We knew that we would be affected by Hurricane Irene in some way, but we didn't expect to lose power for 57 hours. By the time the storm hit us on Sunday morning, it was downgraded to a tropical storm, but we got some rain and a lot of wind. We lost power by 10 AM on Sunday and didn't get it back until 7 PM tonight (Tuesday). We spent lots of time doing puzzles and playing outside with our neighbors. Once the storm passed, the weather was beautiful, so it was nice to sleep with our windows open.
We lost a big oak tree in our yard, but it was nowhere near our house, thankfully!
Mike, Uncle Jeff and Elijah assessed the situation. Jeff and Tracy were in town to drop our nephew, Trevor, off at Brown University. Trevor waited out the storm in his dorm room with some food rations from the cafeteria, but he never lost power.
Elijah was ready to help with the clean up with his goggles and handsaw.
Safety first!
The top half of this huge pine tree in our neighbor's yard came down and blocked the entire street. Three of our neighbors chopped it up during the storm in order to clear the road.
Our friends/neighbors around the corner were not so lucky. Two huge oak trees literally uprooted and landed in their backyard.
The trees smashed through the middle of their swingset, landed on their deck stairs, damaged their gutter and siding and broke a window. The force of the tree also turned on the faucet in their backyard so their hose was running for several hours.
They were out of town during the storm, and this is what was left of their swingset when they got home.
It's hard to see, but this is a side view of the root ball of the two trees.
Isabella surveyed the scene.
There were many limbs and trees down all over town which caused widespread power outages.
We had an ice cream party in our neighbor's garage on Sunday night since we didn't want all of our melting ice cream to go to waste! That would have been a shame!
Of course, we had to keep some of the beverages from getting warm, too!
Our neighbor broke out some glow necklaces/bracelets and sparklers!
We ended the night with a walk through our pitch black neighborhood with flashlights and lanterns.
Since we ran out of warm water by Sunday afternoon, Mike let the kids squirt him with the hose so he could take an outdoor shower yesterday. He's nuts!
Luckily, some of our MOMS Club friends had power the whole time, so I was able to salvage all of the chicken, beef, meatballs, chicken nuggets and pierogies from our freezer and take them to a friend's house. We ate as much of our refrigerated food as we could and even had eggs, quesadillas, frozen pizza and pierogies on the grill (in addition to burgers and chicken). A good thing about losing most of the contents of our fridge was that I was able to clean it really well before I restock it (and retrieve our frozen items).
Mike's company lost power for several days, too, so he was home to ride out the power outage with us. We survived Hurricane (or Tropical Storm) Irene, had some fun with our neighbors, got some use out of our chainsaw (in our yard and our neighbor's), reconfirmed that we have great MOMS Club friends who can help us out in a pinch, and did lots of puzzles (over and over)! The girls also invented a new game where they race around the house on rolling chairs. Who needs electricity?!?
Now it's Sienna's turn!
The three amigos.
School girls
Ready with their over-loaded backpacks!
Isabella, the third grader!
Sienna, the first grader!
Unfortunately, it was a little rainy this morning.
Hope and Isabella wait for the bus.
Sienna, Luke, John & Isabella
Almost the whole gang. We manage to fill up the bus with the kids from our neighborhood.
John, Sarah, Hope & Isabella
Third graders (9 out of 11 in our neighborhood)
First graders (6 out of 9 from our neighborhood)
And they're off!
A happy first grader coming off the bus. When I asked Sienna how she liked first grade, she said, "I love it!!" She has a sweet first grade teacher who is so warm and soft spoken but has been at the school for a long time and has a lot of tricks up her sleeve. I know that Sienna will have a great year!
Isabella has had a great start to the year, too! After open house last night, she said, "I think Miss A---- is going to be my favorite teacher!" I'm so happy that she loves her teacher and seems to have a nice class. She's looking forward to doing projects throughout the year and participating in the Science Fair in March. Their desks are separated into four clusters and each one represents a "house" from Hogwarts in the Harry Potter books. Isabella is starting out as a Slytherin!
