Beautiful Storm

When August started, I began to feel sad. Really sad. With each passing day of August, I felt more sad.

I would miss our carefree days of summer without the stress of getting everyone to bed on time and waking up early every day and have our lives ruled by a relentless schedule. I would miss weekdays when going to yoga and taking the kids for a leisurely swim at the outdoor pool were a reality.

The start of a new school year also meant my kids were older -- advanced to the next grade. Only three more school years before I have a graduating senior . . . It was weighing on me.

One thing I looked forward to was an end to the string of sweltering days where the high temperatures remained in the near 100-degree range for at least two weeks. I want to say four weeks, but it was probably more like three. It felt like a long time. I must really be an old lady because hot weather has really started to get to me.

After about one week of sad, I gave it up because it was pointless. Summer would end. Being sad wouldn't change it. Even though I didn't want to bid summer break farewell and send the kids back to school I was excited for a few things and one of those things was the change of weather to fall. So, I started reveling in the little things.

Late in August the rain came to cool the heatwave down. Isaac and Katie and all the little boys that live on our street ran outside to play in the river that formed in the gutter. Brian got pictures of them using their bodies to make a human dam when he came home from work. Summer storms are warm and beautiful. The sky, like the leaves, has such spectacular hues in fall. So many nights we have stayed up late watching lightning flash across the sky.

Yesterday, the mother of rainstorms came. All afternoon the sky was hauntingly beautiful, bursting with low hanging gray clouds. At 4pm crazy strong wind gusts stirred around us, followed instantly by a fantastic downpour of rain that soon turned to enormous hailstones the size of marbles. It all came so quickly and the weatherman said we got 1-2 inches of rain in moments.

When it was over, I found out that three tornadoes swept the state, two of them just a few miles from me. Granted -- in the world of tornadoes, they were tiny, but they still lifted roofs off of houses and flattened backyard sheds and made a mess with big trees. Brian was in Riverdale when the storm hit and he photographed people running to their cars in a parking lot that had instantly filled knee deep with water.

The violent part of the storm passed and then it rained all night and all day today. I drove to Salt Lake and back in the grey non-stop rain to take Katie on a field trip to the Gateway Children's Museum. I had the most wonderful time getting to spend the day with my youngest child watching her use her imagination.

It has finally stopped raining but the sky is still grey. I found out all of the soccer games are cancelled tomorrow. So, there is that. It's funny -- I sign the boys up for soccer because I want them to get to play. But, it somehow feels like a gift when the games are (once in a great while) rained out because -- yay, a free Saturday!

Bear Lake, summer storms and field trips. Back to school hasn't been bad!