What? The Flood?

Let me just say we had an eventful weekend. I have never seen so much rain in my life. I was glad to see it stop in Searcy for Megan’s graduation. I’m so proud of nutmeg for all her hard work. She will make one AMAZING teacher.

We were also excited to see Uncle Bert and Aunt Amanda and the sweet twins. We don’t get to see them enough. They live in Country Music City now. They are much closer now then they were, so we do get to see them more often. We also got to see Uncle Mark and Aunt Renee. Eden has some wonderful aunt's and uncle's. Eden also got spoiled by seeing her nana niece and doo-da as well as her great grandparents.

Graduation day was finished off with a wonderful meal and a lot of socializing with the family. It was a wonderful feeling to have all the immediate Venable family in one room.

After graduation festivities we headed back to the Rock to meet with our good friends Josh and Ashley Eichhorn. They were so sweet for letting us stay with them. We were able to eat with them at a great authentic Mexican restaurant. Can I just say that I ate way too much. We had so much fun eating and talking with them.
After we ate, it was time to head home.

The ride back home was not bad at all. Eden slept the whole way, well at least until the sky started falling.

You see this is where our weekend comes to a flooding halt. As we were arriving in Texarkana the radio issued a severe thunderstorm warning for that area with winds up to 75 miles an hour as well as hail. First off, I HATE storms!!! They scare me a lot. I was on the edge of my seat as we were driving through the rain. We could barley see the road. I really just wanted to pull over, but Andrew said we had to drive though it or we would catch the really bad part of the storm. Well, we made it to Hooks when the rain had let up. I was just glad to be back in my hometown and sleep in my own bed. As we turned the corner into our neighborhood, my eyes could not believe the water rushing across the street and into our neighbors’ yards. We made our way down our street only to see the street covered in water. We could not even get to our driveway. We had to pull into our neighbor's driveway because the water was way too high for us to drive in. My heart was pounding knowing that there was definitely water in our house.
I truly felt sick to my stomach. How high was the water in our house? Was all our possessions ruined? I know most of them could be replaced but you know the special things that you can’t. Did I say my stomach was in knots?

This is Andrew's car halfway emerged in water. I didn't get any pictures of the house because I couldn't see it very well. Andrew had to ride in a fire truck to reach the house. When he jumped off the truck, the water came up to his waist.

Anyway to make a long story short, our good friends the Strate’s took us in because our house was indeed flooded, but not as bad as we had thought. Water did get into the house, and seeped into all of our rooms. So pretty much all of our floors need to be replaced. I’m really praying hard that our insulation dries out so we don’t have any mold problems. So, for right now we are in waiting mode. Waiting for our adjustor to come and give us a quote, waiting for the renovators to say our walls are dried out, waiting to get new floors, Just waiting.

In the mean time we are still staying with the Strate’s, who for some reason don’t mind having us around. Can I just say that they are our life savers. They waited up for us the Saturday the great flood happened. We didn’t get to their house till 1:00 that morning. They are just good friends. We have really enjoyed our time with them, and hope we haven’t over stayed our welcome.
Let me leave you with this quote Elizabeth found, we changed it up a bit to fit our situation.

Life isn’t about waiting for the storms to pass… It’s about learning to dance in the floodwater.