Who doesn't love a good storm?

There have been a few cool storms since we moved here, but back on the 5th of October we had a HUGE storm. Well, it may be more accurate to say that we had multiple storms from one weather pattern actually. Partway through the first downpour the boys asked if they could go play in the rain. I figured 'Why not?' and we threw Linc's nap-time to the wind and got on raincoats. The rain was dying down by the time the boys got outside in our backyard, but here they are in all their umbrella-raincoat-rainboot-glory!


There is a little area next to our house that diverts rain from heavy storms like this, and then it dumps it onto the green-space right by us. So we started by heading over to play on that grassy area. Lincoln was a little tentative at first, which is happening more frequent lately and it amuses me.

Noah got right into the water though and showed Lincoln how it is done.

Linc and Noah kicking the water...

Ta-da!

Noah getting some pretty sweet air while puddle-jumpin'.

A quick clip of the boys in action:







As you can see, it didn't take long for Lincoln to lose all inhibitions. Here he is running full-throttle.

Putting on a pout about me stopping him from his fun for a posed picture...

...but he got over it quickly and was back to his normal, happy self.


Noah asked me what these recesses were that filled up with water. I explained that they are areas of the cement that used to have rocks in them. He thought about that for a minute and then asked who took away rocks. That launched us into a 20 minute game of "I bet it wasn't a...." followed by screeching laughter as the boys (Linc joined in) pictured all of the various silly scenarios. "I bet it wasn't a bug (that carried away the rock)!" "I bet it wasn't a meerkat!" "I bet it wasn't a scorpion!" etc, etc, etc. I had to snap a picture of one of those puddles to remember that part of our outing - it was my favorite part.

Another fun activity we did centered around finding this pine cone - still attached to this little branch. I picked it up and, in my best announcer voice, announced Ladies and Gentlemen...Noah Cole - and then handed him the "mic". He ate it up. We had all sorts of pretend play with the pine cone microphone after that.


As soon as Lincoln saw what fun we were having he scrambled to find a pine cone on the ground too. He didn't care that his pine cone microphone wasn't mounted on a stick...he just wanted to do what his big brother was doing. Here they are both yelling out "Introducing...."

Linc with his pine cone.


Honestly I don't even remember what I was trying to get him to tell me in this clip (although he answered something about not having to "sleep and cry"...I have no idea). I just love Lincoln's cute little voice while he talks...and if you turn up the volume really loud you can hear his rain-boots slosh/squish as he walks away. They were full of water. (Also note Noah running around tweeting like a bird in the background) I love these boys...


After we'd made our way back into the house and dried off...another downpour started, only this one was kicking out tons of hail! We just gawked at it (from inside the house). There were golf ball sized hail balls and it sounded like our home was under attack. Also, unfortunately, our garage door had just stopped working properly and so our car was parked outside - so it got all sorts of hail damage from the storm *sigh* I wish that I had gathered the presence of mind to at least take a video clip of the storm, but it was just so amazing to watch that I was transfixed. A while afterward, I thought to venture out and take a couple of snapshots of some of the hail in our yard. They'd melted down a little from the rain that fell afterward, but you can get the idea. There were other people in the Phoenix area that thought to grab their cameras though, click HERE to check out a clip that my brother Matt showed me. Amazing, but let's just say that I'm glad the boys and I weren't still outside playing in the rain when this stuff started to fall!

Noah holding some hail.