Earthquakes, Hurricanes, and Flooding

Since we've moved we have had our share of natural chaos. An earthquake measuring 5.9 magnitude was the first. We were unaware and thought there was something wrong with the car, ha ha.

Then, Irene. We were prepared with a newly restocked 3 day supply of food, a freshly refilled propane tank for grilling out the goods in the fridge and freezer if necessary, and flashlights and tarps. The wind brought down a limb, but it landed on another tree and is still hanging out there now. We will have it removed soon, but it's pretty wedged in and likely won't come down anytime soon without some major effort.

We saw a lot of animals in the yard just after the hurricane. A large silver fox, many deer, and of course the usual squirrels and birds.

Then, the floods. My understanding is that it was a storm named Lee that brought all the rain, and boy did it rain! Our yard turned into a lake, and our basement walls seeped water. I moved boxes around just in case the floor got wet, and kept a close eye on the walls and the sump pump well in the basement. The power went out, and therefore so did the pump, so we began to bail out the well. It didn't do anything. No matter how many 5 gal buckets of water we took out of the well, the water level stayed the same, so we gave up. Thankfully, even though the well filled just to the top, none of it spilled over into the basement. We were just an inch away from having a flooded basement, but it didn't happen. Whew!

We had candles for light, and it was neither hot nor cold outside,thankfully. The power went out just after dinner and returned just before dinner the next day, so we ate hot dinners, but had to throw out a lot of food. Today, I am researching generators and arborists.

My September 11th (Laura)

I just wanted to write down what my September 11th was like 10 years ago...

I had just moved to DC. It was a quiet morning, Patrick was out of town for work. He had just gotten staffed on a project in Long Island, NY a few weeks earlier, just after I decided to move up to the DC area.

I was unpacking boxes and the phone rang. I was not in a hurry to answer the phone, because I had only lived in the house with Patrick for 3 days, so surely no one was calling for me. After the phone rang and rang and rang, I figured something was important so I picked it up.

My mom sounded weird. "Where does Patrick work?" she asked.

"New York" I said.

"Where in New York?" she asked.
"Long Island" I replied.

"Turn on the TV"
"What channel?"
"The news - any news."

I saw the WTC towers billowing with smoke. Mom told me that planes had crashed into the buildings. I felt my heart beating and could hear it in my ears.

Was Patrick there? Had he taken a breakfast meeting downtown? What was going on? Were we under attack? Who would DO such a thing? I felt the ground tremble and my heart raced.

"MOM!! I just felt something! I think something happened here! Let me go check!! I need to call Patrick!"

That was Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon. We lived in Old Town Alexandria at the time, and were minutes from the Pentagon as well as the airport.

God said to me then, audibly, slowly, as if to calm me, "Be Still, and Know that I Am God. Be Still and Know that I Am God. Be Still and Know that I Am God. Be Still and Know that I Am God. Be Still and Know that I Am God." It was the second time in my life He had spoken to me directly.

The next few hours were a blur. I remember firetrucks, ambulances, sirens racing down our street - they just kept coming and coming. I remember crying while watching the towers fall and shouting "RUN!!!" to those on TV who were filming and reporting on the incident. I remember seeing people jump from the towers and feeling sick to my stomach that the situation they were in was so dire they jumped from a 110 story building. And I remember trying hopelessly to get in touch with Patrick.

I finally got an email from him around 3:30pm, saying he was fine, but devastated. He would try to rent a car and drive home as soon as he could. I felt so completely alone.

I stayed glued to the TV for days, but the outside became eerily quiet. No planes overhead, no one headed to work. No traffic. I volunteered at a donation site organizing water and food that had been donated by people from all over the area. I went to the church across the street for a prayer vigil, but not being Catholic, I couldn't participate well and felt even more alone. I was overjoyed to see Patrick when he finally made it home.

I felt a huge swell of pride and sadness for the firefighters, the police, the good samaritans, the stories of heroes we all saw on TV that day and the weeks following, the "Let's Roll" that Todd Beamer shouted before staving off another devastating crash. There were so many stories. And the pictures of the people in NYC holding photos of their loved ones on TV to see if anyone had seen them. So much devastation it was so hard to not spend days and days just crying.

I didn't know anyone personally who died in the attacks on September 11th. But I was almost on one of those planes. A few weeks before, I was booking my flight to see my sister Alicia in California. I was going to go on Tuesday. I was all ready to book my seat on Flight 77 from Dulles to LAX, but at the last minute found a flight to Orange County instead. But it was on Wednesday. I had a hard time deciding if I wanted to cut my stay a day shorter with my sister just to save an hour or two of driving, but I ultimately decided to take the later flight. After all, it was only $30 more... With that $30 I feel I inadvertently saved my life.

So, that's my September 11th, 2001. Even just viewed from the TV screen, it impacted us all as if we were standing there with the people in the Financial District of NYC, with those at the Pentagon, and those on the phone lines with their loved ones on Flight 93. I will never forget how I felt that day and the days afterward, and though I don't want to watch it all over again on TV this weekend, I do want to remember how it made me feel.

I hope I never feel that helpless and insignificant ever again.

Cha cha cha Changes!

Today is Mia and Laney's first day of school at their new school here in Great Falls! I can''t believe my little Laney is in Kindergarten! She has really sprouted this summer and was not quite looking forward to riding the bus this morning, but after meeting the 25 or so kids at the bus stop, and holding on tightly to Mia's hand, she got on and waved goodbye with a smile. Thank goodness for nice neighbors and big sisters.

Mia has also grown a lot this summer, mostly in her bike riding capabilities. In our old house, the girls weren't able to ride whenever they wanted and had limited abilites on their bikes. Mia has in the last 2 weeks at our new house gained tons of confidence, removed her training wheels, and traded her bike up to a bigger more appropriate size. Laney was also thrilled as she got to inherit the pink Princess bike.

Carina, too, has been riding, but since her feet don't touch the pedals yet on the old tricycle, she has been cruising around in a Cozy Coupe. Thanks to Pampers for my 7 years of buying diapers and collecting points, it arrived a few days before we moved in.

Our move was big and hairy, moving things to and from storage and an apartment and then here, but we're all in now. There are still a few boxes unpacked in each room, and the living room has a severe lack of furniture, and has become our place to store empty broken down boxes until I can Freecycle them to someone else, but it's beginning to feel like home.

We have deer, rabbits, squirrels, moles, and many colorful birds in our yard, not to mention the unpleasant hornets and bees. We also have had a weird jelly-like substance fall from the trees after rainstorms. If you look it up, it's either a fungus or jelly that has fallen from space. (I'm thinking the former, but the latter is an interesting theory.)

As I write this, Carina is just now wandering through the house calling out for Laney. She will get used to being with just me, but for now, she is having major sister-withdrawal. So off to play we go....Happy Fall!

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SUMMER PHOTOS

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Since I am pretty sure I am not going to go back and write blog entries about the activities we did this summer, here are some photos of our family keeping busy. 



Ahh the Beach

Back from Myrtle Beach just a few days ago, I can't help but feel a wee bit more cramped in this little apartment. Maybe it's the addition of bags of shells we brought home, or the sandy shoes, or the lack of ocean in our window views. Maybe it's the sound of traffic and sirens instead of waves and fireworks. Either way, back to reality and the city.

In a few weeks we will move again. This time to a house we hope is our forever home, but I guess you never know. For now we are going to hope it will be, and I spend evenings picking out wall colors and fabrics and try to imagine rooms where our girls can grow up. It makes me wish I could slow it all down.

Yet, there are moments when I wish they would hurry up and grow up - act mature, do the right thing without me asking 145 times, and for goodness sake stop drawing on the walls and furniture (yes, Mom, I know they are a chip off the old block.) See, although the hinges are a bit shot from the kids opening the lid with toys on the top, I still have my old toybox. And, inside that old toybox is a wonderful picture I drew when I was four. Probably feeling cramped and balking at the changes yet another sibling brought with him, I drew angry red men all over the house, including on the underside of that toybox lid. So, when I painted it white for my girls to use, I excluded that one part, and it is a reminder always that one day I was a kid with a red crayon and some angst. :)

I'm rambling. Off to read before bed. Wish I were still at the beach...

Oh PS - I guess I need to rename this blog now that we no longer live in a little house in Takoma Park. Ideas?

Update Update Update

Well, it looks like this year's scrapbook is going to be shamefully empty. At the end of each of the past few years, I have taken my blog posts and favorite photos and carefully edited them into a Shutterfly photo book to have a physical record of our family fun and activities. Since I haven't posted in about, well, forever, it looks like 2011's book will be woefully small.

Tomorrow is Mia's last day of first grade. Laney had her last day of preschool last Wednesday, and is sick with a fever today. We also bought a new house today! Monday the new owners move into our current house, so Sunday we will be moving into a temporary apartment until we close in August on our new one in Great Falls, Va. The girls are excited about the prospect of a pool for the summer, and I'm not looking forward to the 3 staircases I have to figure out how to climb with a toddler and whatever else I need to bring up to the new digs. But, we're grateful to have found a place that fits our needs and would rent to us short-term. (More about the new house later as I don't want to jinx anything and have had eerily terrible luck with houses this spring.)

So for now, I'm off to bed after packing a few boxes, and I'll take my camera with me tomorrow to get some fun shots of Mia's friends and school.

(Grr, please forgive the sideways Mia picture. All the recent photos of her were taken vertically, and our camera has a setting that automatically flips them for viewing on the lcd screen. This results in sideways pics on the blog if the original photo was taken vertically. Anyone know how to undo this after the fact? )

Where Have We Been?

Well, mostly getting our house ready for the market and getting out of dodge when someone comes to look. If you want to see, click here:

http://megfinn.com/PropertyDetails.aspx?MlsCompanyID=2&MlsNumber=MC7550052
We have also moved about a third of our furniture out, which means there is only one chair and one desk in the office, so late night blog updates are on hold for awhile.

We're also on the prowl for a perfect house to move into. Where? Well we don't really know - somewhere in the area for sure, but exactly which state, county, and school district we haven't nailed down yet. We'll update when we know where we are landing. :)

January Recap

January was a cold snowy month for us. Mia was sick the first week of January with a tummy bug, and we had a handful of snowdays as well. Patrick and I went to Universal Orlando for my birthday weekend and enjoyed the roller coasters and the new Harry Potter part of the park, while the kids enjoyed a visit from Marme and GDaddy.




Patrick's company had a winter party at the National Building Museum, so we got to get dressed up in our fancy attire and enjoy a night out, too!




The kids have also been playing a lot of Wii, especially our new Wii Family Sings Disney Karoke - even Carina likes to sing the princess songs!