Hurricane Irene: Part 2-During Storm

According to the weather reports that we had been getting all week, Irene was suppose to hit our area the hardest Saturday night and in to Sunday morning.  So on Friday I was surprised when a huge thunderstorm hit our area. Before that, we were going to take the kids swimming in our pool at our complex, but they had closed it to prepare for the storm.  Deagan was pretty annoyed at that, and said in a very annoyed voice, "When is the hurricane going to be over!?" He had his mind on swimming, and he was not happy that this hurricane was ruining his plans! When it started to pour, I decided to take the kids out and to run in the rain to make up for that minor inconvenience, and it seemed to do the trick. :)

This storm was an unrelated storm to Irene, but it came at a pretty bad time. Because of it the ground was going to be super saturated when Irene finally did come, which meant that the chances for severe flooding were very high.  I started getting nervous about flooding in our place at that point since we live on the ground level, and as it was raining, we noticed a few areas around our place really pool up in that short time.  We had some neighbors out at that same time, who also lived on ground level, and they told us that they had never gotten any flooding in their place and they did not expect to get any this time.  That definitely helped to put my mind at ease a bit, but no one really knew just how hard Irene would hit.  

Saturday morning (the day the storm was suppose to hit) I woke up on went to town on cleaning the house.  There was talk of having the power out for over 3 days, so I wanted to make sure that I had it as clean as could be if that were really to happen.  I also caught up on all the laundry.  

It was late afternoon before I had finished everything that I wanted to get done, and from that point on we just stayed inside and hung out. It started to rain pretty heavily around 11 or so, which meant that a band of Irene had made landfall in our area.  There was some wind, but nothing too high or damaging at that point.  It rained pretty steadily all day, and continued to get worse as the day went on.

We were all feeling pretty stir crazy from being inside all day towards the end of the day.  We tried to pass the time by playing games, watching movies, and eating.  We also watched the news pretty much all day to see what the storm was doing at that moment, and it was really interesting to see what other areas were experiencing.  I have to say though that this storm was really hyped up.  Almost too much even.

We put the kids to bed early, and then stayed up to catch some more of the storm. We also took pictures of some of our hurricane damage that we had gotten up to that point:

Our door mat blew away!! Pretty severe right ;) 

Around 11, we were both exhausted and decided to call it a night.  I expected to be up a lot in the middle of the night because of the storm and the high winds.  

When we went to bed, the storm definitely had increased in intensity, so I was nervous what we were going to see when we looked outside the next morning.  What was Irene going to do to us!? Would we wake up with water in our house!? Would we wake up with no power?!

We just prayed that we would be watched over.  

Hurricane Irene Part 1: Pre-Storm

You would have had to live under a rock to not know that Hurricane Irene swept up the East coast this weekend.  It was probably the only thing on the news this weekend.  It was really hyped up, and at least in our area it did end up being as bad as they expected.  And to be honest, it was a bit of a let down.  I mean, I am totally happy and relieved that no one that I know and love got hurt, but for all the hype this storm got, I was expecting more.

I am going to break down the storm in a few posts. This one is pre-storm; the days leading up to the event.

I heard about Irene possibly making landfall on Wednesday I believe.  The day before we experienced our first earthquake in the DC area, so when I heard that this ginormous storm was coming our way I was nervous! Two major natural disasters in one week is pretty rare!

We started making preparations a few days in advanced because we knew that if we waited until the last minute, we would not be able to get the things that we wanted.  We had a significant amount of food storage already saved up, but we got a few more gallons of water just in case and replaced batteries in flashlights, gassed up both cars, took out some cash, etc.  It felt good to be prepared!

Thursday night was probably the day that I was most nervous about the storm. It was at that point thought to be coming in at a category 3 storm, and was predicted to create a lot of damage in our area.  So I was already stressed about that possibility, and then that night our sky turned a really weird orange color.  For some reason it made me even more nervous!

We debated going to central New York, where we moved from, to stay with some friends to avoid this monster storm, so we made it a matter of prayer. 

We watched the news the next day, and at that point, the intensity had gone down.  As we prayed and watched the news, we felt that we would be safe by staying, so that's what we did! We were going to wait out the storm...

Office Party

Greg has a pretty sweet set up at work.  Since he started 3 months ago they have had 3 office BBQ's.  I love it! It is fun to see where he works and who he works with, but it is more fun to just get out of the house from time to time and to have a change of pace.

This past Friday they had another BBQ and there were a ton of awesome thing for kids.  I decided to be play along with the kids, and we had so much fun!

I am quite pleased with my form here :)

Talking about the AWESOME slide!

I went down this slide with Deagan  a few times because he was too scared to do it on his own.  The first time we went down, I underestimated how quickly I would fly down the slide and ended up almost taking Deagan out in the process.  I tried to stop myself with my arm but ended up getting a "rug" burn instead.  Ouch!

If you know Deagan, you know that he LOVES Cars, so he LOVED this slide. 

They also had a water slide, and surprisingly Deagan wanted to go; by himself! It was a hot and humid day that day, so it seemed like the perfect way to cool down.  He loved it, and it made me so proud to see him conquer a fear!

I really like Greg's job! And speaking of which, he has been working as an intern over the summer, but as of tomorrow he is officially starting his "real" job.  We feel very blessed that we are where we are right now because out of a bunch of interns at his office, he was one of a few who got a job offer.  We know that we are here for a reason!

Comparison Shots

My mom pointed out to me just how similar the boys look in these two pictures:

They both walk with an attitude! :)

Philadelphia Weekend

This past weekend, we went to Philadelphia for a blogging conference.  It was a bit of a let down weekend, but since it was a change of pace from our day to day routine it was nice to get out of town. 

Here are a few pictures of our weekend!!

No buttons to push on this AC/heat thing!

China town in downtown Philly

The sights of Historic Philly

Liberty Bell

Tired feet

Running in Sprinklers

I have had some camera the past few weeks, so now that things are finally back to normal I am back to my normal picture taking self! And boy have I missed taking pictures of these little ones! They are just so darn cute!

We went to the park this morning with a friend, and some sprinklers were on near by.  Deagan asked if he could run in them, and that sounded like the perfect kid thing to do so I let them run their little heart out.  I am all for my kids living an active life and getting exercise in, so this really was a win-win all around :)

Not quite sure about the whole thing yet 

Deagan being a great big brother and encouraging him on!

And they're off!

Something about seeing little ones play makes me happy.  It is as for that one moment all is right in the world:)

Running away from the water

At it again!

Perfect action shot don't you think??

Kayden's running shot

I think this was a success! :)

Summer in on its way out it feels.  It has cooled down considerably, which is lovely, but it means that these summer months are almost gone.  This has been a hard summer in some ways because of adjusting to the move, but it has also been a really great summer I think. I will be sad to see it go. For now, we are going to enjoy it though!

Videos of My Cuties!

This is mostly for my family out West to see the boys, so bear with me :) These boys sure are changing fast!