the lovely days of summer.....

since the weather around here has become a bit more temperate, it is starting to feel like a real summer.  

this has to have been one of the most unusual years for weather in our little corner of michigan.

winter was unusually snowy, probably the most snow i remember since i was a kid.

spring was unusually cold and wet and we were left feeling like it would never get warm....it was kind of like the dementors had invaded our city.  

summer came and we went from cold and wet to hot and humid.  i think the weatherman said that our area had seen more days in july over the 90 degree mark than below it...and my electric bill confirms that fact. totally not normal for southeast michigan.

last week, after not having had rain for about a month except for a little rain shower twice, we had 

a storm that dumped  6-7 inches of rain in one night, caused a power outage and flooded our basement.

fortunately, we don't have a finished basement.  we use it for storage and since we had had a flood when our house was 4 years old and the 4 year old sump pump broke, we got smart and put most of our stored things in plastic bins and up on shelving. 

we only had carpet in a small are of the basement where don has his exercise equipment.  

 there is still a bit of organizing to redo since we tried to get some of the stuff up off of the floor in a hurry.

 our poor neighbors weren't as lucky.  they had a finished basement and their back up battery powered sump pump (that they installed in the event of a power outage) failed as well.  there was just too much water.  too fast.

our neighbor curtis came over to the house on thursday morning and told us to check our basement for flooding because theirs had flooded.  when i went to their house a few minutes later, they and their kids were bailing water out of the basement egress window.  what a mess.  i was too overwhelmed to take any pictures of this debacle while it was happening, but lets just say it sucked!  

today, things are back to normal for the most part.  

austen is done with this:

(ooh, just look at that face, that determination)

(good form)

  and they got second place in last weekend's tournament.

it was a fun season, they lost more games than they won but the boys were great.  i was a great baseball mom and never missed a game and i will miss the other moms and dads.  

football starts soon though, so i will be just as busy with that, i'm sure!

for right now, i am going to happily live what is left of summer and enjoy the little things....