What a week! (warning - long post!)

This past week was a terrible week for many people. The tragic loss of life in Boston, another earthquake in China, in our area there was a missing 51 year old woman who was later found to have drowned. The news has been depressing to say the least and it reminds me that I can be thankful that this world is not my permanent home, and God is in control!
So here's whats happening in my little corner:
1) Thanks for the prayers for my Dad.  His surgery went well, but they found 4 more spots on his heart that needed to be ablazed.  The Dr feels that more are likely to come since these all showed up since January.  They are now planning to implant a defibrillator, possibly in about a month.  He's back home and doing well right now.
2) Every year our Nursing Home gets a week long visit from the state inspectors.  This past week, they showed up.  It's always a dreaded time for us.  We know it's something that needs to be done, but these inspectors are not known for being friendly and will give us a write up for the most picky sort of thing.  They ask lots of questions and watch what you do with a clipboard in hand.   But - we survived!  They are gone and we did well.
3)  Last week I told you about the rain we had and that more was predicted.  Well, it came.  The result is lots of flooding.  The Grand River is breaking all known records for flooding.  It's supposed to crest today (Sunday) in Grand Rapids, so we're hoping things will soon improve.  Further down the river where I live it's supposed to crest on Monday night. I know lots of people who've never had a problem with it, who now have water in their basement.  There are lots of roads closed along with plenty of businesses that have had to close either because they are flooded themselves or no one can get to them.  The big hotels in Grand Rapids were evacuated and another of the businesses that had to evacuate was a nursing home.  I got called in to work to help with 5 admissions that came in at 10 pm.  That's a tough day for those older folk!
Here are a few pictures of the Grand Rapids area to show you what it looks like.  I took some of these and others are from our local paper.

Don't drive into water!

The on ramp to the highway is impassable.

 This is from one of the local news stations.  The top picture is from December, the bottom one was taken on Friday.  Look at the height of the water by the blue bridge!

Downtown Grand Rapids.  Do you see the stairs going into the water?  There's usually a walkway that goes along the river that the stairs go to.  This was taken on Friday.  I saw pictures taken on Sunday that showed the water is now just below those hanging lights and covering the little patio area.  You can also see how high the water is on the bridge on the right.

 Another picture shared by the news.  Someone took this out of a office window, which is still holding the water out.  The building you see across the water is the Public Museum.

This is probably the office that picture was taken from.  Take note of the lights that aren't too far above the water.

So much water!

This train track is usually a long way above the water.

Looks like these trucks are ruined

Streets in a nearby town

It's going to be a little hard to get to the playset!

Last but not least - this is what happens when you go out to take pictures of flooding and back into a tree.  :(

I'll show you my pictures of our area tomorrow.