Sandy

I'm WAAAY overdue for an update, life has been so crazy lately.  I hate to let the last few weeks go by without recording it, although I don't think it's a time I'll soon forget.

Sandy came by in all her glory a few weeks ago.  The day before she hit, Glenn took off to Loma Linda for an interview.  Honestly, neither of us thought much of the storm.  I think I got myself one crummy flashlight and an extra loaf of bread, you know, because that makes so much sense. 

The night of the hurricane, the wind shook my doors so loudly that you would have thought that aliens were trying to get in.  The power went out around 8pm and didn't come back on that night.  So we all went to bed really early, trying hard to ignore the wind and the flashes of exploding transformers around us.

I was shocked to wake up the next morning without power.  Already, I don't think I'd ever gone so long without it.  So we played along.  I put a bunch of my refrigerated stuff on my back porch and didn't dare open my deep freeze for fear of it thawing.  I had that thing chuck full of meats that I did NOT want to lose.  We did a lot of reading, playing and hanging out.  The kids did a lot better than I did.  With school canceled they were pretty thrilled to just occupy themselves while I waited anxiously for the power come back.  Glenn was suppose to come back that night, but there was no way, I had no idea when to expect him.

Day after day went by without power.  We did our best to pass the time, trips to the library and grocery store.  My deep freeze held on like a champ, you won't believe how long that thing can hold a freeze!  Of course, the cold weather helped, I'm sure.  It was surreal to know that you were going through something big, but get so little information about it.  Not having access to TV or internet, we really had no idea what was going on, or when we would get power.    I had to sit in my car if I wanted the news, something I didn't want to do because of the gas shortage and fear of running my battery out (which I managed to do anyway.)  I also had no idea how much worse it was for people in the NY area. I was shocked to find out after we returned to normal. 

Glenn did get back three days after the power outage, and picking him up turned out to be an interesting experience.  On the way I noticed that the far right hand lane was at a standstill and everyone seemed uncharacteristically pulled to the side.  I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out what everyone was doing.  The only thing I could see at all in the distance was a Sonic.  Surely things hadn't gotten THAT bad, had they.  Literally, about half a mile later I saw a gas station, and it all made sense.  These people were waiting in line for no less than four hours to fill their cars.  There were so few stations actually working and people weren't able to get to their jobs because of the shortage.  Luckily, my car had been filled before the storm, didn't plan it, but I sure will next time!

Going to the airport was a really nice break.  Once of the most exhausting parts of a power outage is the constant darkness.  I found a cozy spot at baggage claim and plugged EVERYTHING in.  I checked my email, let the kids watch a movie, and enjoyed electricity for a while.  It was nice to get Glenn back that night, but he was, of course, on call the very next day.

One HUGE blessing of the storm was that we still had hot water and use of our gas stove.  I can't even tell you how much that helped.  I had enough food in the house that we were mostly able to just eat up what we had, very little of our food went to waste.  Nothing is as healing as a warm meal.  Taking a hot shower at the end of a cold day really helped too.

Another huge blessing was how helpful the people in our lives were.  I was continuously texted and called throughout the week, people from in and out of town checking in on us.  I knew that if we were desperate enough, there were a lot of people that would quickly take us in.  It was a very comforting feeling.  I'll never forget the kindness of our friends and family.

Friday night, our spirit was starting to break.  Our car needed gas, but the thought of duking it out with a thousand angry New Jersey residents was an overwhelming though.  We were almost out of food, but didn't want to buy any, seeing as we had no idea when our fridge would work again, and we were SO sick of sitting in a dark house.  I called my precious cousin Tiff who informed me that Philly was up and running with gas stations and power.  That's all it took to make the trip over.  We got to see our cousins and friends while we were there, and then surprisingly, I got a text from my neighbor that the power was back on!!  We got the rest of what we needed and high tailed it home to take care of our apartment now that we had power. 

I threw almost nothing from my freezer out, most of my meat remained frozen solid, after six days!  It was shocking to see for the first time how dirty my house was.  You live at a completely different level with no power.  I did my best to keep things tidy, but without a vacuum, washer/dryer, and proper lighting, there are just things you can't take care of.  I was SO happy to scour from top to bottom and I'm pretty sure we kept the TV on the entire rest of the day. 

Like I said, what we went through was NOTHING like what so many other people went through, but we still had an experience that I don't think I'll ever forget.  And there are so many things that I'll never take for granted again.

Turkey Lee Farms

If you have been following my blog for the last few years, you know that every single fall we like to go to at least one orchard or pumpkin patch, if not several. Freddy Hill Farms was a tradition that held up every year I was in Philly. I love it because the falls here are so beautiful, and it's such a fun kickoff to my favorite season.

 So when our ward announced that the youth were having a trip to the apple orchards, but everyone was welcome, we said, "why not?" It ended up being such a great way to get to know the people in our ward better and see some beautiful New Jersey sites. NJ might be scummy in some neighborhoods, but it can also be so gorgeous and peaceful. They don't call it The Garden State for nothing.

The kids playing with the youth in our ward.  I'm amazed at how amazing our youth are.  They are some of the most driven, non-judgemental kids I've ever been.  Pleasant and friendly as heck.  I need to get tips from their parents!

Turkeys.  It was a bit sad seeing them all cooped up in the cage like this, but it's definitely not going to stop me from eating my weight's worth come Slapsgiving (name that reference!)

My darling friend Claire.  We just love her and her family.

Apple picking!  We got an entire barrel, and surprisingly had them used up in about a week.  I've caught the baking bug!

Once our bishop found out that there was a corn maze at the orchard, it was a done deal, we were going.  I sat out, but Jayda went with some of the YW, which she thought was so cool and made her feel very grown up.  Skyler and Glenn went through together and were the first ones to make it out.

First Day of School

After the long hot month that we had, I think we were all SO ready for school to start.  I feel so lucky to have such fearless and outgoing kids, there was not a single shred of hesitation as I got them ready to get on the bus to their new school.

I really worked hard to make sure that they had a good first morning of school.  We got up nice and early, ate a big breakfast, packed emaculate lunches and snacks, and STILL managed to miss the bus!

Apparently the bus left a lot earlier than it was supposed to, and we weren't at the right stop.  Luckily we were able to catch the bus as it came back.  I walked back to my apartment, frazzled, to see both of my kid's lunches sitting in the parking lot.  Truthfully, I was happy to have an excuse to meet them at their school without seeming like an frantic mom who doesn't trust the bus to get my kids to school safely.

Fortunately, my kids made it just fine, I was able to walk them both to their lines, and they both had great days.  We're already a month into the school year and they're really enjoying school.

August in New Jersey

I'm not going to lie to you, August was a tough month.  REALLY tough.  When I came back from Idaho, I was not quite prepared to spending so much time in a weird new area by myself with the kids.  Not to mention how hot and humid it was, and knowing almost no one.  However, with a few tender mercies we got through it and now we're much happier here.

One of the best things about the month was meeting our neighbors.  There is a family a few doors down from us with the sweetest boy named Myles and the kids are just obsessed with him.  The kids played outside a ton, which initially was hard for me because I'm not used to being able to just send my kids out to play.  But, after getting to know the neighborhood better and feeling more comfortable, it's gotten much better.

These first few pics are of Jayda's birthday.  Since we had her big party in Idaho, we did a small night of "Homemade Kiwi Loco" which is a frozen yogurt place we love in Idaho.  She picked out two kinds of ice creams and three different toppings.  All of which had no business combing with each other.  I believe it was birthday cake and mint chip ice cream with Skittles, M&M's and Sour Patch Watermelons to put on top.  Hey man, kids love it.

Jayda is very much an aspiring hairdresser, as you can see.

The three amigos.

One night, hours after putting the kids to bed we went to our room and found this.  It was hard to put them back.

Celery boats! 

Sky's deconstructed celery boat.  Kid doesn't like peanut butter.

One of the biggest life savers was that I found a GREAT gym.  I'm head over heels in love with it.  I honestly didn't think I'd be able to join one with the prices out here, but I found one having a special and got really lucky.  It's a medically based facility so it's never crowded with muscle heads, but still full of people serious about fitness.  It has child care (woo hoo), gorgeous locker rooms and great classes.  As crazy as it sounds, I felt so blessed to have a place where I could do something good for myself, and the kids could get a break from me, especially when I'm being grumpy.

Our Move to New Jersey

All through HS I was a really dedicated journaler, but a lousy picture taker.  Now I'm a really good picture taker and a really bad journaler.  I'm hoping to be better at both from now on.  So from now on there will probably be more picture-less journal style entries so that I can remember the little things as well as the big things. 

Our move to NJ went really well.  We had a lot of great help from our friends in the ward (THANK YOU!) and loaded the truck up the night before we'd be leaving, knowing that we were going to have to drive it all to NJ and unload completely to have the truck back that night.

The next day I got up in time to go to Body Combat for the last time.  I'm so glad that I was able to go and say goodbye to all of my gym peeps, but it also left me SO exhausted after such a long day of moving.

We saw our apartment for the first time when we pulled up to it.  I love that we have a first level private entry (if you had to go up and down elevators ten times a day for four years, you'd understand), and the quiet neighborhood.  I did not love how little storage and closet space I had.  However, it's amazing what you can fit when you get really creative, and it felt like home in no time. 

We met quite a few people in our new ward that night, who were so sweet to come help complete strangers move in.  I don't know what we would have done without their help.  We managed to get everything unloaded and the truck returned in time.  We finally had dinner that night around 9pm, KFC.  Since we didn't have our silverware unloaded yet, we fashioned spoons out of the tin foil and got a kick out of our creativity. 

The first two months were a blur, and very little of it was actually spent in NJ (Texas and Idaho).  However, we were here long enough to get to know our new ward and a few of our neighbors.  Our ward is AWESOME.  I gush every time I think about it.  The people were so friendly from our very first day and I grow to love it more every week.  Glenn had a place to go for dinner every Sunday that I was in Idaho, which alone endeared me to the ward very quickly.  We also have great neighbors.  The kids are outside playing every single day, and their parents are wonderful.  We've spent quite a few evenings chatting outside until the sun went down.  We feel so lucky to already have such great people in our lives.

Do I love New Jersey?  No, not particularly.  But there are a lot of things I love ABOUT it, and we're very happy here.  I would not mind if Glenn matched here and I'm hoping to get to know the surrounding areas a lot better (NEW YORK CITY!).

More pics and updates to come...

Longest Flight of My Life

I promise that this isn't a "complain post." It's more of a "oh-my-gosh-I-can't-believe-I-survived-that post."

One really annoying problem I have is that I get motion sick, really easily.  The older I get, the worse it gets.  I can't sit in the back seat during a long drive, I can't read in the car, and don't even think about getting me onto MOST carnival rides.  It's not happening, until I've taken dramamine, a ginger candy and have been partially hypnotized.

Needless to say, I don't fly well.  And idiot that I am, even AFTER throwing up four times on the flight TO Idaho, I still neglected to pack dramamine on the flight home.  We got on our squirrelly, thimble sized plane to head to Colorado and was immediately assaulted with crazy turbulence.    Since Colorado was really stormy, we were circled the airport until we ran out of gas, and had to go to Kansas to fill up.  Stomach in my throat, I called Glenn desperately looking for a solution to our flight that we were definitely going to miss.  Oh, and one of my kids peed their pants.

After finally getting off the plane, and missing my flight, I went directly to the service counter.  I was informed that there were no flights heading to Newark, New York, or La Guardia for at least two days.  But, before I could stab myself in the eye and throw a three-year old style tantrum, I was told that I could take the midnight flight to Chicago, and then the five am flight to Newark.  Basically we were going to have the longest nights of our lives.  However, it was a much more positive prospective than living at Denver airport for a weekend.

I felt a ton better after the raging motion sickness died down and we got some dinner.  I did my best make it seem like a fun game, "yay!  sleepover at the airport!"  We all got a neck pillow, one of which was almost stolen by a young man who thought he could snag it after my son dropped it.  Luckily Sky snagged it back in time, The Lord knew that I did not need to get in a fight at the airport that day.

I doped up with Dramamine (finally), and settled down for the flight to Chicago.  We all slept on that one, and when we landed I dragged my poor comatose kids about half a mile to our gate so that we could sleep until the flight.  I got to the gate to discover that the gate had change and we had to go CLEAR back to where we got off.  Sky was bawling at that point, so I figured I'd just let the kids sleep for a few hours.  I didn't dare doze off with my kids and bags sitting out, so I spent a good three hours trying desperately not to hallucinate from sleep deprivation and stress.  Finally around 4am, I hauled my kids back to our gate.

Before the flight I took another dramamine, which as it turns out, isn't necessary, and passed out immediately on the plane, along with my kids.  We finally landed and met Glenn frazzled and exhausted.  When we went to get our bags, surprise, they weren't there.  I did not care at that point and went home to sleep off the flight and overdose of dramamine. 

All's well that ends well though.  I got some sleep, Glenn got to spend the day with the kids after being away from them for a month, and the bags got back safe and sound.  It was a tough flight, but honestly, after something like that, I think I could handle just about any flight I had to deal with in the future.  I just won't forget my dramamine.

Quick Utah Trip

While I was in Idaho, I snagged the opportunity to run to Utah to visit friends and family.  It was a quick two day trip, but well worth it.  Our first day was in Utah where we were fed a delicious home cooked dinner, and enjoyed a beautiful day with my Grandma and Grandpa, Jordan and her kids and my Aunt Mardenne and William.  It was so nice to get to see all of these guys again, I hadn't seen them in quite a long time.  I LOVED being back in my grandma's house.  She keeps it so cute and I have a ton of nice childhood memories there.  My grandpa took the kids on a ton of rides behind his lawnmower.  They loved it!

The next morning, we swung by the Matson's before heading home.  I adore this family and it was really nice to see them in their new place in Utah.  I also got to get to know their new youngest, Ronan, who is such a doll!