Leaving

We are leaving tomorrow in the morning sometime. It was really hard finding hotels, as everyone is heading away from the coasts. Not to mention the fact that we need two rooms and the hotel must be large dog friendly. We had to go as far away as Oklahoma City to find one. 536 miles away! Good thing the kids are used to long car trips.


I'm off to finish laundry and start packing...

Keep us in your prayers.

Will update from OKC tomorrow.

Gustav

Worried? Sure!
Its the hot topic down here. Everyone is talking about it. It's so different from a Nor'easter that we are used to. Forecasters give you all the hype, blah blah blah 12-24 inches of snow, you snuggle in and wake up in the morning to the sound of plows coming through. True sometimes it would take a few hours to shovel the driveway, but within a day we were back to normal.

This is different. There is so much time. We have been watching the weather channel for 3 days straight. Louisiana declared a state of emergency yesterday, and Pres. Bush declared us one today. The school systems have decided to close not only for the Holiday but Tuesday and Wednesday just in case.

When even the old timers, the ones that have grown up here and have gone through Rita, start talking about leaving, yes maybe its time to talk hotels.

Speaking of hotels, there is nothing available in Northern LA, seems we might have to go further North to find something. Everyone seems to be having the same idea. "Get out of Dodge and fast!"

Some people made reservations as early as a week ago, some are waiting till Sunday to see what happens.

My Neighbor lady told me that it took her about 2 hours to get what usually is a 10 minute drive during the evac of Rita. Hopefully we will make a decision to either stay or go before anything mandatory goes into effect.

Someone at Dance School said today that they had to go to five gas stations to fill up their car.

There isn't a D battery left on the store shelves. We looked. So much for the great idea of getting all of the kids their own flashlights in case we decide to stay. We have 5 brand new empty flashlights sitting on the counter.

We made a trip to Walmart last night to make our Hurricane supply kit. 10 gallons of water, lots of soup, comfort (read: junk) food. A wind up lantern/cell phone charger/radio.

As I write this Jim is outside cutting plywood for the windows.

I'll keep everyone posted through the blog. And update when we have reached a decision whether to ride it out here or head north.

Keep us in your prayers.

"I go to Dance School wit Eden."

Katie Grace had her first ballet/tap lesson on Friday. She signed up with her new BFF Eden from the Neighborhood.

I'm not sure how much actual dancing there was, its mostly just a chance for the Moms to dress up their little girls and watch as they pretend to be pretty pretty princesses.

Isn't she adorable!?!

Pretty Ballerina

No other reason...

With no other reason, except that it was a Wednesday afternoon and that my sweet Husband was thinking of me, he sent me a dozen red roses. Don't you love it when they do something so sweet and unexpected like this. Say it with me "awwwwwww". We've been married for almost 12 years and have known each other for 16 and he's still wooing me. :)

Thank You Jim,

I love you too.

Back to School!

Yay! Its that time of year already! Even though Schools in MA wont start for another 2 weeks, down here they started Friday. We had a meet and greet on Thursday afternoon (an awesome idea). Jim and I took Alex and Jimmy down to the school, dropped off all of their supplies, met their teachers, took a tour of the building and just got to get a general lay of the land. Made going to bed on Thurs. night much easier as most of their nerves were settled. (read: theirs not mine lol).

The bus will be picking them up at 6:45 each day and they didn't get home until 3:50 on Friday, we will see if that is just a first day getting the bugs out of the system thing or if that really is going to be the time that they get home each day.

So far they seem to like it well enough. Their Teachers were really nice and welcoming.

So far...

Likes: Teachers, Art Room, Lockers, Library, Computer Lab. No music.

Dislikes: Having to sit in the first 4 seats on the bus due to the fact that there are also High Schoolers being dropped off at different schools. (You remember bus hierarchy). School Hamburgs (the lunch on Friday), weird bathrooms, no snack, short recesses.

Alex, having gotten somewhat used to the fact that she would need to wear a uniform only made some noises about them not being "her", but did the grown up thing of reminding herself "that it wasn't so bad, and that everyone else was going to be wearing them."

I thought that they looked rather smart.

Our day back here at home has been very quiet. As I write this, Max is playing with his GeoTrax here in the playroom and Katie Grace is napping. Ahhhhhhhh its nice.