Barely hanging in there!!!

Whew, that Hurricane MASSIVE FIRE DRILL threw our lives for a loop this month including loss of business income (not fun when we are trying to finish a re-modeled home ahead of the holidays) and just a WHOLE LOT OF WORK and effort and energy to pack things up, button up our house, and then put it all back away when thankfully the storm passed and spared our beachside community, JUST BARELY. We are alive and somewhat well, busy trying to manage being self employed, juggle what is always a busy time of year in school for two kids, and work to make up the time we lost due to the hurricane and subsequent dead two weeks while everyone else put their lives back together too!!! We had to cancel our trip to Disney that we normally take this year due to all of the chaos and needing to be home rather than on the road a weekend after all of the back and forth to the lake and evacuation and then assmembling our lives again but we swapped out the Halloween event for Mickey's Christmas party so will go instead for a weekend in early December. In the midst of all of this my lap top got a virus, and it messed up the Adobe Flash drive so now pictures won't post....If I can pry Jon away from all of the honey do tasks I have him working on at this crazy house we are trying to finish I hope to have the computer fixed this weekend so I can post the pics I attempted to post from the last post during the hurricane and also so I can post some of the Halloween fun we've been having (despite the storm earlier this month) and also to show the progress we are continuing to make on the home front....we have GRASS in the front and back now, and a working sprinkler system!! Next up, front yard landscaping, and the painters coming back to touch up the house after all of the crazy boards had to be drilled into the house and trim to protect it when the hurricane came...I hope to be free of contractors at least for round one of this house re-model by Thanksgiving!!! Round two will wait a year or so for the kitchen and I will get to the bathrooms one by one once we've had some time to enjoy our house contractor free!! So, it has been an unconventional fall with the crazy hurricane and being evacuated and then thrown back into life and work and school full force but we are making it. We are looking forward to seeing some family soon over Thanksgiving and maybe Grandma and Grandpa too in the coming weeks if we can figure out getting the dining room furniture set moved down here. We are also looking forward and starting to finalize our travel plans and last details for our Colorado ski trip again this Christmas. I booked the big details already months ago (thank goodness) including our ski in ski out condo (doing this right this year) and flights and rental car, but have to get the details nailed down for ski rental, lift passes and ski school for the kids and dogs boarding here, etc. Never a dull moment it seems in this season of life!!

Hurricane Matthew

I am happy to report we survived our first category 4 hurricane just off the shores less than 100 miles from Vero Beach!!! We have not been home yet to inspect the interior of our home but we had a friend who stayed on the island through the storm walk the property and there was no indication of damage or a breach in the roof which is good. Power is out to most of our county including the barrier island at this time so we are still at the lake. WHAT A WEEK IT HAS BEEN...WHAT DAY IS IT??!! OMG!!! I think the only other times in my life I have felt this dis-oriented as to my normal routine, life, schedule, and knowing days of the week and time in general was those first few days after I had both kids!!! This is a completely different situation though!!! The week started out normal on Monday with work and school and even a piano being delivered and the week was filled with excitement with plans for a fun weekend ahead including a live Jake Owen concert to be held right in his home town of Vero Beach on Saturday night and we were all going to go!!! I also had plans to landscape this weekend after the irrigation system was supposed to be repaired mid week, and we were going to go to storage to get the Halloween decorations out. By Tuesday however the plans changed drastically as a hurricane off shore that had been circling out there for over a week was inching every so slowly closer and closer to Florida and with every passing hour the weather forecast was getting worse and worse as the storm that had originally been predicted to stay out to sea was suddenly going to be a major event for the eastern side of the state of Florida with Vero Beach looking like it was going to take a direct land fall hit............everyone panicked about mid-day Tuesday and gassed up their cars and started making runs for ice, water, food, and stocking up and by Tuesday night gas stations all over town were out of gas and you could not find a bottle of water anywhere other than in someone's recycling bin!!! By Wednesday morning all schools were closing at noon as were all county and local government offices and most businesses were packing up and boarding up as were home owners. I am normally a calm and organized person but I will admit this rattled me BAD. I felt like I did not know what to do and when and what to take, what to leave, or how to pack once we decided late Wednesday afternoon that we were leaving and not riding this out in the house. Initially it seemed like we would be fine to stay in the house but then the forecast got worse and worse and the predictions just down right scary with an 8-11 foot storm surge predicted and winds in excess of 140mph which can tear apart even the most well built home and being across the street from the river and about a half a mile if that from the ocean we decided NOT WORTH THE RISK and after waffling, mobilized and packed up the house, ourselves, the kids, and three animals and headed for the lake! I also packed up my office that morning with my staff, again no one knowing quite how to prepare but we took the server, the computer towers, and moved all things away from windows and put all art work and my diplomas inside cabinets and taped the metal filing cabinets shut and I took all original client wills and trusts to the vault I rent at the bank off the island just to be safe. Talk about exhausting??!! After Jon had spent two days boarding up the entire house, and we had packed things up, moved all patio furniture inside the house, etc. we had an easy drive to the lake as the rest of the east coast of Florida was on state route 60 headed to the west coast of Florida to places like Tampa, Sarasota, Naples, etc. We were never so thankful we actually OWN our own home and had a safe haven to go to stocked with all of our own creature comforts and to boot, the cleaning lady, Debbie, that we use here at the lake had been there that morning so it was pristine:) She had also pulled in all of our patio furniture on the upstairs and downstairs patio and checked to make sure our sheds were locked up tight so we did not have to deal with that in the dark. She is amazing and we were sure to thank her when we got in!! It was so nice also to come to our own home that the animals are already comfortable with since we had all three of them with us. I cannot imagine paying high rates in a hotel, eating out, and having three animals to deal with!!! Thursday the rain and wind started in Vero and Thursday morning when the winds reached 39 mph the police closed all bridges to the barrier island so whoever had not evacuated and heeded the warning of a mandatory evacuation for the barrier island was stuck! We woke up to a flat lake here and good weather. We went out to breakfast, and then came back to the house, cleaned up the dock a bit, fished from the dock, and then took the boat for a spin before tucking it all up really well on the lifts out on the dock. The first rain bands started mid day and then it rained steadily all afternoon and into the evening. The wind did not pick up here until the early morning hours on Friday. Jon and I were awake around 3:00 am and turned on the news...note we had access the entire time to our LOCAL NEWS because Jon thought to bring our direct tv cable box from the house to the lake...Only Jon would a. think of this and b. know how to make it work.....but it was a really good idea because we could monitor local conditions and here the news we get is from Tampa so we would have had no idea what was going on!!! The worst of the storm passed through Vero in the early morning hours on Friday am about when we were awake but for reasons no one understands the storm at the last minute stopped moving west and stayed out to see just off the coast and cruised past Vero with lots of wind and rain but the winds did not exceed about 75 mph vs the projected 140+ which was a game changer as far as damage to homes and structures in our community. Friday morning brought relief and exhaustion for most of us and confirmation from neighbors and friends who were in the area that our homes were still standing and other than quite a bit of tree and landscaping debris all over the place, most structures seemed to be relatively ok. most of the community is still without power so we decided it would be crazy to go back until we know the power is restored. While we have had high winds 30-40mph here at the lake all day and lots of waves, we still have power and AC and all of the food I took from Vero (I emptied two refrigerators and freezers adn brought it all with us, nothing would have been grosser than going home to rotten food and stench) so we will stay another day or so. HOpefully the power in Vero will be restored by sometime tomorrow (Saturday) as we need a few days at home to put our life and my office back together so we can function again next week!!! The wind has been whipping all day at the lake and we've played board games, we found a random pizza place that was open and went out for lunch after cabin fever was starting to sink in. We've made the best of a crazy unplanned situation and had some good family time. The days ahead will still be tiring as we work to put our life back together and go back to work and school mode but thankfully that is the worst of what lies ahead and we are not dealing with filing major insurance claims and dealing with being displaced from our home we just spent so much time, effort, and money to restore!!! Here are some pictures of the hurricane preparation, and riding out the hurricane itself. Sarabeth and Jackson did great for their first hurricane!!! They are true Floridians now!!!

Arrival of our baby grand piano

October is upon us, we are in full swing with school these days and cub scouts, and preparing for Halloween! I will blog about all of that another day this week however as this post is about our beautiful walnut baby grand piano that just got delivered this morning all the way from Perrysburg Ohio! My dad found the piano at an estate sale on Front Street and after it did not sell in the sale, was able to go back and inspect it and make an offer that was accepted. He then set us up with a piano mover that goes all over the country delivering pianos, literally the guy goes coast to coast and he just so happened to be making a run to Florida the week after we bought the piano and he lives in Maumee so was able to swing through and pick it up on his run south!! We were 8 of 8 stops on the deliveries south and on their way back north they were picking up pianos once again all over the east coast making their way back north, starting with picking up two pianos from a dealer in Melbourne just north of us! The piano color, size, and style is just perfect for our home! My dad has not even been here yet and really did an excellent job with size, style, and the color of the wood! We are also so happy to have a piece of our hometown area in our new home!! So it is not only beautiful but sentimental that it came right from Front Street just a few days ago and now it is in our living room! Piano lessons and finding the perfect piano teacher are up next!!! The kids are going to be so excited!! Thank you dad!!!