Weekly Review November 2 '12

Well, this week was certainly not lacking in excitement, with a birthday celebration, Halloween activities, and a hurricane sandwiched in between. 

 

Last Friday afternoon I went on a totally fruitless search for birthday presents for Jared.  I couldn't find any of the things he asked for.  So that was frustrating!  I was able to get some bottled water and a few other emergency items before the stores got too crazay, though.  Frank was able to find one thing he wanted--some new earphones (he wanted a particular kind)--on Saturday.  Besides that, Frank had purchased a used Ipod for him on eBay, but we were pretty sure it wasn't going to get here in time for his birthday so we wanted to have one other thing to give him. 

 

Saturday was busy--Frank was gone most of the day doing work for one of his clients.  I had a stake training meeting for YW that morning.  Then I came home and hurried to get Jared's cake baked, the kitchen floor mopped, and Seth bathed before Jared's friends came over around 4:00.  (We let him invite two friends over for cake & pizza).  Frank got home before the friends arrived, thankfully.  The boys played games until dinner time, then played a little bit more and then we had cake:  

 

(He blew them all out!)

 

Jared's friends, Grant and Taylor

 

We were in kind of a hurry because our ward was also having a "Trunk or Treat" that night.  So as soon as the cake was eaten, we were loading everyone in the car to go to that.  The older boys played "man hunt" in the dark while Seth did the trick or treat thing.

 

Sunday morning Jared opened his cards and presents:

(Reading the note that says his iPod is on the way.)

 

New earphones

 

It didn't seem like a very exciting birthday to me, but Jared was happy.  He was excited about the new iPod, which is a 4th generation--a lot nicer than the used 2nd generation one that he bought for himself about a year ago.  (And it arrived on Monday--only one day late.)

 

Seth loves Jared!

 



Tanner's still waking up

 

The rest of Sunday was pretty average--we went to church and I went to choir as usual.  Oh, and Jared was ordained a Teacher by Frank--I guess that's not so average!  The skies were gloomy and by evening the very edge of the storm was getting to us and it started raining, although only lightly.

 

By late Sunday, school was already cancelled for the next day so we were able to sleep in a bit on Monday--nice!  Frank and I woke up by 8:00 or so--it was still raining.  Frank found out his office was closed too.  We spent the morning getting laundry done and moving our emergency supplies upstairs.  We wanted them to be more handy and besides, we were more worried about flooding from the Monocacy River than anything else so we wanted the supplies on the upper level.  We turned Scott's room into "Hurricane Central":

 





72 hour kits & sleeping bags

 



Sleeping bags again & boxes of MREs.  We had water, too, but I didn't get that in the photo.

 

Frank ran some errands for me and then we just stayed inside.  These pictures were taken Monday afternoon:

 



 

Everything's wet

 



The deck is all cleared off so nothing will blow away

 

It rained all day, but it wasn't until around 6:00 that the wind really started to blow and the rain got heavy.  Around that time, conditions changed rapidly and soon the rain was coming down hard and the wind was roaring.  Our lights flickered several times but never went out completely--we were so thankful for that!  We had dinner and then had family night.  We played the game of Life, and it was a good thing that the schools were closed again on Tuesday because we stayed up pretty late finishing that game.  We all laughed a little nervously when someone landed on a space that said "House floods.  Pay $25,000 if not insured" and I was very tempted to buy the Beach House when it was one of my choices (sold by High Winds Realty; only 50 feet from Monsson Beach and includes a hurricane wall) but I opted for my other choice instead.  I got a kick out of it when everyone kept landing on the "baby girl" spaces.  There wasn't a single boy until Seth landed on the "adopt twins" space and he chose to have them both be boys.  I actually didn't have any kids but I won the game (so I'm wealthy, but lonely). 

Around the time that we put Seth to bed there was a bit of a lull--the wind stopped roaring--so Frank and the older boys went outside with flashlights for a few minutes to check the level of the river.  We were worried about it because the flood warning notice said the river was expected to reach 31.9 feet.  (Flood stage is 15 feet.)  The river was almost over its banks at that point.  We decided to have Tanner & Jared sleep on the couch, just in case, since their room is in the basement.  When we finally went to bed, the wind was still roaring.  We slept well, though, and when we woke up in the morning (we slept in again) the wind had stopped.  It was still raining, but not very heavily.  We looked out the windows and things didn't look too bad.  Frank went out and drove around a little bit and he did see lots of tree branches down and several fallen trees, but overall Frederick seemed to fare very well.  The power was out in some places, too, but ours was fine.  Our main concern was the river, which had risen quite a bit in the night.  We continuted to keep an eye on the rising water throughout the day, but by early afternoon the prediction had been changed to 23 feet instead of nearly 32 feet, so after that we relaxed.  I think in the end the river did reach nearly 23 feet.  I took a lot of pictures--some from the deck that morning, a few on Tuesday afternoon (the boys, the dog, and I took a walk down to the river), a few on Wednesday afternoon, and a few more this morning.  I tried to put pictures taken from close to the same angle after each other so that you can compare how it looked when it was flooded and how it looks now, when it is back in its banks: 

 



 

 

These first 3 were taken from the deck.  You can see the same two trees (they are closer in the third picture).  That whole flat area below the hill was covered with water.
  

These two were also taken from the deck.  You can see that the walking path is partially submerged.

This is what our front porch looked like Tuesday morning.  All those leaves came from the two apple trees that are immediately to the left of the door.

 

The preceeding three pictures were taken from the large field at the end of our court. 
  

 

The two previous pictures are of the same tree.

Behind the tree, you can barely see the telephone pole with the sign on it and a blue dispenser (for dog waste bags).  In the next picture I zoomed in on them.  The dispenser was nearly covered!  Both are visible in some of the "non flood" pictures above.

 

Here's the telephone pole, post flood:

 



The brush visible behind the telephone pole is along the river bank, but the water is a couple of feet below the bank now.

Another shot of one part of the path underwater.

In these pictures, the boys are standing at the edge of the water where it is covering the path that runs between the two trees (the path is visible, post flood, in the 3rd photo after the shot of the leaf-covered front porch.)

 

 

Further down the path--the three previous pictures show "before" and "after".

 



 

 

In the two pictues above, you can see the path looking up the hill.  The muddy part (from the bottom right of the picture all the way up to nearly the horizon line) was all under water.   

 

 

Jared and Seth are standing at the top of the hill that you saw in the previous pictures; you can see the water line just to Jared's right.

 

 

 

The preceeding three pictures are of basically the same area.  The first two were taken on Wednesday morning, after the water had started to go back down and the last one was taken this morning.

 

 

The two pictures above were taken from about the same point.  The whole grassy area in the last photo was covered with water (you can see a little puddle--that's all that's left now.)

 

Looking down the path, back down the hill.  See the telephone pole in both photos?  You can also see the "mud line" in the second photo which shows how far up the water reached.

 

In the two photos above, you can see the same tree (I zoomed in on the tree in the first photo).  Notice how far above the ground the branches actually are--they are only a foot or two above the water line in the first photo.

 

 

The two photos above were taken from about the same spot, although at different angles.  Someone put a thin white pole near the edge of the water in the top photo (it's hard to see).  The water continuted to rise another foot or so beyond it later on, but that's about as high as it got.  In the bottom picture, the pole is still there (again, it's hard to see--the top of it is just a little below the large tree on the left of the photo).  The distant tree line is along the bank of the river, so that gives you an idea of how far the water came out of the banks.  It was pretty amazing! 

 

This photo was taken from the edge of the water line, looking back up toward the back of our house.  We are the third house over in that row of townhomes.  You can see that the water still had a long way to go.  Our main worry was that the water would rise enough that it would spread around the edge of the hill that you can see on the right.  I'm not sure, but another ten feet might have done it.

Well, so much for the flood!  I hope I didn't bore you with all those pictures.  It was much more impressive in real life.  We spent most of Tuesday getting work done around the house.  Frank's office was still closed so he basically got two bonus days off.  Oh, we also had to "jump" the Expedition.  Frank went out late Monday (before the storm got really bad) to start it, and it wouldn't start!  (Not exactly comforting--our evacuation vehicle was useless!)  We got it going again on Tuesday and Frank went for a long drive to make sure the battery was fully charged. 

With the sporadic power outages, we weren't sure if there would be school on Wednesday, but by late afternoon all the schools had been assessed and considered safe and only a few were without power.  There was still some flooding on some of the roads and some trees / power lines to be removed as well so they decided to have a 2 hour delay on Wednesday.  Originally, there was a two hour early release scheduled for Wednesday (which was a nice idea--more time to get kids through home work and dinner before trick or treating started) but they decided to have the two hour delay instead and everyone got out at the normal time.

We feel really fortunate that our community was not hit harder and that we've been able to get back to normal life so quickly.  We know a lot of people are really suffering with power still out and damaged or destroyed homes.  The devastation in some areas is just incredible.  As I have driven around Frederick the last few days, I have seen a number of fallen trees, cracked branches, damaged fences, and shredded or toppled signs.  But I have not seen any damage to any buildings.  We were very blessed, overall!

Wednesday went by quickly, with the kids going into school late.  Frank worked from home.  I went grocery shopping and tried to figure out what to do for a costume for Seth for his school's International Children's Day.  (I'd actually forgotten all about it.)  At first Seth said he wanted to represent the United States, but then he told me he wasn't allowed to do that--he had to do another country.  (It turns out he could have done the USA after all; oh well.)  Then he decided he wanted to do China.  So I was trying to figure out what to do for a Chinese costume!  Before I knew it, the kids were coming home from school and it was time for dinner and trick or treating.  Here is Seth in his triceratops costume, ready to go: 

Frank was wonderful and went out with him so I didn't have to brave the cold.  Here is Seth when he came back:

All smiles!  He actually didn't go very far--all he wanted to do was our court.  So his pumpkin isn't even full but he's happy and we certainly aren't anxious for him to eat a lot more candy.  After Seth got home, he wanted to help hand out candy to the kids coming to our door.  He handed out candy to one group and then I heard him say "What do you say?"  The trick or treaters responded "Thank you!"  Then Seth said "That's better!"  He cracks me up; he is such a little adult sometimes!

It's definitely looking and feeling like winter around here now.  The trees lost lots of leaves in the storm and as you know, Hurricane Sandy collided with a cold front / winter storm coming from the west.  Hard to believe we were walking around barefoot last week!

So now it's November, and this plaque graces our door:

Frank went in to work early on Thursday morning.  I had to pick up kids from Seminary to take them to school but when I went out to start the car, it wouldn't start!  (Again!)  I called another mom & asked her to pick up the kids and then called Frank.  He had to come back home so we could get the car fixed.  We jumped the car again and then he took it over to get the battery tested while I took Seth to school and stayed to help take kids to the library.  Fortunately, the problem with the car was just a connection to the battery and it was quick and inexpensive to fix. 

I had planned to go to the temple Thursday morning so once we got the car situation resolved, I decided I could still go.  It worked out nice because Frank stayed home to work the rest of the day so I was able to take his car and I didn't feel as pressed for time since he would be there when the kids got home from school.  Having more time meant I could do an endowment session, which I had really been wanting to do (haven't done that in a while) so I was happy about that.  I had even prayed the day before that the timing would work out so I could do an endowment session, and my prayer was answered--by the car not starting!  See, be careful what you pray for! :)  Anyway, it was great to be in the temple.  The temple looked beautiful, too:

I got home shortly after the older boys got home from school.  I had a lot of things to get done, including completing Seth's costume for International Children's Day.  For lack of time, I gave up on finding / creating something that looked like traditional Chinese clothing, and opted to portray the flag, which was one of our choices.  I cut out gold stars and taped them to one of Seth's red shirts.  I think he looked pretty cute!:

Seth liked it, too.  I had a busy day today (exercised, put food in the crock pot, caught up the budget, took Snickers to get a vaccine) but I took time out to go see Seth sing with his class:

His teacher is behind him, in the green shirt, and the little boy in the sombrero next to him is his friend Shade. 

This afternoon, the sun finally came out--haven't seen it all week!  Frank laughed at me for taking a picture, but I'm glad I did because it wasn't out for very long:

This weekend is Homecoming at Tanner & Jared's high school so they had a big pep rally today and they had even given all of the kids shirts.  Their school colors are red, white & blue.  (Their mascot is "the Patriots" too--I think that's cool!)  They gave all the Juniors red shirts:

All the sophomores had white shirts, and the freshmen had blue shirts:

The seniors could choose either red, white, or blue.  I'm sure their school looked pretty nice today, although the boys say most of their teachers were whining about the money spent on t-shirts that should have been spent on things like paper!  Our tax dollars at work--but at least my boys each got a t-shirt out of it!

Tonight we had the missionaries over for dinner and now Tanner & Jared are at an activity for all the Teachers and Priests.  My friend Jeanine and her two boys will be here soon--they are spending the night here and then tomorrow they begin their long drive to California.  I still can't believe they are moving!  It will be sad to see them go but I hope they have a very happy life ahead of them in their new home.

That's quite enough excitement for one week!  I wanted to mention a couple of other things I forgot to put into previous weekly posts.  One day last week, Seth woke up REALLY early and never went back to sleep.  He climbed into bed with me and started asking me questions.  One thing led to another, and before I knew it, I had taught him all about the apostasy and restoration.  He's heard bits of it all before, of course, but I think he finally put all the pieces together.  It was sweet, and I didn't mind losing sleep for that!  Another thing I forgot to mention (although some of you already know this story) is that Scott has a room mate who did some of the translating for General Conference.  He went to Micronesia on his mission, so he speaks a language that a lot of people don't speak.  He happened to translate President Monson's opening remarks, so he knew about the change in missionary ages, but couldn't tell anyone, of course.  Scott said that the week or so before conference when they were having apartment prayer, this room mate started praying "...and bless Scott while he is preparing to serve a mission..."  Scott said he was wondering why his room mate was praying for him already, when his mission was still almost a year away.  As soon as he heard the announcement, then it all made sense!  I wanted to remember that not just for the historical significance of this event, but because I also think it is so awesome that they have "apartment prayer" and because I am so very grateful that Scott ended up with 4 returned missionaries for room mates, and with room mates that pray for him!  I couldn't have asked for better.

I'll finish off with a video of Seth singing a song that he learned at school.  I hope it actually works, and I apologize in advance that it's sideways.  Enjoy! :