cause for celebration!

I swear we've had the driest house in the city of Denver. Everytime it's rained somewhere else, we just watched the clouds roll in & then back out over our house with nary a drop to savor. Yesterday we stopped at the library, spur of the moment. While I was helping Lib, Fi runs up to me & excitedly exclaims, "It's raining! It's raining! Come look!" Yes, it was raining -Sideways! Fiona observed. For about 3 minutes. Then it was gone. Sadly, I wondered if that was all it would be, just a tease. And did any of it even get to my house? Moments later, as I was helping Lib check out, Fi comes running in from outside where she & Mad had been waiting. She was soaked. "Mom it's raining so hard now! You have to see!" She was very concerned about her books getting wet. Maddie had also retreated inside & was showing Fi how to put the books under her shirt so they wouldn't get wet on the run to the car. And run we did.

In the car, Maddie suggests we watch the news for an announcement of a flash flood. As soon as we pulled out of the library parking lot, a fire truck & an ambulance drove by...and stopped at a house down the block, causing us to detour on back streets instead. Lib wondered aloud, "Maybe their house is flooded. I hope our house isn't flooded." Fiona, just a little less anxious than Maddie at the same age, states "I don't like today. I think this is bad. Rain is bad." Trying to alleviate their fears I told them that no, rain is very good, that it takes alot more rain than this to make a flood. That our garden & grass & trees NEED rain. We drove the rest of the way in anticipation of what we would find at our own house, talking about how rain is a good thing. I told them they could play outside in the rain, in the puddles, if there were any. Fi decided that no, she didn't want to do that, she wanted to stay in the house (where it's safe, I assume, from floods).

And YES! it was indeed raining at our house too (8 blocks away -good thing I hadn't driven home first & walked to the library, as I had momentarily considered after picking Maddie up at her friend Marie's house.)

The girls were ecstatic! All fear of rain & floods dissipated as soon as they stepped out of the car. They didn't even bother coming inside -other than Fi to retrieve a couple umbrellas for the occasion -you can see she was the only fan of the accessory yesterday.

Fi looked up at the sky & declared, "I think God is happy that it's raining too!" I agree. From Maddie's expression, you can see that the rain was good for the soul -especially for she of the water baby ilk. It's been so dry lately...fixing to be the driest summer in history here. My garden has not been happy. But this morning, ahhhh...I can only imagine what it would be like to live in a wetter climate, how my garden would thrive...someday....












"Look! the house is leaking!" (the downspout was apparantly clogged & water was running over from the top)


And just as quickly as it started, it was over. The road was soon dry & we had only wet clothes (and happy plants) to attest to the day's excitement