Never hurt anybody. Ok, so that's totally a lie. But at least in this instance no one was hurt. As Gustav continued to pour rain down on our helpless city, my mother made a spaghetti supper for her kids and their families. After stuffing ourselves, we headed back to Zach & Anna's house planning to cozy up on the couch and watch a movie together. We were slightly waylaid in our plans when Zach ran down to their basement to see if all was well. Well, all was not well. Over 48 hours of slow and steady rain had sifted down through the saturated soil and made its way into their basement. Which was packed with furniture and unpacked boxes from their recent move. Zach bounded up the stairs with a forced calm in his voice and a definite look of panic in his eyes as he broke the news to Anna. Their laundry room had about 2 inches of standing water, the carpet in the bedroom and basement living room was soaked through. And there were tons of pieces of furniture in their garage that were also standing in water. It called for immediate action. And as the four of us (me, Kyle, Anna and Zach) looked at each other, we knew it would require fast action and more people.

We pulled out our phones and began calling in the troops. And it is times like this that make you realize large families are WONDERFUL THINGS! As my mom headed over, she was followed shortly by Chad and Melissa, Josh and Lauren and several of our good friends, including Kyle and Toby. Despite the pouring rain, we all pulled on our rainboots and began hauling boxes upstairs to safety. Melissa and Lauren handled shop-vacs sucking bucket after bucket of water out of the rooms. Once the rooms were cleared, we ripped up the carpet and carpet pads, hauled them out back and started moving furniture up and out. Zach and Josh dug a trench around the front of the house to divert the water flow, and I kept the troops full of cookies and glasses of water while alternately feeding August and making sure Brooklyn was out of the way, planted in front of a Veggie Tales video. And after an hour and a half of hard work, the basement was cleared, the water was removed and the tired and weary friends and family went their separate ways.

I then spent the next hour killing mosquitoes that had flown in with all the open doors. I apparently should have been doing this sooner, as Brooklyn's little legs are literally COVERED with bites. She even has them on her face, poor thing.

It was truly a bonding experience. And so amazing to see the brothers and their wives and our selfless wonderful friends drop everything and come to the assistance of someone in need. I praise the Lord that we were staying with Zach and Anna at the time and able to help out! God is good, even when circumstances seem to be out to get you.