Hurricane Irene

Well, the hurricane came and went. We were bummed that it ruined the last 2 days of Dan's week-long vacation (no extra days at the beach for us), but were happy that we were all safe inside. We lost power for about 24 hours. The worst part of that was worrying that it would be much longer. After Hurricane Isabel in 2003, my parent's had some neighbors without power for 11 days. Thinking about that stressed me out way more than a day without AC. Our neighbors let us plug into their generator, so that was wonderful. The only thing we plugged in was the fridge, so all the food was safe. :)

Here are our pictures of the clean-up: On Saturday morning, Dan and my dad moved a big branch that fell during the night (before it got really windy).
A really unflattering picture of me along with my dad as we made our piles of fallen branches and leaves for the city to come pick up.
The kids were such big helpers. I love how enthusiastic kids in general are about certain chores. Kevin was telling us all, "Good job, guys."
Wheeling from the back yard to the front over and over. :)
The finished piles. We probably could have made them taller, but my dad didn't want to inconvenience the collectors. Only 4 of these piles are from branches that fell, the other 2 are from some extra trimming we did.