That Was a Doozy

We had a heck of a storm last week.  It went above and beyond an ordinary summer thunderstorm.  A little before 6pm on Tuesday, a tornado warning was issued for our area and a little after 6pm, the clouds started to roll in and soon after the rain started to fall, the power went out.  And then I looked out the window and saw the clouds moving quickly and making super-weird shapes:

Soon after that, the rain started to pour heavily and the wind kicked up another notch, so I took the kids to our ground floor and set up a little fort between two closet doors...

They colored by cell phone flashlight - SOMEBODY had been playing with our two reliable flashlights earlier in the week and had forgotten where she had put them :-)

After the wind died down and the lightning stopped flashing, we went outside to see what we could see.  Immediately we noticed that there were several fallen trees right down the street.  Also, we noticed that our landscaping had gotten a little roughed up (the hostas had been nibbled on by deer earlier in the week):

Eventually the storm cleared out and left us without power but a beautiful sunset and sky:

That night we all slept in the living room - the kids thought it was great fun to camp out in their sleeping bags with Mommy and Daddy!

Wednesday morning dawned bright, clear, and cool - such a welcome change from the hot, muggy weather we'd been having.  Clare helped me make blueberry pancakes for a special Wednesday breakfast while we tried to find out if the kids' camps were open or not.

Both kids' camps were without power and therefore closed, so I got to stay home with the kids since my train was out of service - the whole line was shut down due to the storm!

Mid-morning, we set out for the beach, figuring what a better way to spend a beautiful day without power - but we couldn't get out of the next town due to the immense traffic from all the roads closed down in our area.  We turned around and headed for home.  Not to be too disappointed, we had a picnic lunch outside and the kids had fun with the camera:

We spent the rest of Wednesday playing, napping (or trying to nap), and playing outside.  We were lucky - our power came back on at about 3:30 or 4 on Wednesday while we were outside playing in the sprinklers and with the water table.  During the next few days we kept spotting signs of the storm around our town:

The "tree tunnel" that the kids love to drive through:

Memorial Day Weekend

We played in the grass and on the patio

We found a little bee/wasp nest on the deck (yikes!!!)

We went to Erin's for a fun bbq

Besides eating yummy food, Sean got to play with Erin, Elly Dog, Megan, and Demetri

And we snacked and napped and ran errands.

We also went to the beach and Sean stayed with Aunt-Aunt Alice and Aunt Rachel while Mommy and Daddy went to the movies. There aren't any pictures of our beach trip since I thought I'd left the camera at home, but it was really in the diaper bag the whole time. :-) So, enjoy a beach photo from the archives (a/k/a last August):

Long week

Hours between now and early Saturday morning: 128

Miles between home and Omaha, Nebraska: 1,234

Having this blog to read and re-read over the next week? Priceless.

Mama is going to Omaha for work Monday morning and won't be back until very late Friday night. Thom John, Sean, and Pepper will take good care of each other this week while I will obsess over some of my favorite posts from the last six months.

I'll spend some time this week enjoying some shots of our afternoon walk today - we took advantage of what may be our last warm sunny day for a while and went to the drug store and stopped at the playground for some swinging.

Here's hoping this week flies by.

What a Champ!

We had two doctor's appointments today - one at the hospital to get an ultrasound done of Sean's kidneys and the other at the pediatrician's. Sean did very well at the ultrasound - he was pretty wiggly for the ultrasound tech but didn't cry. We'll meet with the pediatric urologist next week to discuss the images and see what actions, if any, need to be taken.

Sean finally surpassed his birth weight! He weighed in at 8lbs 11.9oz at the doctor's today and measures 23 inches long. Our current regimen of breast milk/formula is very successful and we'll continue that.

In other news, the breastfeeding gods have decided to rain down more misery on me - I have mastitis. :-(

Ow ow ow

Darn these talons - I mean, nails that just keep on growing! And darn my ever-increasing blood volume! I scratched my chin pretty badly with my own nail and the blood just keeps coming. Yet another reason why maternity leave should start in the eighth month. :-)

Dear Winter:

Go away! I can only button 2 of the 4 buttons on my largest winter coat, making for a very drafty walk from the train to work. Quit being so stubborn and let Spring get here already!

Heartburn...

I haz it. And without the fun of Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. At least the Sooy Baby will have tons of hair, right?

How annoying...

Our scanner can't detect its own USB connection to the computer or some nonsense like that, so we're working on scanning and uploading the latest ultrasound pictures.