12pm Hurricane update

So far so good here!  The rain is steady and COLD and the wind is picking up to around 30 MPH sustained.  We are all still in our pj's--perfect day for it!  I'm sure we will get dressed sometime--maybe after lunch.  lol  I've taken some more leaves out of the walk up well just in case but everything seems ok right now.  The worst of the storm is supposed to be tonight into tomorrow morning so only time will tell!  Here are some pics......

The "Ross lake" is already starting to form at the bottom of the driveway--thankfully we don't have a car parked there or it may get wet inside eventually!

Brody and Giggy enjoying some grapes and watching Caillou

Travis is loving having the day off--playing football on xbox since football is rained out today

Our walk out is clear!

Prepared......I hope.....

I spent a good portion of this weekend trying to prepare for my namesake to roll through town.  The leaves took on lives of their own and I am pretty sure they were multiplying behind my back!  Here is what the side yard looked like when I started.  It was 3-4 inches deep with leaves!

Hours of raking and bagging of these leaves on one side of the house looked like this in the end.  Yes we don't have any grass on this side of the house---it just won't grow!  I blame the trees--they are the kind with roots super close to the surface and grass just doesn't want to grow.  Thankfully it's the side of our house that we never see--just one window on this side of the house.  ;)  I raked these leaves btw since the sump drainage is right here and the regular gutters of course.  I wanted a place for all of that water to go--not just sitting on top of the leaves.

On Sunday I went outside and saw this...............................

Really?  All of that work?  Oh well--I moved on to the other issue at our house when it rains......the walk out basement.  Evan had cleared the leaves on Saturday before he left but it was covered again on Sunday.  I know it will get more leaves but I needed to make it clear to make myself feel better.  If there are too many leaves the drain gets clogged and then the water can get in the doors.....it's happened to us many times in the last 10 years.

Ahhh that's better.  (though I'm sure it's full again now)  Then I decided to try and get my car into the garage.  Yes we are one of those families who have a 2 car garage and only one car in it.  Evan's car is normally in the garage but his is at BWI so it was the perfect time to try and get my car inside.  Cal has some large trees that have lost large branches before---better to have the car inside just in case!

How are you preparing?

As of this morning it seems Hurricane Sandy is going to make a direct hit in our area sometime on Monday.    (impacts to be felt starting on Sunday though) My name has been in countless tweets for the past few days--no good.  They are saying it's going to be bad--though no one knows for sure.  If the derecho back in June taught us anything it's that our power could be out for days--AGAIN.  I really don't want to lose everything in the fridge again.  Though if we lose power this time at least it isn't 90+ degrees outside.  That is a silver lining I guess.  

So this morning I am going out for supplies like the rest of the free world.  What is on my list?  You know.....the essentials like chips, crackers, cookies, diapers, wipes, soda, a flashlight or two (we only have one really good one) and bread.  I figure if we lose power we can have sandwiches, snacks and cereal.  lol  I know a lot of people buy water before an impending storm but we have a large water cooler in the kitchen so we are def covered there.  

I hope to keep our basement dry since it was repaired about this time last year after flooding during that freak 3 hour downpour last September.  Since then we have replaced our gutters and filled a big hole at the top of our basement stairs--hopefully we won't have any flooding down there.  Evan has figured out how to use a power inverter that he bought for hurricane Isabel I think so we can hook it up to a car battery to run the sump pump if the power goes out.  Fingers crossed---I really don't want to deal with the basement crap again.  Cleaning out the fridge and taking cold showers I can handle---the basement would push me in to crazy town.

The real question I have (besides will the power go out) is "will there be school on Monday and Tuesday?"  That is important right?  :)  I better make sure I have some margarita mix handy......just......in........case........

Derecho June 2012--I hate you

As everyone that reads my blog knows (or lives in the area and was in it) we had a HUGE storm blow through here on Friday night.  Later they classified it as a "derecho".  I had never heard of it but apparently they happen a lot in the Midwest but only in our area every 4 years or so.  You can read more about them in general here.  This one was apparently the worst one this area had seen in forever--add little to know warning to that and BAM!  The wind was whipping around at 60-70 mph almost the second the storm hit us.  Our power flickered a few times and then OUT!  Ugh.  Evan and I sat in the boys rooms until the storm had passed and went to bed hoping the power would return soon.

We got up in the am and heard on the radio that the area could be out of power for days and over a million people were out of power.  Don't forget it was about 100 degrees this weekend.  Before we left for the All Star game I looked at the damage outside:

Some of our siding pulled away from the house

The green leaves on the ground were part of a HUGE branch that fell--thankfully Evan's car wasn't there anymore.  You can also see the wind pushed over Travis' pitch back net and Brody's basketball hoop

Overall it wasn't too bad considering some people had trees inside their houses now.  Thankfully Kristen and Chris let us crash at their place on Saturday night.  The kids had a blast playing and we got to go with them to the fireworks display out in Brambleton.  No power still on Sunday so it was off to my parents house for another night of fun.  The cousins had fun playing and it was kind of like living at home again--except my parents are in Germany!  lol

Yay!  We found some puzzles!

Travis walking to the fireworks--he doesn't like loud noises.  :)

Maggie and Travis

BOOM

Maggie, Morgan and Travis

Thank goodness when we got home from the gym on Monday to check on the cats the power was back!  The good thing about tossing a lot of stuff from the fridge?  It got super cleaned out.  ;)

Nothing but ice packs

Filling up!

Basement woes

On Tuesday they took away the final blowers and dehumidifiers out of the basement in an attempt to dry our vanity out.  Notice I used the word "attempt".  Well it failed and that has to be removed as well.  The total damage has been all of the carpet, padding and baseboards, some of the drywall (and paint obviously), the back of a CD cabinet and the vanity in our bathroom.  Insurance is saying they are covering everything but I won't believe it 100% until everything is done and all of the bills have been paid or reimbursed.  Today the 1st of many contractors paraded through the house for estimates.....here we go.......

My basement and water are not friends

I'm sure most of you saw that our basement got really wet on Thursday.  After pushing our shop vac back and forth full of water for more than 3 hours I lost the war and the water came in.  The general consensus is that the sump pump backed up since shortly after I lost the battle at the door I turned around and water was moving across the carpet from EVERYWHERE.  Basically from the outside--in.  My dad explained it to me but I can't remember--all I can recall is that when the sump pump backs up seams all around your house can give way and the water has to go somewhere.  There was a tiny patch of carpet maybe 1x1 that stayed dry though all of this--at the bottom of the stairs.  It was crazy.

Currently thanks to some generous friends and family we have 2 dehumidifiers and 5 fans running in the basement to try and dry the carpet some and keep mold at bay.  The suggestion was also made to turn my AC WAY down.  I am freezing--sitting here on the couch wearing my fleece jacket.  Normally we have it set at 77 and currently it's a chilly 68 in here.  (shiver)

Servpro has us on the list for Thursday but I hope they get to us sooner.  I am really worried about mold and trying to save our carpet (we replaced it 3 years ago). The house is starting to stink which also sucks.  I am doing the best that I can but man this sucks!

This is the water gushing out of my sump pump--it ran for at least 6 hours non stop

The water seeping into the pool room

Some standing water in the bathroom

Here comes the water from the other side of the room

More water--the whole carpet is soaked and I pray that I saved the various plugs for the TV in time

Some funk is already growing it seems

The chicken battle....

Last night we had a chicken battle.....Travis went to the late TKD class (6:15-7:00) so I had asked Evan to have dinner ready for us when we got home. I had suggested these frozen stuffed chicken breasts and noodles. The chicken comes in a variety but Travis has eaten and liked the broccoli & cheese one and that is what Evan made him. When we got home the 1st thing out of Travis' mouth when told that was dinner was...."that is disgusting-I'm not eating that". He then proceeds to ask for a Lunchable which Evan tells him no. Now the whining and yelling starts. Evan decided we were going to get him to eat this or he was going to bed hungry. I got him to try a bite but he started pretend gagging-I told him if he threw up he was going to A) clean it up himself and B) any toy that got barf on it would be thrown away. This made more whining, yelling and tears. Then I offered ketchup for him to dip the chicken in.....this worked and I got him to eat 1/2 of the chicken. Whew! That was MUCH harder than it was supposed to be! The thing that's the most annoying about it is that he LOVES this chicken and for some reason just wanted to throw a fit about it. I wonder what will happen the next time we ask him to eat something that he doesn't want to eat......

Who needs an appendix anyway??

This adventure started last on Sunday night when Evan was complaining that his stomach hurt. Well if you had seen what he ate for dinner you would have understood.....he ate 2 Bubba burgers, 2 ears of corn, mashed potatoes, a dozen grilled shrimp and one of those tiny $1 ice cream containers. So naturally I told him he ate too much.. He had no issue going to sleep so I thought that would have been the end of it.

On Monday morning he still felt crappy but went into work anyway. After the new TV was delivered he attempted to go back to work. Apparently he left so terrible he tried to barf on 2 separate occasions but was unsuccessful. It was at this point he went home. I told him if he didn't' feel better by 3pm he needed to go to the doctor. The fact he hadn't been able to barf meant to me it wasn't a virus. So he got home and crashed in bed for a few hours. I called him at around 3 (woke him up-oops) and told him to go to urgent care. At about 4:15ish he calls me to say they think it's his appendix and for me to take him to the hospital ASAP.

It was at this point I called Mandy to see if she could get Travis at school. The ER is no place for Travis (or any kid that isn't sick). It would have sucked to try and keep him occupied while we were there. Thankfully Mandy was free and met me at the urgent care so I could give her his booster seat. Oh the fun of arranging these things on the fly!!

We got to Loudoun hospital at around 4:45pm not knowing there had been a huge accident in Ashburn a few hours earlier (the kind that closes the road etc) and most of the patients ended up in this ER. This meant we had to wait about 2.5 hours to get to the actual back part of the ER. Everyone was super nice about it.....sometimes you just have to wait. If Evan had been barfing a ton or something of course they would have taken him sooner but he was stable, no fever etc. My parents showed up at some point in there to wait with us etc. Mom was so cute telling the nurses how Evan's parents were in NC and they were the "2nd team". The doctor comes in at around 7:30...feels around and says "I think it's your appendix". They take him to get a CAT scan (they had him drink this contrast stuff in the ER). At around 8:30ish the ER doctor comes in and says...."yep it's your appendix-you will need surgery either tonight or tomorrow morning." Evan got wheeled up to the surgical prep area at around 9:45pm where we met with the surgeon. There had been a lot of hot appendixes that day since Evan was going to be his 3rd one!

Mom and Dad left when Evan was wheeled into surgery at around 10:30ish and they went over to my house for a bit to see Mandy. At around 11:30pm the surgeon came into the waiting room and said everything looked great and went fine. I had to wait another hour though to see Evan. So finally at around 12:30am I got to see Evan in recovery. He was pretty out of it and kept falling asleep. We had agreed that I wouldn't leave until Evan was in a normal room (not in recovery). Finally at 1:30am they took him to his room on the surgical recovery floor. It was obviously at this point I left the hospital for at least a few hours! I got to the house at 2am and a very sleepy Mandy was glad to go home! :)

Unfortunately for me Travis woke up at 6:30am on his own the next morning. Booooo. Oh well. I told Travis where Daddy was (since he was asking) and he immediately started to cry these huge tears and sob "daddy". It was too sweet. Eventually I got him to stop crying and told him Daddy would be home that night. We got dressed for school etc and Travis requested a trip to Dunkin Donuts. Since I wasn't going into work we had the time to spare this morning for the donut run and to sit there and eat them (normally he takes them in the car). Evan called when we there and Travis wanted to talk to him. He was so worried about his Daddy. :( I got him off the school OK and then I headed over to the hospital.

All of the nurses at the hospital were soooo nice. I'm sure it can be a thankless job at times but they were all so great! When I got there he was eating breakfast-it looked so good-well maybe not! :) From that point on we watched TV, used the computer and he slept. LOL. At around lunchtime they said he could go home! It took about 3 hours for us to leave-typical with paperwork etc. Evan was glad to get home! He has 3 tiny incisions and seems to be doing very well!

Seriously.....he pooed where this time???

Before we get to what is making you read this-LOL. There were other things we did Saturday before this happened. After being lazy around the house in the morning we all eventually got cleaned up and dressed and headed out to the hot tub store to purchase a new hot tub! THe old one has been having problems for a long time and Evan was finally fed up with making repairs to the old one. While Evan discussed colors etc with the guy who worked there I watched Travis play pool with a kids sized cue. Once he got the hang of it-he was pretty good! After Evan spent the $6000 for the hot tub (ouch)....we headed over to the mall for some lunch. Evan suggested we go to Vapiano's...where Evan and Travis both had pizza and I ordered pasta. THe boys both liked their pizza but for some reason my taste has changed towards pesto pasta and I didn't eat very much of it. Good thing Travis had a kids pizza and it was HUGE! Thankfully he didin't notice I was eating it-lol.

Later that afternoon we had made plans to go over to Matt and Jen's house for dinner and for the kids to all play. Travis gets along well with both Jonathan and Alex so it usually works out well. Jen forgot to get hot dogs for the kids so she and I went up to the store in her new mini van! ALways nice to ride in a new car! The guy and girl working the check out line in Giant thought we were 24 and 27 years old instead of 35 and 38! LOVE IT! Everyone enjoyed a great dinner from the grill-including Travis' favorite food...baked beans! The kids were playing so nicely and eventually someone got the idea to start up the firepit to roast marshmellows. It was getting dark at this point and the kids had fun roasting marshmellows. We found out that Travis really doesn't like it when the marshmellows turn black-oh well. I ended up eating a lot of marshmellows he made black! Then the kids got bored with this and the kids started chasing each other in the grass....this is where the title comes in....

All of a sudden one of the kids says "Travis is pooing!!!!" I get Evan to go over there (oh wait did I tell you he had drunk about 1/2 a bottle of bourboun at this point?). Evan takes Travis inside and someone says he pooped on the mat by the back door of their house. Sure enough he did (also remember we are getting over the pooping issues of the past few weeks and the laxatives make it urgent when you ahve to go). I find out from Evan that he had apaprently already used the bathroom once and done a poor job wiping his bottom and making it 100% in the toilet (got it on the seat). A little later after we think everything is cleaned up I notice these brown spots on the carpet in the room from the door to the bathroom. Yep-they are poo spots. It turns out Evan stepped in the poo on the mat and tracked it all over the basement-UGH! So I spent the next 15 minutes scrubbing the spots on their floor. Hopefully it all looks OK today.....how embarassing!

After everyone came inside the kids were playing a little more on the deck and then Travis gets this HUGE spliner in his big toe. This was soooo much fun! He carried on like we were removing his leg or something. After the longest 5 minutes of my life the splinter was finally out! We left around this point since all the kids were exhausted (it was about 10pm). Travis of course fell asleep in the car.....

OMG.....he did what in the yard???

On Thursday night we were playing outside with some of the neighborhood friends and we had an issue..... To give some background information....lately Travis has been having issues going poop. We have changed his diet, given him fiber gummies and it hasn't really helped. I have an appointment scheduled with the doctor on Monday but for now we are all suffering. He spends a long time in the bathroom each time he tries and only a small piece comes out. He used to be so good about pooping--one huge log 2 or 3 times a week and he did it fast! So back to Thursday night....we were playing on someone's swingset when all of a sudden he started pulling down his pants and bending over with a huge poo stuck to his bum. Next thing I knew he was starting to squat in the yard! This is when I started screaming "pull up your pants....we don't poop in people's yards.....you are not a dog!" Somehow I got his pants up whiteout the poop falling out and I made him walk home with that poo in his underwear. When we got home I had to go over with him the whole....when you need to go to the bathroom you tell Mommmy immediately-you don't starting pooing your pants in the yard! Hopefully he remembers that next time he has to poo when he's having a good time outside....only time will tell though. ;)

1st Bike accident of the season.....

I forgot to mention that Travis had his 1st bike accident of season. I'm not 100% sure what happened but Travis, Sean and Kelly were riding their bikes down their driveway and somehow Travis and Sean collided. Both boys were crying and screaming and the bikes were pretty banged up. I found Travis in Andy's front yard screaming that his face hurt. Sean took off crying so I'm not really sure where he was hurt (if anywhere) but it looked like his bike took a beating. Cal had been standing right there unloading his car and said it didn't look like it was that bad of a crash but I'm not sure if he saw how it happened. I'm sure Travis misjudged and swerved into Sean but I don't really know. Travis got over the trauma of the crash pretty quickly but he is still sporting this bruise on his right cheek over 2 days later! I think it was from the handlebars....it's going to be a long season of bikes. I had better stock up on band-aids and Bactine! :)

The great powder incident of 2009

This picture was taken BEFORE this incident...aren't they innocent? ;)

Yesterday Travis and Kelly were playing together. This is a normal occurrence and they were playing very nicely together. After about 2 hours I asked Evan to go and see what they were doing upstairs (mind you they had just gone up there maybe 10 minutes before that). Then I hear Evan yelling..."TRAVIS WHAT DID YOU DO? LOOK AT THIS PLACE"......on and on and on......

I get up there and find Travis and Kelly in the bathroom covered in powder and Travis smelled like deodorant as well. Kelly was quickly taken home by her mom and Travis was placed in his room crying and apologizing the whole way there. Now we aren't sure how to proceed since the powder has been tracked by little feet running back and forth upstairs and the bulk of it is on the bathroom floor. Thankfully I remembered we have the hard floor cleaner and brought that upstairs. It did a good job on the floors thankfully and then it was time to move onto the counter, tub etc. Evan put the powder covered Travis in the bath at some point during this so he could get clean as well. I found lotion had been added to the mix at this point and there was even powder in the automatic cat watering machine.....yikes. All in all it took about 30 minutes to clean up and Travis was punished of course (no TV that night).

Earlier they had been pretending to be "husband and wife" so my guess is they were pretending to get ready for work or something. Who knows. I'm sure it was Travis' idea to start it but we will never know because he won't fess up. I did get some cute pictures and video of them in bed before all of this and Travis reading her a bedtime story. Hopefully my card reader will be happier tonight and let me load the pictures/videos to post here.....