Plenty Wet!

Tropical storm Fay is, as they say in PA, making down with the wet! At first I was thinking we weren't even going to get as much as we do in afternoon storms... but then it started to rain for real. And then Fay stalled. I'm feeling really sorry for those over near the coast - some areas have had over two feet of rain in the last two days!!!! Here I'd guess we've had near 10 inches.

Hannah and I both love 'hurricane days'. I asked her why she liked them so much and she replied "Because you get to snuggle in bed and read stories!" I love being home with nowhere to go!

We took pity on our poor, wet chickens. They spent most of the afternoon huddled on the patio and this evening Bekah brought them into the garage and bedded them down in a nice, dry dog kennel.

Now that Fay has started moving, we're getting a bit of gusty wind. When it's just a tropical storm it's fun to go outside and play in it. The kids are out back doing one of their favorite 'been-cooped-up-too-long-in-a-tropical-storm things... pretending to be reporters from TWC reporting on the 'terrible' storm! At the moment Bekah is the reporter, Hannah the videographer and the boys are adding sound/storm effects. It's plenty windy and rain is falling but Zach is banging things around and Jesse is throwing extra water on Bekah. Hopefully we'll have video for you later - but please remember that most of the violent weather is added by sibling power!

pictures

Here are a couple pictures from our trip.

Here is a picture of a salamander that I took. Ain't he cute!!!

Here is one of the beautiful Tennessee views!!!!!

More coming soon!!! I hope you enjoy!!!!!

Bekah

Suprise Birthday Celebration!!

Okay everyone, sorry for the wait but we had to get back into our normal schedule in the Rigelzoo home after vacationing and some camp. I decided to tell about the second day in Pennsylvania even though the trip in Tennessee was first. This is what happened. I woke up early in the morning to do a little fishing in Beaver Creek which was just down hill from Grandma's house, but first I had to make a little note to tell my parents (still asleep) where I was. After quickly making a note on a page of notebook paper that spelled out "Gone Fishing" I made my way down the stairs as quietly as I could (which is not an easy thing to do in a old house with squeaky floors) and grabbed my gear and took off. Then after fishing for a little while I went back to the house smelling like fish so I had to use soap, lots of it, to make my hands smell like anything but fish. Little did I know that my Grandma had planned something for us, it was my Moms birthday, so of course we celebrated with some cake. So my Grandma brings out an angel food cake with a circle of paper on top saying "Happy Birthday Dawn" and places it on the table. Of course I'm sitting there getting ready to eat some cake, but Grandma had some more tricks up her sleeve. She brought out another cake, which was chocolate with icing on top! She was celebrating all of our birthdays in one day since she can't come to Florida for each of our birthdays. And while she is doing all this, I'm thinking in my head, "ooh, some ice cream would be nice" then I hear Grandma's voice asking me if I wanted to get the ice cream from the cellar! Talk about reading my mind! So now we had a multiple birthday celebration with two cakes and tons of Turkey Hill ice cream (My Favorite!!!)!


This is the cake that was for my Dad, and the rest of my siblings.



And here is the cake for my Mom's birthday.



Hannah was happy to eat angel food cake, even though she probably likes chocolate more.



I really enjoyed eating the cake that my Grandma prepared for us.

Special post (with more to come) by Zach R.

P.S. Thank you Grandma!!!!!!