Gustav has finally left us alone...

As I sit here this Saturday morning it is beautiful outside...a sight we haven't seen ALL week! I have never seen rain like this before in my life. It started late Monday night and NEVER stopped until Thursday morning...not one break. There was no thunder or lightning and amazingly no tornadoes...just 11" of rain and 45 mph winds! At least the weekends before and after were and are going to be nice but boy was it hard to get out and go to work on those oh so rainy days! I am beginning to believe that Arkansas is "The Natural State" because it attracts natural disasters...the seasons here are tornadoes, hurricanes, ice/snow storms...we get a little bit of everything!

The rain didn't bother us too much until it started flooding the highway that takes us to Little Rock Thursday morning...my commute to work took over 2 hours and Riley was in the car with me the WHOLE time! She was a champ...the first hour and a half she laughed, played, and smiled away in her own little world back there and then she realized it was way past her breakfast time and she was HUNGRY! I had to pull over and feed her breakfast...you do what you gotta do! She then got to spend the day with DiDi and I had a short work day so all in all it worked out but here are the pictures of the flooding...

This is the access road

You can see the water creaping up to the highway

This is normally a very small dry creek overpass...now a raging river!

And here we have it...water covering the entire freeway...the reason it took me to hours to drive 4 miles...woohoo!

Riley started eating puffs this week...a little cereal snack that quickly dissolves in her mouth! She has learned to pick them up and put them in her mouth although there are many missed attempts along the way. She made some of the funniest faces the first time she ate them and her whole body shook when she would swallow them...a new texture and experience for her! Now she is eating them every day and loves them! She wouldn't mind if you just put them in her mouth but she has to learn to do it all by herself!

That was a lot of hard work! This is the first time RIley has ever fallen asleep in her highchair. She was so tired that I fed her the last bit of baby food and she literally fell right asleep...I let her snooze a few minutes to get enough energy to drink her sippy cup and go right back to bed...she's like her dad and can sleep ANYWHERE!

She also fell asleep in my new jogging stroller on our first test run this past Monday! I was huffiing and puffing and she was snoring...gotta love it! I LOVE having a jogging stroller! The rain dampered my running plans for the week but I still got 2 good runs in!

Last night we celebrated Gaby's 8th birthday...how time flies! We went to dinner at Kanpai...a family favorite hibachi restaurant! It was not the same without Jason, but he called and was able to talk to everyone for a few minutes and it was great to hear his voice! A camera is en route to him as we speak so soon he will be able to share some pictures of his life over there!

Here are Jason and Riley in 2003 at our annual beach trip...I have always loved this pic!

And now she's 8!

The Birthday Girl!

So Gaby got birthday presents and a visit from the Tooth Fairy...she pulled her tooth in the middle of dinner! It was dangling and she was worried about choking on it while eating so she gave herself a peptalk "Come on Gaby, just pull it out" and she yanked and turned and yanked and turned and it popped right out...I am such a wuss and could not watch any of it! She's such a cutie!

"I'll have a California Roll with cream cheese and a spicy tuna roll...thanks!"

This is Riley's face in anticipation of her dinner...she makes it real hard for me can't you tell? Ha!

Riley had fun playing with her PaPa after dinner!