Hurricane Irene

So we had the earthquake on Tuesday and Hurricane Irene arrived on Saturday.  It was a rough week for the East Coast - let alone the poor meteorologists.  All week they were calling for the hurricane to hit the East Cost - most likely a direct hit to the Outer Banks.  They also referred to it as "catastrophic" and "devestating".  If any of you have lived through a hurricane in Virginia, you know that they don't play around.  [I survived Hurricane Isabel in 2004.  In high school and living with my parents at the time- my dad decided to go to Blacksburg for a VT game while my mom and I stayed at home alone watching trees fall in our yard/neighborhood.  We were without power for 6 days and didn't go to school for 10.  Isabel was no joke.] 
We spent the week getting things ready (or as ready as possible) to hunker down for Irene.  My parents got the h- out of dodge on Friday morning and headed to Alaska.  Mandatory evacuations were in effect for a lot of North Carolina and Virginia Beach - and even part of New York.  Daniel and I had several things to do on Saturday morning, but had already decided to stay at my sister's Saturday night (since we have lots of big trees and they have none!).  Several of our friends also came to Kelly & Derek's, and the genius boys we love decided to wind surf/slip 'n slide/go swimming in the middle of the hurricane.  Now before you shake your finger, there were NO trees around, so it really wasn't that bad.  We woke up early on Sunday and headed home to observe the damage [we have some pretty awesome neighbors who kept an eye on our house while we were gone].  Fortunately, we only had two large branches come down.  Everybody had tons of torn up leaves and leaf bunches everywhere.  There was a significant amount of trees down all across town.  I didn't have any power at work until late Tuesday, so I didn't go in until Wednesday.  Daniel had power but no internet at work for a while.  I went to McDonald's, paid $1 for sweet tea, and used my styrafome cup all week to fill up with ice whenever I was out.  Cold drinks = crucial.  We were out of power until the following Saturday (yep, one ENTIRE week!).  Were we bored?  Yes.  Were we a little hot and stuffy?  Yep.  Did we miss electricity?  Absolutely.  But, we had no damage and are immensely blessed.  Nothing to complain about [except all the food we lost], it was an adventure!
A side note to the no-power situation: our power came back on for approx. one had a half hours on Sunday.  Half the neighborhood kept that power.  By the end of the week, only 16 people in the neighborhood were without power.  Yep, we had the bad karma - we literally looked across the street and saw lights on.  Oh well, what can you do!?
One silver lining about not having power is we decided [on a whim] to go to Blacksburg for the season-opener.  Best.decision.ever.  We arrived in the Burg late on Friday - enjoyed some good friends at Big Als - picked up some Pokey Sticks - only had 4 hours of sleep - tailgated - watched Tech stomp over App State - and arrived home to power!

Adam windsurfing [Kelly & I stayed in the garage, warm and dry!]

Slip 'n Slide