Ike, the update

So Prince Charming went to check on our house on Sunday. We're still living here in GaGaLand, the girls are in heaven. We did manage to draw Ike this way, and lived with no power HERE and no telephones for a day or so. But all is back to work now and we're all happy. Prince Charming was TRULY a Prince for going home, cleaning up, and most especially cleaning out the fridges and freezers for me! We were very lucky, in that we had only VERY minor damage to our house. There is a small hole in our roof, looks like a branch speared it in one small spot. It is already patched, though, and can hold a few months until the people with more major repairs get theirs taken care of. We lost two big trees :*( But all in all, we are SO happy. We should be without power there for a while, though. They're telling us 3-4 weeks, so we're just taking it day by day. I am NOT going back there with two small children and a nervous and hyper dog with no power while Prince Charming jets off to Honolulu every week. I know this much, lol!

What have we learned this week?

* If we evacuate and bring about 5 days worth of summer clothes, we can pretty much guarantee a cold snap, temps in the lower to mid 50s in the morning, where the girls say "Mommy, we're brrrrrrrrzy" over and over again. This calls for a trip to Texarkana to Target and Old Navy.

* Lucky Charms make EVERYONE happy, no matter if you're 2 or 62.

* Who needs power when you have a little ceramic picnic set and mini sterling silver tea service?

* Swans will hiss at you if you get too close to try to have them eat out of your hands, but Canadian Geese and some ducks WILL get close enough to eat out of even a 4 year old's hands. (HRH's contribution)

* Having no cell service at a place you're staying when you are a cell phone junkie is HARD. I make the 100 yard walk down GaGa's driveway several times a day to check my messages and check for texts.

* My girls, in their never ending quest for total domination of the toy world, have discovered that when I am suffering from a lack of sleep, I am more likely to buy them things rather than risk having to deal with a mini-meltdown at the store. I never SAW their little pow-wow, but they teamed up and now the Hurricane is staying awake until 11:00 or so, while HRH is waking around 6, which leaves Mommy with ZERO alone and down-time during the day.

* It is NOT a good thing to have a fall-on-the-floor-and-bang-your-forehead tantrum on a tile floor (Hurricane's contribution)

* The lovebugs can see a Redbox from approximately 2.1 miles away on the open road.

* When choosing to evacuate our house, it was quickly discovered that the only irreplaceable things to me in our house were HRH, the Hurricane, and Prince Charming. Everything else is just frosting on my life's cake.

* Mommys should always keep in their purse : hand sanitizer, an extra pair of panties for each child, peanut butter crackers, Tic Tacs, and a small container of the mini M&Ms.

Feeding the geese:
Our tree (taken with a cell in the rain, so not the best pic, but so sad to lose such a beautiful old tree :*( )

*************************ADDENDUM***************************
One more item to the list occurred to me at WalMart just now

* Even when evacuating from a natural disaster, you can trust me to find and buy fabric. Sunday, I found some zebra cotton, which is SO hard to find, I think I bought a whole bolt, and today I scored some Disney Princess print for $2/yard and some Hannah Montana satin for $3/yard on the clearance rack. The girls can have new nightgowns when I get access to my sewing machine again :)