We've been quite busy! Hurricane Matthew came to visit us, and we have since been glad to see him leave!
It all began with a text from my sister-in-law stating that a hurricane was headed our way. I began watching the news, and Derek and I talked about various options as to whether to stay or evacuate.
Three different family members offered their homes to us, but Derek thought it would be better to try to weather out the storm.
As the track of the storm got closer and closer to us, we began preparing the house for the worst of the storm.
Jacksonville, a potential direct hit by Matthew as a Category 4 hurricane:
The children and I went to the store for supplies, and we prepared our inner room (bathroom) as our hide-out should tornadoes come or in case trees began to fall in our back yard.
Cherish helped plan meals requiring no electricity, pull in chairs and other items from the backyard, clean the house, and watch the two little boys. It rained for several days before the hurricane hit, so the four youngest were stir-crazy.
In order to burn off some of that energy and bring some fun and excitement to our "Hurricane Party" (as I called it--because I didn't want to scare the children), Hope and Andrew helped wash down the entire bathroom. It became the perfect place for our pillows, blankets, and other "party" supplies.
We took everything out of the linen closet and replaced the linens with food, SNACKS (a "party" must have snacks!), water, non-replaceable and/or important paperwork, and all the emergency items needed for storm damage, and loss of power and water.
Then, as the storm got closer and the winds began howling, Derek and I decided it would be best for the children to head to a shelter instead. We thought it would not be wise for five little ones to live in terror for 14+ hours.
So, our "Hurricane Party" got moved to a gym, where lots more people could join us in our games, coloring, etc. (We stayed at the shelter--a local school gym--for about 14 hours as the storm raged.) The children played and ate, played and ate, played and ate some more! They had a blast!
They.LOVED.it!!!
They loved it so much, they were so sad to leave!
We returned home to find a tree had completely toppled over in our back easement, and several other tree tops had broken and fallen to the ground. Nothing hit the house (unlike other people we know, who even currently still have trees on their roofs, waiting for tree companies to come by...).
While we were out the next day looking at all the damage, multiple neighbors asked the children if they had been terrified during the storm. ALL of the three oldest said they were not "scared at all" and "LOVED 'Hurricane Day'"! The neighbors were amazed--as they admitted to the children that they had been very scared themselves. I told the neighbors the children had spent the day at the shelter, playing, and making a lot of new friends.
Here are the children playing with some new friends
(not all lights were on generators):
Blocks and sticks were compliments of our neighbors, Mike and Cheryle. Our sweet neighbors had sent the children to the shelter with "new-to-them" toys. They stayed quite busy during the day with all of their supplies!
We came home to no power for days, but we were so thankful to have water. Unfortunately, other friends in our city were without power and water.
What a blessing it was to be able to know so many people were praying for us and checking on us! Thank you, sweet friends! We are well!
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