Gotta Love Florida

I went out to get the mail today and as I turned towards the mailbox I glanced up the street and took a look at the sky.  Since my phone was in my hand, I snapped this photo.

The sky is looking pretty ominous and the thunder is coming through loud and clear.  I grabbed the mail and turned around, looking the opposite direction and saw this.

This is how storms in Florida sneak up on you.  You can be looking in one direction and believe everything is hunky dory.  Then you glance in your rear view mirror and think, Oh Heck!

Let The Thunderstorms Begin!

I'm typing this with 4 dogs all trying to cram themselves under my desk.  Summer has finally arrived in Florida.  When you live in Florida, you realize quickly what a true Summer rainstorm is.  You receive 3 to 5 inches of rain in a very short amount of time.  And with that brings a LOT of thunder and lightning.  And along with the thunder and lightning, comes 3 extremely anxious dogs.  Since Duchess is now deaf, they don't bother her, but between my other 3 and my Moms dog who I'm dog sitting for the next 3 weeks, they can't handle the stress!

Along with that stress, comes lack of sleep for Jeff and I if the storms come at night.  In looking at the forecast for the upcoming week, I may as well have had a baby for the lack of sleep I believe I will be encountering!

I was referred by our vet to try out the Thundershirt for our dogs.  That or Xanex.  I couldn't imagine putting my dogs on medication for storms that I don't always know will appear.  So, I will be trying the Thundershirt.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed.  You really need to check out their website, the videos are quite convincing.  I will keep you informed once they arrive and we have had a chance to try them out.

I'm not complaining about the rain.  We haven't had in any months and when the daily temperature has been topping out around 97 degrees, you really find yourself wishing for it.  Our lake dried up and all of our fish died.  I knew something was up when I went to leave the house and our pond, well it was actually just a puddle, had around 20 vultures surrounding it.  At least they ate all of the dead fish and I didn't have to deal with the smell.

Let the power outages begin and BRING ON THE RAIN!

Crazy Amounts of Rain

This past week has been trying in many ways. 

First, was Kyle's ear problem.  I am happy to say, today he was out of bed!  His ear is still very swollen, but is starting to open a bit and drain out some of the nasty stuff.  He goes back to the doctor on Wednesday, but even better than that, he goes back to school on Monday!

Second, has been the insane amount of rain we have had this past week.  Florida is known for it's summer showers.  Usually around 3:30 it starts to cloud up, and by the time everyone gets out of work, we are in the middle of a torrential downpour.  Not this week.  It has been raining all day, every day. 

Monday and Tuesday were especially bad.  Wednesday and Thursday it finally let up during the day, but would still rain at night.  Yesterday however, was CRAZY.

Around 6:00 p.m., the skies turned dark and the rain moved in.  At 7:30 it was over, after raining over 4 inches in that hour and a half.  Don't believe me?  Our friend Mike lives a few streets over.  He texted us this picture when he decided to go tubing. IN HIS DITCH!

Mike floating away

People who don't live in Florida don't understand that it doesn't just rain in Florida.  We get crazy amounts of rain!