We survived!

Whew! We started getting rain around 8 on Friday morning. The winds didn't pick up until the afternoon and the strongest ones started at 2 am. The rain didn't end until 8 last night. We never lost power, thank goodness, but did lose cable, internet and our home phone. Those were restored by last night. We lost one small pine tree and had some branches/yard debris. I'm glad we were prepared though because you just never know with storms like these. We all were very fortunate that she weakened before she hit the coast. My parents had two transformers near them that actually blew up and exploded; they had to call the fire department during the storm to get the fire out. Around town there are some trees down, a car dealership lost their roof, and some billboards were damaged but other than that all is ok. We ended up with 8 inches of rain and we really needed it. I think that's why the flooding wasn't as bad because the ground around here has been so dry.

We had to go yesterday, once the winds died down some, and check on the beach house. They only let you back on the beach if you have a "sticker" issued by the beach to get back on (only for residents). We had to wait in line and they told us to go straight to the house because the island was still closed. The back and side gutters were ripped off the house and a few shingles were missing but there was no water damage! The tide was unbelievably low; I've never seen it like this before. The wind was raging still down there; almost to the point that it would take your breath away (don't worry Garrett wasn't with us). I had to walk over to the beach side and see what it looked like over there. Everything is very flat. Dunes are still up but the "hills" from the pumped in sand are no more. There were huge, whole conch shells all over the beach (that's rare to find here) and tons of shells. I even managed to find 3 starfish-one was purple and the other 2 were purple and tan. Really cool; I've only found brown ones around here before.

I will say my one huge disappointment with this whole storm was the media coverage. It stunk! Granted I know it's rare for the NE to get storms like this but on Friday when we're in the brunt of it, there's nothing to be found. Everyone was talking about evacuations in NY and the Jersey Shore. I really feel sorry for our Outer Banks neighbors who were completely left out of all talks about what was going on. I know people all over were complaining around here and I hope these big media outlets hear about it!

Thanks for all of your prayers!

Oh Irene!

We are now under a Hurricane warning and waiting still to see what Hurricane Irene is going to do. Can't believe we may be facing a huge storm like this. In one way you get really used to them but in another you just never know what may come. It's much different this time especially since we now have Garrett to care for.

For now, we have all of the supplies we will need and we even went out tonight and bought a generator. I'm hoping we won't need to use any of it but it doesn't look like that's going to be the case. All of our outside furniture and anything else that may blow away is now stored in the garage :)

Please pray for our community as we face this storm! My verse on my calendar today: "With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible!" Mark 10:27

Warning!

We are now under a tropical storm warning. That means conditions are likely in 36 hours. One of our local news stations is now saying it's moving to the west a little bit more than what they wanted to see. So who knows! It looks like it will just brush by here which honestly isn't a big deal. We have nor'easters with stronger winds than that. So for now it's wait and see :)

I thought you might like a little bit of middle school humor. We have a dress code policy and part of it says that their shorts have to be 6 inches from their knees. Well the girls usually fall into trouble on this one. So today I ask a few girls to go see the dean and let her "check" their short lengths. A few of the boys thought they would humor me and roll their shorts up to see if they would pass "inspection." I told them I was going to have nightmares about it! The funny thing is most of the boys wear shorts past their knees so when they rolled them up all you see is stark white legs. I had the dean come down and "check" them too plus I knew she needed a good laugh. She told them if they wanted to wear short shorts, they had to be 6 inches from the knee. Needless to say it was pretty entertaining.

It had me thinking though about all of the stupid things I did in middle school. Do you remember what you did?

Tropical storm and hurricane, oh my!

All eyes are on Hurricane Earl here in NC. We're currently under a tropical storm watch so things are about to become mass chaos! We don't want him to come here, and I hate to say this but, we're overdue for a storm. I think we're ready. Right now it looks like it will just brush the coast but if things change we may have to board up the sliding glass doors and a few windows because the winds are so strong. Tommy will have to work and he'll have to stay at the office during the storm. Bailey and I will head over to my parents until it passes.

I really hope it steers clear of here! The kids at school were crazy today and already wondering if we'll have school on Friday! I told them they better not wish that too much because we'll have to make it up.

So there's my distraction for this week! Stay away Earl!