sunny, snow, more snow, monsoon rains, flooding...

It started snowing on Saturday afternoon and the kids had a great time in it as it started to fall. By the evening, it had turned to rain and the streets were clear again. We had heard that most likely, it would be raining when we woke up Sunday morning. We also new that there was a big storm coming that would hit on Sunday with high winds and 2-4 inches of rain, so we were told.

You know the drill. The kids get all suited up, they go out and play for twenty minutes, come back in cold and wet wanting a cup of hot chocolate. That is all part of the experience.

On Sunday morning, we woke up to dumping snow at 6:00 am. You may ask why we were up so early and the short answer is that we have kids who were hoping to see more snow. We thought that it would change over to rain within an hour or so, but it wasn't until around 3:00 p.m. that afternoon when it turned to more sleet. It snowed from 6:00 a.m. to 3:00 non-stop. It was beautiful, but we were amazed at how steady it was all day long. We didn't go to church, canceled a lunch with family and ended up staying home and letting the kids play. Little did we know that after it changed over to rain, it would dump more than 12 inches of rain in Bremerton in a 24 hour period. With so much rain, everything started to flood. The snow was gone by Sunday night and it rained all night long. It also rained all day Monday, canceling school, flooding roads, downtown Silverdale, parts of Bremerton, and filling the crawl space underneath our house with water. The whole day was strange to see so much widespread damage. The kids came home early from school on Monday, were out today, Tuesday, and are also going to be out of school tomorrow because their school doesn't have any phone lines. There was also a lot of damage to the roads near the school with them washing away, so bussing children is going to be tricky. All of this was amazing and scary to watch. Who would have known that over the weekend, we would have had so many different types of weather. We are grateful that our family is safe. Expect the unexpected.