The Sky is Falling! The Sky is Falling!

Last week in Southern California this was not just hype. Well, not all just hype. Everyone got very excited about the storms and the amount of rainfall we had here, day after day. Granted, any one of these days on its own would have been quite impressive, but we had five days in a row of heavy thunderstorms, some complete with thunder and lightening, and at least one Tornado Warning. I don't have a rainfall total number, but take into consideration that last year between the months of probably March and November there wasn't even really one day of rain, this was a Big Deal.

For the most part our family loved it. Of course we didn't have to deal with flooding or mudslides or overturned boats in the harbor like many others did, but it did mean that every single sports practice, as well as church Activity Days, was cancelled. Schools were cancelled in some places and people were urged to stay home and off the streets. I'm sure that makes those of you in Utah, the mid-West and the East just roll your eyes, but we really enjoyed our taste of winter. We just stayed home and hunkered down, made a fire in the fireplace every evening and roasted marshmallows.

Here are some photos of one of the heavier storms one afternoon. There was thunder and lightening and it sounded like the rain couldn't fall fast enough or hard enough.

our courtyard quickly becomes a lake fed by the roof waterfall

rapids in the gutter

view from our garage

saturated front lawn and gutter river

These next photos were taken and sent to me by a friend of mine who lives in "The Woods" which is the neighborhood just down the street from us behind La Madera Elementary School. It is the "forest" in Lake Forest, and has a pleasant little stream that runs along a gully with walking trails that criss-cross the stream through a grove of Eucalyptus trees. The stream became a raging river which flooded the trails and swept across the bridges.

On one of the last evenings of the storms, around 10 p.m. there was a strong storm that consisted of thunder and lightening and eventually hail! Only the second time I've seen hail in Southern California. Sue blogged about the storm that evening here.

We roasted hot dogs one night, but those didn't turn out great, I ended up microwaving them in the end. We did do marshmallows and s'mores some nights, and they were yummy. Jack and some of his friends also had the bright idea to roast starburst, which makes them warm and chewy, but also left a bit of a drippy mess on the hearth.

We'll miss this when its warm again!