking back down the driveways to go to the next house, she would then findher voice and shout, "THAT WAS FUN! LET'S DO THAT AGAIN!" By the time we'd get to the nexthouse though, she was back to her whisper.

When we got home, she dumped her treasures out onto the floor and began to count them. She refuses to eat any of her candy, but she pulls it out and then puts it back in her bucket. Of course,she has no problems with eating the leftover candy that we have lying around the house. I thinkthat maybe we scared her a little too much by telling her that she'll get sick if she eats too much candy because now whenever we suggest she has a piece she just says, "No, I don't want to getsick."

For more pictures, click on the Recent Photos slideshow and enjoy the little video. If you can't tell from the video, Kasia had a problem with wanting to wear her witch hat. She insisted on waitinguntil Aunt Sandy showed up before putting it on. To her credit though, she did put it on when Sandy arrived, only for us to take it off her again a little later because the thing kept falling off.

Climbing the Currituck Lighthouse

One of the great sites in Currituck County is the Currituck Lighthouse in Corolla. The other week, they had a festival for the local residents and we were able to climb the lighthouse for free. So I took the plunge and climbed the 220 steps to the top. It's quite a feat for a guy who has problems with heights, but it was well worth it.

Kara and Kasia decided to stay at the bottom and wait for me. Actually, we decided that we didn't want to go up with Kasia because we knew that inevitably we'd get half-way up and she'd want us to carry her the rest of the way. And since Kara has already climbed the lighthouse, it just made sense for them to stay at the bottom.

This is what Kara and Kasia look like from atop the Currituck Lighthouse. That's them in the very center sitting in the shade of the tree.

Pumpkin Carving

For the very first time, we decided to carve a pumpkin for Halloween this year. I actually haven't carved a pumpkin since I was a kid, so it has been a really long time since I've done this. The one thing I always remembered about doing this when I was a kid was that when you're scooping out the insides of the pumpkin, it stinks. It's bad. I actually think that was the reason why it has been so long since I've done this.

So it was no surprise to me when we started scooping out the pumpkin, Kasia didn't enjoy the smell much either.

In fact, she hated it. She covered her nose, ran out of the room, and gave up on the pumpkin. Eventually she would return, but with a mask over her face to keep the smell out.

Something else that I remember about doing this from my younger days was that I used to have this special knife for carving pumpkins that was safe for kids to use. It was called the Pumpkin Kutter, and it made carving a pumpkin as easy as slicing butter. Well, this time I didn't have the Kutter and had to rely on regular knife. It was possibly one of the worst experiences I've ever had. The next day I went online and promptly ordered three new Pumpkin Kutters so that next year I will not be caught unprepared.

Chilly

Like most of the country, we're having a bit of a cold streak in our weather. On tuesday morning, we woke up to discover that it was 28 degrees outside. That is just a tad chilly for this time of the year. The car (as you can see) was completely covered in ice. For the first time in a long time, I had to warm up the car and blast the heat just to thaw the thing out.

The strange thing is that by noon, the temperature was in the upper 60's. Kasia and I went to the park and didn't even need jackets. In fact, we were a little warm just by wearing pants instead of shorts. How does one dress for days like these? It's winter in the morning and summer just a few hours later. I think this is exactly why they invent those pants where the bottoms unzip to transform them into shorts. Genius.

Worst. Slice. Ever!

Well, it finally happened. After living on the golf course for over two years, somebody finally broke a window with a golf ball. I always said that because of where our house lies on the the golf course, you'd either have to have the worst slice ever to hit our house, or you'd have to do it intentionally. Now, I'm going to be optimistic and hope that it wasn't intentional. Of course, it did happen in the middle of the night while the golf course was closed. But then, that only makes it seem more like an accident. I mean, if you're out there playing some night golf, it's got to be hard to see where the hole is.

The upside is that the cracked window actually looks really cool. And, the best part is that, according to legend, if you stand in a specific spot in the kitchen at a specific time of day, the sun will shoot in through the hole in the window, which then points to the exact location of the Well of the Souls. So that's kind of cool. As it turns out, the Ark of the Covenant is actually buried under my kitchen floor. That would explain a lot of things (like the reason the finger of God is always pointing to my refrigerator).