tales from a far-land

Every summer, Phoenicians look forward to the monsoon season. Per the National Weather Service, monsoon season in Phoenix is June 15 through September 30, however, most of the time the storms do not start until late July or early August. This year was no exception. The monsoon rains in August were insane. Some of the craziest storms that we have ever experienced. One such storm occurred during the evening of August 13th at around ten o'clock at night. Here is the storm report from the National Weather Service for this particular evening: Storm Report for August 13-14, 2021  Impacts: Localized wind damage, widespread heavy rains, numerous instances of flash flooding and unfortunately loss of life.>Strong to severe thunderstorms moved through central and southwest Arizona during the late evening hours of August 13, 2021 and into the morning hours of August 14, 2021. An unusually humid airmass was in place, fueling the thunderstorms and allowing them to produce very heavy rainfall....

Besides all of the sports events, school activities and travel schedule, our fall was also full of other miscellaneous moments of fun and craziness. This fall seemed to be a particularly rainy one.   Now that the kids ride the bus, they had to walk to the bus stop with umbrellas one rainy morning.  I am also happy to state that our pool survived all of the rain and we didn't end up having a mud-pit again this year. Our backyard during one of the rain storms The kids walking in the rain Our kids also used this fall to build cardboard box forts in their playroom.  They really enjoyed creating doors and multi-room forts.  They spent many a fall weekends living and sleeping in these creations.  I love how creative and imaginative their minds can be when they are not glued to their electronic devices. Some of the kids' forts Lastly, this fall, Aiden *finally* lost his first tooth.  He was such a late bloomer.  Most of his fr...

We very rarely get rain in Arizona, but this past October, we received an unprecedented amount of rain.  In fact, Arizona set new rainfall records.  Hurricane Rosa and Sergio were the culprits.  They created quite a ruckus, especially for us.  Sadly, the rain caused a mudslide down the mountain which resulted in our pool becoming a mud-pit.  The damage was not too bad with the first storm and our pool system was able to clean out the debris.  However, the second storm was much worst.  It caused us to drain, acid wash and re-fill the pool in order to get it back to normal.  Josh also had to go out into the preserve to create a man-made ditch to steer any future rain water away from our pool.  It was quite the ordeal.  Our pool after hurricane #1 Our pool after hurricane #2 Sadie *loves* playing in the mud Harley, too!

This afternoon Phoenix was hit by very severe thunderstorms which resulted in tornado-like winds, rain resulting in flooding valley wide and golfball sized hail.  It was insane!  Never have I experienced this type of storm.  It is being called the "Frozen Monsoon".  I cannot believe just two days ago the temperature was 108 degress and now it is a brisk 68 degrees.  The storm shut down several Phoenix highways due to underpass flooding and traffic accidents.  On my way home, I encountered several down powerlines and uprooted trees.  The news reported several damaged homes, vehicles and businesses because of the golfball sized hail.  My parents home and our home also fell victim to this storm.  My parents lost a skylight and suffered some minimal damage to their home.  I came home to find our front kitchen window shattered and our sunshades shredded.  We also had some minimal imp...