Our Personal Lake

It has been raining, and raining, and raining. We have all felt very sunshine-deprived and irritated about all the lovely spring weather that we have NOT been having.  The gray drizzle has dampened (soaked) not only the ground, but our spirits as well.  After more than week of daily rain, the kids were desperate to be outside.  On Saturday they noticed that the drainage area in the front of our neighborhood had filled up and become a lovely little pond.  Shortly after commenting on the fact that we now had a lake in our own neighborhood, they began plotting how to take advantage of the situation.  First, they started asking if they could go look for frogs.  I said yes.  After the fun of that wore off, someone got the idea to get out the inflatable boat and see if they could paddle it around.  I believe I was on the phone, or only half paying attention when they asked if they could do that, because the next thing I knew, there was a great commotion of dragging the boat out of the crawl space, hooking up the air compressor, finding puddle boots, etc.   By the time I really realized what they were doing it was too late.  I was a bit worried about what the neighbors would say.  I wondered if paddling around in the decorative drainage area was allowed in the homeowner covenants.  Then I realized that Matt was involved in the process, and so I happily left it in his hands.  Here are some pictures of their big adventure.

The boat had a slow leak, so eventually they had to come out of the water.  Sadly, by the next day the water had drained away.  Although I do not ever wish for it to rain so much again, I do have the hope that if it does, at least there will be something good for the kids to enjoy outside.