This is so funny!

CNN - Stop the Press The Daily Show Comedy Central
Source: www.thedailyshow.com
CNN's Susan Roesgen makes a difference while covering the floods in Fargo, ND.

The Main Event

Mayor Walaker said this morning that it's just the preparation that is over. What we're in now is the main event. Hope we prepared well!

The Red River crested a couple feet below the expected height. Unfotunately, we're still going to be around 38 feet next weekend. We crested a little above 40 feet. Flood stage is 18 feet. And major flood stage is 30 feet and above.

It's been exhausting - physically and emotionally - to get to this point. While our home has been spared from the water, our lives haven't been. We know many people who have lost their homes and just this morning, Oak Grove Lutheran school lost at least a couple of buildings. Emily's school, Shanley, and Oak Grove often combine students for sports. Emily's been on the swim team and softball team with many of those students. It's heartbreaking.

One of her classmates lost her home - the same home her mother grew up in. Her father, brother, and brother's friend had to be evacuated via helicpoter from the roof of their house. Thank goodness that there have been no deaths.

Fargo Flood Update

We're holding our own here in the Fargo-Moorhead area. Some of the rural areas are experiencing much water and evacuations. The evacuations that have happened in both Fargo and Moorhead are more for safety - no water is in the homes yet. To follow along, here are some web sites to watch:

http://www.valleynewslive.tv/#tvg
http://www.inforum.com/
http://www.areavoices.com/springflood/

Rob and I live in an area that is not planned for evacuation at all - we're high enough that we don't need an evacuation plan. Please pray for all of those affected by the floods. We have a handful of friends and co-workers that live outside of town that have been evacuated and are concerned that their homes will flood.

So thankful

Good news #1 - After not feeling well on and off for at least a month, Sam was finally diagnosed with mycoplasma, along with strep throat. It's a bacteria that causes walking pneumonia. He never complains and only occassionally said he had a headache or a stomachache. I finally took him to the adult walk-in after being told a few times at the children's walk-in that he had a virus. Thank goodness for a pro-active doctor! 5 days on Zithromax and Sam's back to his usual self!

Good news #2 - Benjamin was discharged from speech therapy 3 sessions early! We originally thought he'd have 9 sessions and he ended up only having 4 because he was sick one time and we had a snow day another time. The speech therapist says a "language explosion" will happen at any time!

Good news #3 - We live in an AWESOME community and work for a great employer. A flood is expected to hit the Fargo-Moorhead area this coming week. Rob and I went over to Moorhead to make sandbags yesterday and were filled with happiness at all of the great neighbors we have. There was a 73-year old man hauling sand bags - not even for himself! And the Moorhead police officer who was spending his supper break filling sand bags - in full uniform with his revolver, too! Thank goodness that we don't need to sandbag our house, although we did spend a decent amount on a new sump pump as well as a new battery backup sump pump with a battery and all the fixings!

Today Emily and I went to help one of her classmates who lives south of town right on the river. They have a pretty cool setup with existing holes for flood wall posts, but still need quite a few sand bags. Then I went to help a co-worker even further south of Emily's classmate! Now I'm home helping Rob get our battery backup sump pump installed. Then we'll need to move all the stuff from the floor of the basement up, just in case!

Beginning on Monday, our company has offered us up to 16 hours of PTO to fight the flood! I'm so grateful! I know we'll be needed. Please pray for all of our neighbors that will be affected by this flood. God bless!

Emily fasted for 24 hours!!!

We didn't realize at the time, but she was supposed to solicit donations (sort of like a fast-a-thon). The donations are going to be split between 3 charities that provide food for the hungry.

She and about 10 other teenagers from her youth group made it the full time (ended up being almost 25 hours) without anything to eat and only water and Powerade to drink. During that time, they helped out around the church, volunteered at the St. Vincent DePaul thrift store, and eventually broke their fast on the body of Jesus Christ during 5 PM mass.

Afterwards, there was a spaghetti feed for the kids - you should have seen them shovel the food in! I'm so proud of her and all of the other teens. If anyone is willing and able to send a donation, please let me know. You can send me an e-mail (leswagner2@hotmail.com) with the amount as the donation card needs to be turned in on Wednesday, and I will send you the address to send the donation to. Checks are tax deductible, can be made out to St. Anthony's, and will then be distributed to the charties.

Thanks, bunches, for your help!

Benjamin's first hair cut

We finally got Benjamin his first hair cut. Because Aunt Kathy cut Sam's hair for the first time, we thought we'd have her cut Benjamin's hair for the first time, too! We just didn't realize it would take so long to get to Minneapolis to do it!

Before back:

Before front:

After:

He looks SOOO old! We think that he'll be moving to the PreTod (Pre-Toddler) room next week. (He's in the Older Infant room now.) We're supposed to get a week's notice, but haven't heard officially yet. We do know that 3 infants are moving up on Monday and that means that the 3 oldest in his room will also move up - that includes him!

Benjamin started speech therapy last week. He's scheduled to attend Mondays and Wednesdays through March, when he will be reevaluated. He only attended one day last week because he was diagnosed with strep throat on Tuesday. (The Rapid strep test came back negative, it was the 24-hour culture that turned positive!) I worked a whole 16 hours last week! :-)

So far he can say mama, daddy, pup (for puppy), mo (with the hand sign for "more"), and ba (with the hand sign for "ball"). I'm told that today he learned baa (for the sound a sheep makes), ccck (for cookie), and mmm (for the sound a cow makes). He can hear and comprehend fine, so we're not sure why he's not talking yet, but decided to start therapy now and work through it as early as we could.

We left on Friday for Minneapolis as the kids didn't have school on Friday due to parent-teacher conferences. Emily had a dance workshop all weekend long, so we dropped her off at the hotel in downtown Minneapolis and went to Kathy & Jerry's house. Sam and Benjamin got to play with 6 of their cousins and had a blast!