Irene

I took this picture Friday night, before the storm, as we were all wondering what the next two days would bring.

The rain and wind began sometime in the early morning hours on Saturday.

We decided to take advantage of the fact that we still had power when we woke and the kids made us a pancake breakfast.

We filled the bathtub with water, just in case.

I decided to sew up as many of the the treat bags for Max and Regan's birthday party as I could. The power flickered a few times before lunch, but stayed on throughout the day, so I actually go them all done.

In the afternoon the winds really picked up. It is hard to capture in a still shot, but this is out our back windows. By bed time the worst of the storm had passed. It was still very windy, and the power did threaten to go out one more time around 9:30pm, but was back within a minute.

And this is how things looked at our house this morning...

A small pile of the shingles blown off our house and shed.

Broken siding from the front of the house.

The pile of limbs from our yard.
The kids were disappointed that we did not lose power, but we are glad to be safe and dry with minimal damage. Thank you all so much for your kind comments and prayers!

getting ready for the storm

With reports of Hurricane Irene heading straight for our area we have spent the last few days preparing to ride out the storm and the potential aftermath.
I am glad that I headed out earlier in the week to start gathering supplies, as they are scarce now.

I have filled every container I could find in the house with water and put them in the deep freeze in hopes that we can keep our food cold in the event that we have prolonged power outages.

I have been baking up a storm- cookies, bread, muffins...

We've somehow managed to get all of the bikes, toys, chairs etc. from our back yard into our shed and the kids have been helping get the house clean and the laundry washed before the storm begins.

I feel as ready I we can be and now we just wait and pray. I am always up for an adventure and am actually a little bit excited, which I hope helps to keep the kids from becoming afraid. I think tomorrow night we will be having a big slumber party in the hallway, all 7 of us!

Don't know when I will be back here, but I will try and remember to take pictures throughout the weekend. Praying you are all safe this weekend!