Rain is a Good Thing...Right?

If you've been following the news lately, you'll know that Texas has had a huge influx of rain lately.  And by "influx," I mean, massive amounts of rain all at one time!  In the Dallas area, we've had weeks of consecutive days with rain/storms/tornadoes.  It's become a normal thing to hear my phone blaring flood warnings at all hours.  All vegetation is green and lush, but it's also squishy and saturated. Occasionally, we will have a day when the sun comes up, but it feels almost abnormal now; like I'm a vampire who has become unaccustomed to the sunlight.

All this rain is a mixed blessing. Texas is not built for so much moisture.  We just aren't used to it ya'll!  There are so many Texas cities experiencing flooding and homes have had so much damage in the last few weeks.  I have several coworkers that have missed work just so that they can fight water from pouring into their homes (ripping up carpet and tearing up wood floors - not cool).  On the other hand, the lake that was once more than 24 feet too low is now completely FULL.  It's going to be an awesome summer to go boating, but at what cost?

Despite the ridiculous weather, I want to share some pictures from the Memorial Day weekend with ya'll.  We managed to have a good time in between rain showers and I feel so fortunate to have spent the time with family.  It's become an annual tradition for my family to get together on Memorial Day weekend.  We get to enjoy great food, good company, and I have to say, I have a good lookin' family!

Top Left: Within 30 minutes of arriving at the lake Jordan and I were itching to see how far the water had come up.  It's been so long since we've felt the lake breeze in our face on the water.  We rushed to a neighbor's house and ogled their "brook".  This small water fall is one of many entry points for rain to run off into the lake.  It was exciting to see and hear the water rushing down the rocks.  Very pretty sight.
Top Right: This is me hanging out with my Aunt Rebecka and Aunt Joanie.
Bottom Left: Even the puppies join in on the fun.  This is my cousin, Nasta's, dog, Ramsey, wearing her royal crown.
Bottom Right: All smiles!  This is Dad, Mom, and Aunt Joanie

Every time I share lake food pictures with ya'll, it's on a large scale. 
Dad is the meat man and makes amazing things in his fancy smoker.  These are various pictures of him cooking brisket and ribs.  His apron is a gift from Aunt Joanie and it says, "28th Amendment: The right of the people to keep and bear TONGS shall not be infringed"
Right: These kinds of pictures make me laugh.  With so many people present, we had more coolers than I could count.  This picture isn't even all of the coolers, but for the most part, we lined them all up next to the pavilion.


Top Left: Aunt Alina and Elaine
Top Right: Jitney ride with Uncle Kenny and Scott
Middle Right: Elaine and Jennifer flying past me on the golf cart.
Bottom: Post lunch visiting.  From L to R: Dad, Jordan, Elaine, Me, Rebecka, and Scott

The weekend was also a great time to celebrate my cousin, John, who just graduated from HS.  He is planning to join the Navy and will begin boot camp this summer.  We will miss John terribly but wish him well in this new chapter of his life.
When you layer John's friends on top of our already large family, you get a herd of 38+ people.  Wow.
Sunday morning breakfast was a tasty ordeal.
When you feed that many people, you need serious cooks and industrial size tools.  Dad and Tony were our excellent chefs and cooked a ton of food.  Eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, hash browns, etc. etc.  The total tally was 9 lbs of bacon, 6 lg packages of hash browns, 6 dozen eggs, 2 large boxes of pancake mix, 2 lbs of coffee, and fruit all to feed 38 people on Sunday morning!  Yowzas!

After breakfast, we got to work planning lunch and dinner...lol.  Well, actually the planning credit really goes to Mom and Aunt Cindy.  The rest of us just tried to help chop, mix, carry, and taste-test, where we could.
Top Left: Mom mixing up the biggest batch of guacamole I've ever seen.  Yowzas!!  
Top Right: Hamburgers and hot dogs were on the menu for Sunday lunch!
Right Middle: I don't even know how many avocados.  We'd save a lot of money if avocado trees could grow in Texas soil.
Bottom Left: Close up of some serious guacamole.
Bottom Right: Oh, you know, just a "small" batch of 40 pieces of chicken marinating for dinner.  

You'd think we eat ALL the time at the lake!  I guess we do eat a lot but I also have an affinity for photographing food.  
Top Left: Uncle Tony and his gigantic zucchinis from his garden.
Top Right: This is the smorgasbord of dinner.
Middle Left: Zucchini steaks
Middle Middle: Grilling chicken
Middle Right: Veggie stir fry
Bottom Left: Bacon wrapped sweet potato
Bottom Middle and Right: More veggies!

Everyone was just so excited and inspired by the lake level.  Despite the fact that the water is very murky, cold, and full of debris, the boys just couldn't wait to swim.  
Top Left: The boys all lined up getting ready to jump.
Right Top and Middle: My cousin, Dylan, cycling on a surf-board.
Bottom: When the sun finally came out Dad took all of us girls on a boat ride.  I haven't seen this wake in ages!  Even though the water is brown and stirred-up, I had to grab this picture.

This is one of my most favorite collages.  These guys boldly jumped into the cold water.


Top Left: Joanie, Jennifer, and Mom enjoying the momentary sunshine.
Middle Left: Jordan, Abby, and Steve
Bottom Left: Mom, Cindy, and Joanie
Right: The Gals!  Top to Bottom - Rebecka, Megan, Joanie, Mom, Jennifer, Cindy, and Elaine

The boat ride was amazing!!!  It was great to ride the waves and make some wind!
Top: Elaine, Jennifer, Megan hanging out in the "nest" at the front of the boat.
Bottom: The ladies - Meghan, Jennifer, Me, Cindy, Joanie, Mom, Elaine, and Rebecka

It's a curious thing how the storms can change everything.  The saying is true, "it takes a flood to break a drought."
Top Left: These pictures are before/after when the water level finally came back up.  Photo credit to my friend, Andrea.
Right: Perpetual precipitation over the metroplex.
Bottom Left: This is a graph of the lake water level in the last 2 years.  The spike in this graph shows just how quickly the water level has come up.  It's both amazing and scary.  As of this moment, while I'm typing this, the water level has exceeded the "full pool" blue line.  The water level is currently 2.36 ABOVE the full pool.  We now have the opposite problem of a drought and water is approaching homes.  Please pray for those folks with homes in danger of flooding!

And with that, I leave you with our massive group picture.  Everyone in this photo is family, ya'll.  That's a lot of people.
Photo credit to our family friend, Steve!  Thank you for putting up with our huge group and capturing this moment for us!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cheese it Up

Image
Sometimes I feel like Jordan and I live for the weekends.  We are very blessed to have each other, jobs that we both enjoy, an adorable pup, and a pretty house, so we definitely  enjoy the week days.  It's just that the weekends are when the action happens!  I don't know if we rest more during the week or the weekends! Last weekend was no exception.  We managed to strike the right balance of being productive while still having some leisure time.  Those are my favorite kind of weekends because that's a really tough balance to get! We recently planted some new flowers around our house which was a big chore.  I always get the spring bug this time of year (not the sickness).  I can't help it!  I don't have any sort of green thumb so I suppose this spring tradition will continue for years to come.  In the short time that we've had these pretty flowers, we've spent a lot more time outside.  The nice weather helps too!   Here's the run down of our new pl
Read more

July 4th with Family

Image
Happy July 4th...or 14th.  It's taken me a while to get around to sharing pictures from our Independence Day celebration but I've got 30+ pictures of family food and fun to share! There is no other holiday quite like the 4th of July in America!  Everyone takes off work to enjoy delicious food (and cold drinks), BBQ, and the faint smell of explosives in the air --- those bombs bursting in air! This year was even sweeter than previous years because my brother, Andy, and his family flew to Texas for a long visit!  I was so thrilled to see them all! Top Left: I do love a little flare!  I got a pedicure before the holiday and decided to go with a patriotic theme.  The design looks almost like a Wonder Woman theme which is equally awesome. Top Right: My brother, Scott, with his pup Lucy.  She is laser focused on the lake smells in this picture. Bottom Left: Me, my niece, Kenley, and Lucy!  Lucy sure has grown so much from when she was a puppy (see her Chri
Read more

Doodles and Drawings

Image
I've continued to have fun with my Tombow calligraphy markers that I talked about on my Tombow Watercolor post.  Pinterest is rich with unique and interesting art!  I've found that it's extremely relaxing to sit down and doodle with my markers while sipping quality wine and listening to some music.  It makes for a messy kitchen table but I feel very chill and in my own element! The only new piece of art I have to share is this "hustle" poster I made for a friend.  I began by playing with the texture of watercolor paper (verses usually using "media" paper).  The water and markers react completely different depending on the surface and paper.  I ended up with this woodland-ish doodle. Leaves are probably not the most interesting focus, but I had fun playing with the different shades of greens and browns along with the various textures of leaves.  I have so many shades of markers so it was a great opportunity to use them all!  For fun, I even
Read more