Our Summer ~ Part 8

On Saturday, August 3rd the Sedgwick County Zoo held a back to school event and offered $1 admission to the zoo for the day. Since Miles loves going to zoo, this was an event I could not pass up! We invited Grandma to go along with us and she gladly accepted the offer. With our total admission only being $3, we felt as though we could just visit the exhibits that we wanted to see most and not worry about trying to see everything at the zoo. Miles only lasts a couple of hours anyway at things like that before he starts to get tired and cranky. We let him decide what he wanted to see and went from there. It was a great morning at the zoo!

First up - giraffes

Up close & personal with the giraffes

Stopped the see the zebras on the way to the tigers

Miles thinks this is so cool!

A bear perched on the rocks

Our Summer ~ Part 7

The end of July/beginning of August brought lots of rain to our part of Kansas. Dave was getting ready to move to Grand Junction to start New Teacher Orientation on August 1st and I was worried about the rising river in Halstead. In fact, the day Dave left for Grand Junction the City of Halstead started talking about how deep the river needed to be in order to close the flood gates.

On July 31st, Miles and I decided to go check out the river and both were amazed by how far it had come out of its banks. You could still get out of Halstead (they hadn't closed any gates yet), but one of the main roads out of town to the north had water over it and would soon close a few days later. They also even closed one of the flood gates on the NW side of town before all was said and done.

I've been through a flood in Halstead before (back in 1993) and did NOT want to see that happen again. Thankfully the dike and flood gate project was complete this go around where it wasn't back in 1993.

The swinging bridge over the river almost completely under water

Main Street bridge

Always happy to get his picture taken!

Riverside Park was closed and completely submerged

The measuring stick - normally it's not even anywhere near the water

I'm not 100% positive on the details, but I think the river had to reach 21' before they would close the gate on Main Street and 19' before they closed the gate on the NW side of town. It never got to a level where they closed Main Street's gate, but it got real close!

These next pictures were taken on August 8th so as you can see it just kept raining and raining. It was a nerve racking time for me without Dave around to reassure me we would be okay, but I tired to have faith in the dike and the flood gates that all would stay dry in our house.

The end of our driveway - I literally could not get out for several hours

Stalled cars in front of our house

Our little pond in the backyard

Our Summer ~ Part 6

We traded this...

for this...

and I LOVE it because of this!

While in the Kansas City area for the NKOTB concert, we decided it was time to take the leap and purchase a new car. Our Tuscon had high mileage and it started to struggle here and there. I feared being stranded along side the road somewhere with child in tow but no hubby around to help. The thought of that made me really nervous so we decided the peace of mind a new car would bring was finally worth the car payment that we hadn't had in a few years. It was REALLY hard to think about having a car payment again because we REALLY enjoyed not having one for so long!

We had been test driving different vehicles off and on all summer (Dave wanted a minivan & I wanted a car that got great gas mileage) and found a really great deal on a brand new Hyundai Elantra at a Hyundai dealer in the KC area. We drove it home that weekend and have loved it ever since! I do miss my SUV and the space it provided, but I love only spending $30-35 at the gas station each time I stop for gas. So nice!

Holly won!