Sandy

It's great to live in a day when we have the ability to predict some of these natural disasters to prepare the best we can.  I'll be honest, I'm not as prepared as I should be.  But I did have flashlights, and I did have water and a good amount of food.  I anticipated the power going out and so I cleaned the house and did all the laundry and had all the devices charged on Monday.  I just didn't think we would be out for so long. 

Our power was out for four days.  Which actually sounds shorter than it felt!  (And is short compared to a lot of people).  But we did sort of enjoy our "indoor camping" as we called it.  We were very fortunate to still have hot water and a gas stove.  Those things made a BIG difference.  The first day went fine, but then the temperatures started to drop.  We bundled and put on extra blankets at night and seemed to do okay.  Our neighbor was able to borrow a generator and was generous to let us use a plug off of it and we were able to plug in the fridge and our computers and phones for about an hour each day.

For the third day, my dad went to Home Depot and got all the things he needed to wire our furnace so that we could plug the cord from the generator into it.  I was skeptical, but props to my dad!!  Heat never felt SO GOOD!  We saw lots of people in the neighborhood gathering branches and limbs that had fallen for fire wood.  We saw a few people pack up their cars to go stay with family or go to a hotel.  We looked into hotels ourselves and couldn't find any availability.

We had plenty of good things to eat (never had to open a can) and in the end didn't have to throw out too much food.  We were also very fortunate to have Whole Foods down the street that never lost power and had plenty of everything.

Hearing stories of trees falling through houses and people without hot water and the devastation along the shore, really kept me with a grateful attitude knowing things could be a lot worse.  My most desperate need was laundry, as we were running out of clean clothes fast.  And, for the next emergency, I need to get a radio.  I really wanted to know what was going on.

Rachel's school was closed for 5 days because of the power outages at the schools (and was even delayed when we got our snow storm..with that and parent teacher conferences, she's only had 7 full days of school this month.  Hopefully we still get a summer vacation :)  Our power came back on Friday night, which was a huge surprise since we were hearing rumors about 10 more days.

I learned a lot of things that week and above all my heart was filled with gratitude for the blessings that we have.  I was never worried or stressed and I knew we would be alright...and we were.  Thanks again for ALL your thoughts and prayers!!!  It felt good to be so loved.

Anyway, here are a few pictures:

Kate watching the storm

The morning after Jake and I went for a run.  Lots of downed trees in the neighborhood.  This was just 2 streets down...they got lucky!

 This was also just down the street, at the abandoned seminary housing.

 Crazy!

The past couple weekends we have been helping out locally and out at the shore with the Mormon Helping Hands.  This tree was enormous and the branch Jake is working on was a good few feet in the ground.  My handsome hubby showed off his manly strength :)

This is the pile of branches we took out from their backyard.  This was one of 3 houses we did yesterday.

It has been such an amazing opportunity and blessing to do service and be able to help these people in need.  They have been so grateful.  Saying things like "You are inspiring" "I'm rarely at a loss of words, but I'm speechless" "I am amazed at what you've done!" "I'm not overwhelmed anymore" along with a million thank yous.  Lots of work to be done still, and we'll probably be going out closer to the beach next weekend.