How we survived ISSAC

No hurricane is exactly like another. There's also no real way to predict what will happen until it is happening. The last big hurricane we were here for was Gustov. We had strong winds and rain and it was over in a day but we were without power for almost a week. This time around Issac barely made it up to hurricane status before making landfall and was only a tropical storm by the time it reached us, but because of its ultra-slow moving center, it battered us for two days. We are several miles north of Baton Rouge but we still had 30-60 mph winds and probably about 6 inches of rain over about 30 hours. Fortunately, there wasn't much wind damage or flooding where we are and our power was restored within 8 hours. Our biggest inconvenience was that our air conditioner went out just as Issac was coming ashore leaving us hot and sticky likely until after the holiday weekend when repairmen can be dispatched. The blessing is that a friend let us borrow a window unit A/C that he wasn't using so we can at least keep part of the house cool since the power's back on.

During the storm, we carried on with our plan and found lots of things to keep us busy. When my husband and I were cheering today when the lights came back on, our oldest son was saying, "Aww, I wish the power would go back off, I was having so much fun in the dark." Really?

Day 1 (Tuesday) No school, watched tv and played video games while we still had electricity
Day 2 (Wednesday)

Made pom pom poppers and shot cotton balls all over the house

played keep up the balloon

Built a fort and played in the "cave"

Found a cool spot

Blew bubbles in the wind

Played in the "sideways rain" and pretended to be like the weather guys on TV

took a nap

watched the neighbors fence blow like Popsicle sticks in the strong winds

played in the tent some more

played catch with dad who is still recovering from a fractured knee
(thus the brace and wheelchair)

played ipod games

played cards by lantern light

Day 3 (Thursday)

Grilled Meals (Breakfast = sausage biscuits, oatmeal, mac n cheese & smores; weird I know but we were trying to use what was in the freezer and/or leftover and the kids wanted oatmeal & smores for a special treat...
Lunch = tacos and nachos)

Made & played with slime and cleaned up the mess

Built with blocks and sorted all our mardi gras beads

Colored a really cool hand print picture

Learned magic from Dad

Power came back on after lunch today and we had no cable so we just played and enjoyed having fans again at least. Now things are getting sort of back to normal. No school again tomorrow (even though we did our homework every day!) and my husbands parents are coming to visit from TX. Hopefully we can pack back up the hurricane kit until next time which I pray will not be soon.