The Rainiest Day

Guess what it rained yesterday whaaaaaat??!

Yeah you already know. It was...kind of a big deal.
But being a bit of a pluviophile myself, I'm gonna go over how the day went down at the Douglass'.

Around 6:45am I awoke to the screech of our bedroom window being opened as Mark investigated the curious rumbling sound. Turns out it was just thunder and rain. Our sleepy minds had come up with rather idiotic reasonings for the noise given that it is monsoon season. Mark thought the entire neighborhood had coordinated a single "take your trash bins to the road" flashmob, and I was just wondering what the planes were doing up so early.

But it was just raining. Hard. Raining really hard and raining a lot. Since I had no idea how long Mark had been up I inquired about how the puppies were doing since they sleep outside and he just said, "oh. yeah."

Odin and Mor'du have benefited greatly from spending time together outside. Odin has blossomed into such a tender "big brother" it's quite adorable. Their favorite spot is on the north side of the house under the olianders where there's never any direct sunlight. They just lay in the cool dirt for most of the day and Mor'du goes exploring every so often. I usually let them in during the hottest part of the afternoon and we play with some toys until Mor'du decides he'd like to nap on the tile, his preferred sleeping spot. Won't relax on the carpet for anything.

But this particular morning, the Monday of downpour, we came downstairs and discovered Odin sprawled on the loveseat couch under the porch with Mor'du sleeping peacefully up on the back cushions, nestled against the wall. We giggled at the pseudo doggy-bunkbed.

Thoroughly awake, I wandered around to take some pictures of the beautiful storm.

(this is too cool to pass up, my phone made a little gif-ish movie

of the shots it took to make that panoramic photo)

I instagrammed the former picture but didn't include any description. The window next to our piano (in fact, it's the window that looks out to the north and directly onto the spot I described earlier where Odin and Mor'du hang out) had constant streams of water running down it and created that lovely warped effect. I thought it made our backyard look very dreamy and jungle-y.

Being only just before 7 in the morning I didn't want to wake the dogs up just yet so I refrained from stepping out onto the back porch for another few minutes. About the same time that Mark left for Jury Duty around 7:30, the thunder started back up in earnest and poor Odin was rudely awakened. The poor guy hates the thunder. He kept knocking his head into the glass of the back door, shoving his nose into the hinges, trying to force his way inside. Since they both were awake anyway, I joined them on the porch and took some more pictures.

Our porch stretches out into the yard with those brown bricks that you see and then drops a couple inches to the dirt and the water was already seeping over the bricks. The chaos of the storm was evident in the overabundantly energetic furballs so we took an early morning stroll to the park. I didn't get any photos there because I didn't want to bother waterproofing my phone. Mor'du consistently found the deepest puddles to scamper through as we ran around the grassy enclosure and Odin galloped along obediently. I will be one happy mama if Mor'du can inherit Odin's penchant for sticking close to his masters and not tearing off the minute he's off leash. I legitimately cannot run fast enough for Odin to really get going the way he wants to, so usually I'll take him off his three foot leash and just keep Mor'du on his extendable leash and harness. It was cute to see that whenever Odin shook off the water, Mor'du would watch and then proceed to do the same. He wants to be just like his big brother ;)

We went home sopping wet and were promptly shooed to the back porch again for drying off. Since the thunder had abated, the dogs enjoyed dashing about the yard in great splashes and playing with each other. It was good to see them both reacting so well to the water.

The rain didn't hardly dissipate till about 10am. I went outside and curiously tried pulling up some of the tall weeds that have been sprouting up ("they popped outta the snow! like daisies!!") recently. It came loose so easily and within minutes I had handfuls of the stuff to throw away. And so my laundry day turned into a yardwork day.

Mark came home just a little before 11 (obviously, considering he took those shots above) and when he came out onto the porch and saw me ankle deep in muddy water, bent over picking weeds he asked if I was "enjoying working in the rice paddys". I won't say I wasn't having at least a slightly good time. We trimmed a palo verde tree that's been desperately trying to become a bush as well as some oliander branches that were quickly closing off the pathway to the south side of the house and raked/shoveled up some windblown excess littering the yard. It hardly looks any better out there but I sure feel better about it.

After having a good sweat outside I finally took a shower and finished the laundry (although by "finish" I merely mean at least started all the loads I had planned for that day...). Then, for impromptu cookies, I headed down to San Tan to clock in some snuggles with miss Jade and baby Izzy and Rory.

Don't mind me, just bein' a boss is all. Izzy is the perfect size to cradle that way so holding and feeding Jade was no problem. Plus both babes had just been napping so they were perfectly content and not fussy at all. So I was lucky they are so easy. It was nice to just hop in my car in the middle of the day and go hang out with some friends for a couple hours. Although I was greeted by this monstrosity on my way out of our neighborhood...

What a lovely little sinkhole. Yipes.

On my way home I picked up in-n-out animal style burger and fries and had them for the first time in my life and as amazingly delicious as it was I really need a good sugary soda to counterbalance all that salty goodness. So next time, diabetes fo' sho.

We ended the day watching Band of Brothers episodes and it was just an all-around fabulous day of rainy storminess, good friends, and fun times.

I love monsoon season.