One of the great things about living in Manteo is that we are near the water. Lots and lots of water, as in the whole Atlantic Ocean kind of water! And water—when it’s in the ocean—is a good thing.
However, water is not so good in other settings.
To illustrate, here is a picture of our downtown yesterday afternoon.
And some other places around town.
This is our church’s Youth Building. Steve and a couple of other folks spent several hours in there last night cleaning up some of the flooded parts.
Of course, in every cloud there’s a silver lining. Even though his neighborhood flooded, one of the young fellas from our church decided it would be a great time to get in some surfing practice!
Who needs an ocean when you have Tropical Storm Beryl passing through?
But just to keep today’s post ending on a sad and soggy note, I’ll close out with a few cheery pictures from Steve’s recent birthday which I somehow forgot to post earlier.
Here is my homemade chocolate cake that I make for a lot of family birthdays. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out as wonderfully as usual because I didn’t realize my baking powder was two years past expiration. I’m observant like that.
Oh well. It least it looked good.
The traditional Smith family birthday hat.
It was a fabulous celebration for a fabulous guy!
Have you shared the receipe for the cake or is it a “family secret”? Couldn’t find receipes like on the other blog site. Maybe I just don’t know where to look. We are getting some heavy rain today and I just got a message for WTVD — Durham — that we not only have severe weather warnings but are under a tornado watch until 9 PM tonight.
Hi Ann,
Actually I am planning on doing a Recipe and Rambling Tutorial on that chocolate cake in the next couple weeks. Very simple and delicious recipe!
I love how y’all have nametags on at home! Hey what’s your name again? I don’t think the past 30 years have engraved it in my brain! Hahahahaha! I’m just kidding! 😛
Lizz, well, you know the old joke about the memory being the second thing to go. (And I can’t remember the first!) 🙂
I remember the scenes of the flooding last year and it has happened again. Praying for all. Enjoyed the birthday pictures but was expecting chocolate icing because you said chocolate cake. Tell us more about the cake. Now Steve is speed limit on “country roads” but not interstate.
Ann, well the most interesting thing about the cake is that after you get all the ingredients mixed together, you add a cup of boiling water! Makes it very moist and fudgy.
Ha-ha!
And don’t worry now–we will have plenty of nametags available for you when you get here for your visit. You know, when you come to see your SISTER. DEBBIE. In WISCONSIN.
Debbie? Debbie. Hmmm. It does sound vaguely familiar.
I’m surprised the cars weren’t stalling out! Storms are exciting for sure!
sorry so soggy. 🙁
The pix of you holding the cake with you both wearing name tags is pretty funny. I guess getting older does have its challenges after all!
I
Oh my gosh, D Mantik! Priceless! Will keep me chuckling all day!
Alright Debbie and Guerrina, hold it just one moment before you take one more step toward making fun of a couple of old folks! In our defense, we had invited some new people to the party and although Steve and I DID know each others’ names (as well as our own) we wanted to make it easy for our guests to names!
That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it. (Well, I’ll stick to it as long as I can remember it.)
P.S. Guerrina, you do know that DMantik is my sister Debbie, don’t you? She used to travel with us in Heartsong.