Rushing Water.

I was thisclose to taking Addy shopping with me in Nashville today. If you live in Tennessee you know why I came pretty darn close to disaster.

I went with my friend Erin (Jason's sister) and his mom to look for shoes for the wedding. And last night was Addy's first night away from home--she stayed the night with Jason's parents. It was a lot harder than I thought it was gonna be, not hearing her snoring over the monitor from her nursery in the middle of the night. But our wedding is quickly approaching--three weeks!--and with it comes two Addy-less nights for me followed by an ENTIRE WEEK away from her while we're on our honeymoon. So we decided it would be best for her first night away to be spent on a night we weren't already anxiety-ridden and preoccupied.

Addy stayed true to form and slept through the whole night at her Janu's, as well.

Needless to say when my alarm went off at seven this morning I was up and out of bed in a flash. I threw my flip flops on with my pajamas and poked Jason until he finally relented and woke up. I was ready to have her home.

I was reluctant to leave her with Jason while we went shopping just because I'm sort of in love with the little girl. I missed her. But I left her at home.

And thank god I did.

If you don't live in Tennessee, just look at this. And this. This, too.

We finally left the mall after a lot of debate because of the weather at around four. And I just got home about a half hour ago. On I-24 headed home from Nashville, we were all laughing when we had to drive through the first flooded area. The second wasn't so funny. Luckily we got off the interstate ONE EXIT away from where someone died within that same hour, trapped in their car from the flood.

We then spent the next three hours navigating through Nashville, Antioch, Lebanon, Franklin, then back to Nashville, then finally we found a relatively clear back road back to Murfreesboro.

When I worked in broadcast news I saw lots of flooding like this in smaller towns in Tennessee. But never, ever, in my life have I seen something like that up close.

Whenever we thought we'd found a route home, suddenly we'd come to a host of cop cars and ambulances with emergency rescue boats blocking off surging walls of water. We'd turn around, try another back way, and eventually find ourselves confronted with the same thing. I was honestly about to throw in the towel and find a hotel.

Thankfully we made it home safe. Tragically, a few people did not.