Peepholes, hailstones, and the great sucking vortex

We've enjoyed getting to know the other kids in the complex. We spent many hours this summer playing on the grass, or having kids in and out of our apartment. We haven't seen much of them lately, though, since school started back up, and the weather's been kind of yucky. Today they were out playing, and Kate tagged along. She's quite a bit younger, but they treat her well, and she likes being around them.



There are so many interesting things to do outside in the fall!



We were playing peekaboo through this knothole, which kept Kate amused for quite a while. We'd peek through at each other and say, "I see you!" and then she'd say, "Let's do other side!" so we'd switch sides and do it again. And again. And again.

I was just thinking it'd been a while since I got some really good pictures of Kate. Aren't these just too cute?

We went inside when it started raining. It was just a sprinkle at first, but a few minutes later the heavens opened and dumped buckets upon us. It was a regular torrential downpour. Then as Kate and I were standing at the back door watching the rain, I noticed that come of the raindrops were bouncing on the porch. I opened the door and picked up a few hailstones for Kate, and told her they were "little pieces of ice that fall from the sky." She was very impressed and went to show them to Daddy. And then they melted.

After the rain cleared up, I looked out and noticed that there was quite a lot of standing water in the parking lot. It looked like the drain was clogged with leaves. So I got my boots and our back-door stick, and waded out into the puddle to clear the drain. (I figured it would be fun, and Doug could take cool pictures.)



The puddle turned out to be a bit deeper than it looked.



"My socks are getting wet!"



After a few ineffectual swipes at the grate, I managed to clear some leaves away, and water began to spiral down with an impressively loud sucking sound.



Oleg, coming home from piano practice, expressed the opinion that it would have been much cooler to leave the water there.



The last of the water swirled away, with a sound like King Kong finishing off the world's largest slurpee.


While Daddy took pictures from the back door, somebody got out and got her socks wet and made little footyprints all over the porch.




We both had to change our socks.