Halloween...Better Late than Never

The Halloween that wasn't finally was.

The idea of trick or treating on Halloween was so far from everyone's minds with the power outage.  Our street was pitch black and there were branches in everyone's yards and power lines down which made it all so unsafe.  We did some reverse trick or treating to our neighbors that afternoon and ate most of our stash of candy intended for trick or treaters as we sat around for 8 days waiting for power. :)

We had our church Fall Festival 2 weeks late and oh man did we have happy kids.  I was also happy to finally put the Halloween totes away in mid-November.

Our adorable bumblebee

Our beautiful butterfly 

Hermione Granger herself

and we wouldn't be complete without Luke Skywalker

The Fall Festival included a chili cook-off, a carnival and then trunk or treating in the parking lot.  Matt had made a HUGE pot of chili the afternoon the power went out.  We ate chili that night and froze the rest in our generator neighbor's freezer.  Matt was so mad that night at how his chili turned out--he's all about winning and knew that pot would not have won a thing.  

2 weeks later, this guy is still on a mission to win.  Lucky for him he's a quick learner and a really good chili cook.  Here he is sporting his 1st place trophy!!  He had the grin from ear to ear!!!

And that's a wrap.  Thanksgiving is in 2 days.  I'm grateful to finally have Halloween off my blogging plate!

That's the Night that the Lights Went Out in Tolland

Saturday, October 29, 11:27pm.  The time 11:27 remained stuck on our old stove for 8 days and 1 hour.

It should have been the Fall Festival/Trunk or Treat at church.

Halloween should have been 2 days later.

Not so, my friends, no so.

Once the church party was cancelled, we went out to play in the snow that was already coming down.

20 minutes later, we heard cracking sounds and lost 2 big limbs in our front yard.  Immediately, we made the kids come inside.

They dressed up in their costumes and went trick or treating to different rooms in the house. 

Our power stayed on and we were feeling hopeful.  At 11:27, we lost power and then spent the night listening to cracking limbs and falling branches.  A long scary night.

We woke up to another big limb down in front and at least 20 limbs down in back from different trees.

This was our road right in front of our neighbors house on Sunday morning.

This limb was dangling in front of the house.

We pulled out the corded phone and still had phone service through most of Sunday.  Whitney didn't believe it was a real phone.

Monday we went into Matt's office since he had to work but also had heat.  I ordered a kerosene heater online from Lowes and we drove to a Lowes 45 minutes south to pick it up.  Driving back Monday afternoon, we really began witnessing the crazy gas lines and gas stations with no gas.  It was insane.

Warming up by our blessed heater.  Check out the sheets we had up blocking the upstairs.

Kids remained happy.  Actually, no one complained the entire week.  Yea for good kids!  

 Here's the living room with our heater.  A dark scene but it got us up to 66 or 67 degrees each night in the hallway so probably at least 70 degrees for the kids before we headed to bed.

Below is the room with a flash.  The kids camped in the living room all week.  Yea for good sleeping bags and multiple-layered jammies.

Glow sticks were a fun hit since it was dark every night by 6pm.

Day 5--still SO many trees like this in the roads

Yard clean-up.  Mary and Andrew were big helpers

We have a well which means when there is no power, we have no water b/c the electricity pumps the well. Toilet flushing with buckets, toothbrushing with cups, etc, etc.   This storm was a great chance to assess how far our water storage would take us.  We filled both bathtubs with water to use for flushing and then had a store of laundry detergent containers of water on top of a 55 gallon drum, 2 5-gallon drums, and a couple dozen soda and juice bottles of water.  I'd estimate we had 90 gallons of water plus the 2 bathtubs full.  After 8 days, we still had water left.

Once we used all the tub water, the tub became our container storage place.

3 crazy guys (one being Matt) got the limb off our wire with a roof rake and extention ladder.  I was grateful I saw a neighbor touching it a few days before but even still, I would have been so mad at Matt if he would have killed himself!

Day 8--our first sighting of a power truck in our town.  What an exciting moment.

 

This truck took down a huge tree that we had to drive around every single day.

And below, just a bunch more shots of the insanity--they are all from Day 8.  I don't think you can truly grasp the magnitude unless you really see it.  It is rare to see any property that doesn't have one, some, or many trees damaged.  Our street alone probably had 5 or 6 people who lost the power lines from the street to their house and most streets seemed to have at least one section of the main power line down.  The top of the power line closest to our house broke off.

Right next to the intersection before our street.

Everywhere you go, debris now lines the street

Did I really drive through this?  How?!  Crazy!

Sunday night we got home from a friends and saw a crew on the street next to ours.  Matt heard/saw them working on our broken pole at 11:30pm and we had power by 12:30.  Oh happy day.

An Apple a Day...

Our 3rd Annual apple picking/pumpkin picking and caramel apple making day. 

Still fun and tasty.

Whit and her apples

A little posing going on.

Isn't the orchard just beautiful?

Picking out pumpkins and staring at the crazy hay bales.  Never without the crazy hay bales.

Happy apple and happy Mary in dress up clothes, of course

 Until next year....

Surf City, Here We Come

We had a 4 day weekend here in CT.  Of course we had to honor Christopher Columbus and of course our teachers had to have a work day after that. 

Back to the post....we had playdates and birthday parties and soccer on Monday so on Tuesday we headed to Hammonasset Beach State Park.  It was almost exactly a 1 hour drive, no park fees b/c it was after Labor Day, beautiful weather in the 70s, no crowds, basically PERFECT (except that Matt had to work so we had to go without him).

Missing Matt but yea for a good shot of us all

They dug and dug and dug

The happiness pretty much didn't stop

Check ou that beach....NO PEOPLE.  Perfect day of beachiness.

4 happy kids who never get tired of water and sand.

Andrew collected crab body parts the whole time.

Mary collected clumped together shells.  We didn't realize til we got home and her dad saw them that they were snails or something.  She freaked out realizing the aliveness of her collection.  I felt dumb but used my standard "I'm from Missouri" excuse to explain my ocean ignorance.

Whit took lots of pictures of everyone, everything, and every part of her face.

Annie got the most wet and enjoyed sitting and letting the tide come over her.

A Long Long Time Ago...

Actually it was August, but I never posted.  I took the old camera and the pictures have sat on it too long.  Back in August I took a 3 day trip to NYC to see Megan.  I don't do it enough, darn crazy life, but always look forward to seeing Meg, eating good food, and being a little self absorbed for a few days.

Some food highlights--

Wafels & Dinges (Delicious waffles with spekuloos spread--YUM!)

The Meatball Shop

(it was here that I declared that all my cooking is disgusting.  It was so heavenly delicious)

The Doughnut Plant.

Saw the movie, The Help, got rush tickets to see How to Succeed in Business, walked around lots, went to the temple, went to the MET, ate yummy yumminess.

We saw Harry Potter himself.  Good seats too--thank you rush tickets.  A fun show.

Us on top of the MET.  Such a pretty view. 

I remained wimpy and made Megan get our tickets into the museum.  They have a 'recommended' price but you really can pay whatever you want.  We were in the museum less than 20 minutes and paid a whopping $4 for both of us.  The ticket person really doesn't care but it still feels silly being the money handler.  I did see another lady in line with a $1 bill, so I know we aren't alone in our cheapness.

A wonderful, rejuvinating trip.  Even as I'm posting 2 months later I'm feeling a need to get rejuvinated all over again.  Watch out Megan....I'll be back.

The Name Game

Proof.  This paper came home today.

It's already happening and he's only in 1st grade.  I learned from Andrew yesterday that he's having all of his school friends call him Andy.  I asked him what his teacher calls him.  "Andy" was the reply.

What?!  Are we even talking about the same person if this lady knows him as "Andy" and I've never heard of that kid?

I knew this day would someday come though I didn't know if it would take the form of "Andy", "Drew", "Andrew Andrew bo Bandrew", etc.  I just never expected it would happen so soon.

I asked about Emmy, our friend from church in his class.  She still calls him Andrew. 

I asked about our two neighbors and his close buddies, Andrew and Andrew.  He said that he still wants them to call him Andrew because he likes how they are all twins.

Life feels a little wierd right now.

Annie Girl!!!

Happy Birthday to my 3 year old!!!!!  I really can't believe I'm saying that.  She was just born yesterday, I know she was.

Here's the birthday girl in all her happiness!!  For the past 2 weeks, you just mention the word 'birthday' and Annie lights up!  She's had it all planned out.  I've loved how cute she has been.

Matt worked from home and he, the little two and I went to McDonald's for lunch.  Specifically the playland McDonalds.  Happy happy girls who, in this picture, made me finally see why everyone thinks they look so much alike. 

Annie talked and talked about her party and her friends.  Since that wasn't really in the plans this year, we had all the neighbor kids come over right after school for an after school snack of cupcakes and "happy birthday" singing.  Annie was in HEAVEN.  She thinks she's as big as everyone.

This year's cake.

She wanted a bubble gum cake, so here's what she got.  Annie is obsessed with gum.  She would eat it as often as I gave it to her (which unfortunately for her isn't very often).  Her siblings bought her a gumball machine which she loves and she loved the cake too, so I'm glad. 

Oh Annie, we love you.  We love how excited you get about EVERYTHING, how obsessed you are with your blanket and how your two fingers go in your mouth the minute you see it.  We love how you can fall asleep anywhere in the house if you are tired enough.  We love how bedtime is often 6:30pm at your own request, b/c you are just too tired to go on.  We love your beautiful thick hair and how you always want it done the way you want it done (the princess leia hair request is my favorite).  We love how you do everything that Whit does, that Whit asks you to do or that you think Whit would want you to do.  We love how you love the song "America" by Neil Diamond. 

What a girl!!!