ready

We are ready for Hurricane Irene.

We live west of Philadelphia so we are under a Tropical Storm Warning versus a Hurricane Warning.  Which means we will still have heavy rain, wind gusts in the 55 - 70 mph range, localized flooding and widespread power outages.  In order to prepare, we have battened down the hatches (love that phrase).  We have removed all of our porch furniture, stored the deck furniture and taken down any thing that can fly away. 

Inside we have gathered all our candles, flashlights and batteries into one location.  Moved boxes away from the sump pump due to projected power outages.  I went to the grocery store today to stock up on food for Grace, Doritos and coffee.  Although, if we are out of power I guess I will not be drinking any coffee.  We also have bottled water and (I'm a little embarrassed to admit) I filled the bath tub with water.  I'm not sure why this step seems extreme to me but I decided I'd rather be safe than sorry and if we loose power for longer than 24 - 36 hours I may be glad to have the water.

Mark helped with the preparations and then left for work.  He is working about 40 minutes south of here, which puts him in the Hurricane Warning area.  We are thinking that he will be able to get home before the worst part of the storm hits around midnight or two am.  However, we are not sure he will be able to get out to go to work tomorrow due to the flooding they are predicting.

We also spent the last week of summer checking things off our summer list and hanging out as a family.  One of the kids favorite places to go to is the 'Horsey Park', which is actually called Carousel Park.  It is large park that has, wait for it, horses.  They have barns you can walk through and areas for riding lessons.  But our family loves the big, fenced in pastures where the horses roam free.  We try and call them over to the fence by snickering.  John is really good at this.

If that doesn't work, we lure them over with hay and grass we pick up from the ground.

The boys just love this park.  And sister really loves the horses.  She has no fear.  She walked up to a huge horse and reached out to pet his face.  Neither one of the boys will do that.  I was too nervous with her so close to the horses to get any pictures of her petting them.

We also took the kids to the Delaware Museum of Natural History.  We went last August during their Dollar Tuesdays and the boys wanted to go again this year.  It is a nice museum but we only went again because it was a dollar.  This year we took Grace too.  It had one new exhibit otherwise everything else was the same as last year.  We raced through in an hour spent an hour there looking at all the animal exhibits and then went out to lunch.

We took some pictures outside the museum with the sculptures they have on the grounds.   Here are some pictures by the wild boar that spits water out of his mouth.

Next, the boys wanted their picture taken by the bear statue.  When we got over there, Mark decided it would be fun to put Luke in the arms of the bear.

As you can see, Luke did not like that idea.  So Mark put Grace up in the bears arms.

Grace didn't seem to mind it.  But after that experience, Luke was done.  So we left...

We are also ready for school.  Yesterday was a spectacularly bad for us.  The boys spent the whole day either not listening or fighting with each other.  Unfortunately, we had to take Grace to feeding therapy at the hospital and then go to Grace's school to meet her new teacher.  So instead of separating them and sending them to their rooms until school starts on Monday.  We got to be out in public during their terrible behavior.  To add to the fun, Grace had a particularly nasty diaper on the hour drive to her school and then starting crying and fighting to get away from me as I was changing her.  That was the exact minute I met her new teacher.  It was perfect timing (she says sarcastically), I was tired, frustrated, poop covered and close to tears.  But her new teacher has been in the Special Ed field for 30 years so I explained my situation and she was very nice.  I have learned to just say, 'that's how we roll' to many, many situations that arise from having a significantly disabled child and two rambunctious boys.

I also took Luke to his sneak a peak Friday morning and we got to meet his Kindergarten teacher.  I need a minute to compose myself every time I think about that.  His class has 12 kids and 2 teachers.  I think it will be a good ratio for him.

We also got to meet a few of the kids that will be in his room, and found out that he knows two boys from previous years at this same school.  There is also a little girl adopted from China and another girl adopted from Guatemala in his room.  This is the first year we have had any other internationally adopted children in any of the kids rooms.  I think it will be fun to get to know these other families. 

John had sneak a peak on Thursday but we missed it because the boys were at a birthday party and since John has the same teacher he had last year he didn't feel the need to go.  However, we did buy him a new backpack this year (in July) and a bunch of new school supplies.  He has had his backpack packed since we bought it and is excited for the first day of school.

So we are ready.  We hope we are for Irene.  We know that we are ready for school to start on Monday.  Although, we are not sure if we will have school.  I guess it all depends on Irene right now.