Hurricane Irene

As some of you know, Hurricane Irene hit us Sunday morning about 1 am. I am not sure if it was still a hurricane when it hit us or a Nor'easter. Anyways, our power went out at 2:30 Sunday morning. We finally got our power back today at 2:30 pm. We were without power for 36 hours. I have to say, when Brett and I found out we had power, we were jumping for joy! M went around the house and turned on all the lights and keeps saying she is so glad we have power. From all the worry and stress of preparing for a hurricane to hit, I realized how much I was and wasn't prepared. I also realized how much of our food requires heat to be able to eat it. I do have 72 hours worth of food for each of us, but we didn't have enough water stored or a regular 72 hour kit. Luckily, we had running water the whole time and we had enough non perishable food we didn't have to get into our food storage stuff. We are also lucky it ended up being a much smaller storm than originally thought. I know after this experience, I am going to start building a 72 hour kit and become more prepared. I never thought I had a need before because I haven't lived where there are earthquakes, tornadoes, or hurricanes. Well, this last week proved me wrong. We felt an earthquake from Virginia, and also survived a hurricane. You never know what can befall you, no matter where you live.

Summer Time!

We have had a fun and eventful summer. M's last day of preschool was on June 17th and on June 20th, we left for Utah. We had fun driving the 2200 miles to visit Pa and Grandma. M and T were actually pretty well behaved. There were times we were all ready to get out of the car. We were able to stop and see some friends we hadn't seen in many years. It was so fun to see the Chris and Jenny in Missouri and stay the night with our friends the Harper's in Colorado. I was so excited when we finally crossed the Utah border and knew we didn't have much farther to go. While in Utah, we had 2 family reunions to help with. It was so much fun to see my extended family. Some of them I haven't seen in years. Living so far away limits the number of people you get to see! Brett had to come back to NJ early and so I made the trip to OKC with the kids. We did pretty good and I didn't completely lose my marbles. The kids and I were excited to get to OKC and spend time with Nana and Grandpa Joe. M and T stayed in OKC for about 2 weeks. We did get to see our cute new niece/cousin Calley. She is so cute. I made the trip back to NJ by myself and had just over a week to do whatever I wanted to do. It was kind of nice. Brett and I switched some rooms around so the kids each have their own bedroom. We also went to Atlantic City and walked the boardwalk. We can now check that off our list. Since the kids have been back, we have spent our days at the pool, the zoo, children's museum, and the aquarium. It has been fun and adventure packed. I am so ready for school to start in 2 weeks. M is so excited to start Kindergarten. She has been working in work book for the last couple of weeks. I hope she always loves school as much as she does right now. Brett is going to be leaving us soon for a while. Thus is the nature of being in the military. He is going to pretty safe place, so we are excited about that. So, that has been our summer. Crazy, busy, and at times, pretty low key. Here are some pictures. My mom would probably disown me if I didn't put some pictures with each post.