Hurricane Irene Survival Guide

This past weekend we had the opportunity to experience a real hurricane threat. Talk about an interesting (and somewhat stressful!).

We spent Friday and Saturday preparing for any "just in case" scenarios. We were told that we would most likely lose power, from anywhere from a few hours to a few days, maybe even a week or more.

We stocked up on water (two cases from Costco, plus we filled up three empty milk jugs and a juice container). We had plenty of non-perishable food, a camp stove with extra kerosine, flashlights and a lantern. Our biggest worry was our Sump Pump.. if that stops working, our basement will flood, especially with all the rain coming our way. So we looked around for a generator. No stores had ANY in stock. We finally found one a half hour away, but their shipment wasn't coming until "sometime Saturday". In order to hold one, we had to pay full price, so we did. Better safe then sorry. We planned on using it to run the sump pump, the refrigerator, a lamp, and possibly a laptop.

We waited all day Saturday for the call; we called them; we checked their website (which they updated every hour with the status of the truck). They didn't get their shipment until 9pm and by then it was too late and too dangerous to go out to get it. So Matt and I decided that one of us would go to bed early while the other stayed up late, and then swap "shifts" and wait for the power to go out. We even had buckets and candles ready to be lit in the basement, just in case.

Thankfully, our power never went out. It did flicker once around 11:45pm, enough to reset the cable box, but that was it. The hurricane was supposed to be on us by 2am, but by that time, it had downgraded to a Tropical Storm. It was windy. Very windy, and it rained all night. But we never lost power. I was the one who stayed up late and by 1am I was exhausted. We left the bathroom light on in our masterbedrooom so we knew if the power went off, we'd know by the light turning off, but it never did. At least we both to sleep. Even Isaac surprisingly slept really well that night. A few times I heard him stiring when a big gust of wind rattled the house, but he never woke up. He even slept until 9am!

So what did we do while we waited out the storm on Saturday? We tried to keep busy. We watched a lot of Bubble Guppies..

 Sitting (barely) in his chair. 

He loves that darn show. We also watched Cars, which he liked, but some parts scared him (the loud parts). Then we tried Finding Nemo. That was a winner! I think he watched almost all of it. He would say "Nemo" over and over again. I have a funny video below in which he is yelling at Nemo to stop.

 It was too funny!

Then of course, we have this little gem..... lets just say, toddlers are gross!

We also baked! Banana bread and homemade peach pie (we had a flat of peaches from Costco, which we knew we wouldn't eat before they went bad so we decided a pie should be made).

Mmmmmmm both were delicious, by the way ;)

Sunday we took stock of any damages that may have occurred due to the high winds that night.

We did find one casualty...

Our cherry tomato plant snapped in half :( RIP tomato plant!

There was also this tree branch that fell on another street over (this actually was taken on Saturday, and by Sunday, it was already cleared away)

That's right in front of Dendy's house! 

And usually her neighbor parks his van RIGHT THERE, 

but thankfully, they were not at home this weekend. 

 Aaaaaand that's about it. It was windy throughout Sunday but was calm by late afternoon. We were very lucky.

Fast forward a few days.... and I have a few pictures of Isaac playing outside this evening after dinner :)

Isn't he cuuuute? 

As far as a pregnancy update goes, I am 24 weeks today! I have an OB appointment on Friday and then this weekend we are going to PA for the long weekend. Happy Labor day everyone!!