Thank you so much for all the phone calls and emails and text messages this past week to check on us. If you have watched the news in the past 8 or 9 days, you might see a little story here and there about some flooding going on in our neck of the woods.
While we received approximately 16 inches of rain between Saturday and Sunday at our house, we were very fortunate to not have experienced nearly the loss that many of our Franklin, Antioch and metro Nashville neighbors have!
But no worries, Opp Knockers - we have good flood stories...
Saturday during a break in the rain, I decided to make a quick trip to Target to pick up a few things for the weekend. At this point it had been raining nonstop since 8:00 a.m. with several tornado warnings already in affect. On my way to Target, I had one detour from a flooded road (one that commonly floods so I didn't think much about it).
However, my way back home was a different story: it had started to monsoon rain again and I tried every possible way to get back home with no luck. I saw a pretty scary sight as a mustang drove through a very flooded road, the water passing over the top of the front windshield. I watched in disbelief as a second car followed and found itself stuck in the middle of a very rapidly flowing river of water. The car started frantically honking its horn and two men ran out to rescue the car from the water. I thought I was about to see something a lot worse - just thankful that they made it out, even though I really wanted to go yell at the drivers and tell them how stupid they were.

Yep, we're old: The guys set up chairs in our garage to "Watch" the rain...REALLY?
Thankfully on Sunday the rain subsided long enough for the girls to go on a little wagon ride - with so much water, we proved it could also serve as a life preserver.


So at this point, I'm stuck. Merl the Squirrel could not make it through the water and I was a little shaken up. I was ready to be home safe and sound (and no, Gabbie was not with me - thankfully I had left her at home). Long story short - Brent tried to come get me and he was stuck. All the roads were flooded and he couldn't reach me. Thankfully we had a friend come with his truck and was able to make it through the flood waters.
Upon arriving at home, the Moncriefs had arrived at our house - why, you may ask? Because we had tickets to the Jimmy Buffet concert for Saturday night. Now let me throw in a little minor detail here: while most Americans have probably seen Buffet in concert, the Whitakers and Moncriefs have not. For the Whitakers (especially Brent) this was one of those bucket list life events. When the tickets went on sale, he woke up early that morning and was waiting online for Ticketmaster to open sales. We had been planning this for literally months. Months.

So the plan was to have Brad and Casey watch the girls for us, however all of our roads were flooded. Brent and Jimmy set out to get the Sapps from their house, after 20 minutes they came back to inform us they could not reach the Sapps. And the Sapps could not get to us. Uh Oh. Now what?
We had been watching the nonstop news coverage of the flooding - including the fact that several interstates had been closed due to the flooding. That's right: INTERSTATE. It's one thing to have a lot of water on the road, it's another when they are flooded to the point that there is traffic at a stand still on the interstate because there is so much water that it is impassable.
So we had a few choices:
1. Not go to the concert (not really an option honestly)
2. One adult stay with the girls, the other three go enjoy themselves.
3. Ask a neighbor to watch the girls - the problem with this solution was that we weren't 100% sure that we would be able to get back home and that just didn't seem responsible to do that.
4. Take the girls with us and make the best of it.


What was our choice???
Drum Roll...


They went with us. That's right - we took a 2 year old and a 8 month old to a Jimmy Buffet Concert. Yep. We introduced the girls to the king of vacation music at a very young age. I think it's safe to say we will always remember their first concert (even if they don't).
I don't have any pictures because well in the haste of packing to take a 8 month old inside the concert, I somehow forgot my camera. Wow - imagine that? I do have these two cute pics that I took with the camera on my phone and two others I snapped on the way to the concert.


It was definitely an experience to remember and great way to remember the great flood of 2010 in Nashville. We're definitely thankful that our memories didn't include our house being flooded, or having to be evacuated - we're not complaining, but we do get a "do over" when it comes to a Buffet concert.


And yes, our girls did fantastic at the concert! Gabbie slept a little and Ada was mesmerized by the lights and music. We had a LOT of looks of astonishment and one person told Brent, "Bad Parent" for having Gabbie there, but we did have earplugs and toboggans covering the girls ears.
Definitely a memory making weekend in more ways that one!
We made a little video on our way to the concert....