556 + 452 Weeks

What a crazy rainy week it has been!  I haven't ever seen rain like this.  It has been insane.  Many thousands of people have lost their homes and belongings,  and so far, nine people have died.  The silly thing is, Mum and Geoff had planned a trip up here.  They left on Friday in torrential rain and stayed the night in Sydney.  Then they drove through more torrential rain for most of Saturday and stayed the night in Ballina.  On Sunday morning they drove through rain and made it to Brisbane, an hour and a half away, before they discovered the highway up to the Sunshine Coast was closed due to flooding.  They tried every back road they could, with most of them closed as well.  They were persistent!  They found a route up and braved it, but hit a pothole and got a flat tire.  A local guy stopped to help them (the guy actually went home and got his swimmers on, and some tools and drove back in torrential downpour to put their donut tire on for them!).  They made it to a local McDonalds where there were a ton of people stranded.  They joined a convoy of cars that were heading north on back roads.  They got lost from the convoy and had to turn around.  But they finally made it, eight hours later!  Sheer craziness, but we are very thankful!  We didn't  tell the kids so they would get a big surprise again.  We put Lolo and Dida in Jeff's guitar room, and then I told the kids I had made a treasure hunt for them.  Lolo and Dida were the treasure :)

So, we have been spending a lot of time with the kids' Lolo and Dida.  It has been really nice to have them up here.  Luckily we have had a few days of sunshine, which was great.  Arley's psychologist suggested that he would really benefit from having a trampoline again, so we bought a second hand one that is practically brand new.  We spent an afternoon with Lolo and Dida putting the giant tramp together.  Yesterday we met them in Mooloolaba for lunch.  This was a little disastrous, trying to find somewhere we could all eat.  We settled on giving the kids ice cream for lunch (!) and then Mum and Geoff took the kids back to our place, while Jeffrey and I stayed out.  We did a house swap so that Jeff and I could have a night off.  We had the afternoon lazing around, dinner on the beach, and a sleep-in this morning.  It was our first break in seven months!  So necessary!

Due to all the rains and flooding, Mum and Geoff were able to extend their stay here, as no-one is foolish enough to drive in this weather!  They'll be leaving on Wednesday of next week.  It has been raining badly again today, and it looks like we'll have rain on and off for the next week.  The supermarkets are all out of food because the highways were closed, but luckily I'm a chronic over-shopper, so we are doing fine!

We cancelled some of the kids' activities this week because of Lolo and Dida.  Arley still saw Rob on Tuesday.  He was very nervous to go and I had to stay for a little while to get him settled in, but he was fine and happy when I returned.  He'd had a good play with Rob and the other little boy.  Carmie and Arley both had their psychology sessions.  And this afternoon I had an appointment with the kids' paediatrician and we are finally getting help for Carmie's insomnia!  He's putting her on a new sleep med for a month or so to try to get her sleeping back to normal, and then we will revisit for a long-term plan.  I'm just so thankful we are getting help!

Wish us luck staying dry this week!