Dear Tyler,
During the last week, every meteorologist on the east coast was tracking Hurricane Irene, carefully watching it's path trying to predict where it would make landfall, and Connecticut was one of Irene's targets. The news warned people to prepare for up to twelve inches of rain, high winds, and wide spread power outages that could last for a week. The state (and the rest of the east coast) was sent into a tizzy rushing around to "prepare" for the storm. I can't lie, I was a little bit nervous about the approaching storm, it was the only news on TV for a week. At first, I went out an bought a couple of flashlights. No big deal. You got a Cars flashlight with Mater on it, which of course is super cool. As the news coverage continued, I decided that it was better to be safe than sorry, so... I went out and bought a few more flashlights and a lantern. I called all over the state of Connecticut to try to find a generator in case we lost power, we needed a way to run the sump pump with twelve inches of rain and no power. Daddy didn't want to have to bail out the basement. (I can't blame him.) I did manage to find a generator... I was the twentieth caller who got the last generator that would arrive before the storm. Next, it was time to stock up on batteries and food that we could eat without much cooking and that wouldn't spoil without refrigeration. You wouldn't believe it, every store was sold out of D batteries for flashlights.... they were no where to be found. Many stores ran out of bread and peanut butter, people were crazed, which only made me feel slightly more nervous that maybe I wasn't actually preparing enough. Luckily, we belong to Costco, and they were well stocked with bread and other "storm necessary foods." They did not however have D batteries... all sold out. They said they would get more in on Saturday, so I went first thing Saturday morning and stocked up buying batteries for us and just about everyone we know. (I felt like quite the hero - okay maybe not a hero, but certainly a very lucky lady!) At home, Daddy was preparing by putting away all the lawn furniture and toys, getting gas for the generator, and making sure the sump pump was in working order. Everything was a go! The last thing we had to do was fill the bathtub with water incase we lost water and needed to flush the toilets, and we would be well prepared.
I turned on the bath tub water, shut the door so Daddy could continue to watch the news (with only hurricane coverage), and continued on with other things around the house. I sat down to fold some laundry, and when the basket was about empty Daddy said, "Did you finish filling the bath tub yet?" Horror struck! We popped up off the couch and found water pouring out from underneath the bathroom door. I ran into the bathroom to shut off the water, and Daddy ran downstairs to the basement only to discover that it was pouring "rain" (bathtub water) through the floor and basement ceiling. There was about an inch of water across a quarter of the basement, and it was still flowing. We moved things away from the area, and began to work on drying everything out. Daddy used the shop vac while I sopped up the water upstairs, and dried things in the basement and moved them to a dry location. It took about an hour and a half to clean up Hurricane Katie. We were exhausted and ready for bed.
Sunday morning, the hurricane landed in Connecticut and was down graded to a tropical storm, but there were still high winds and massive amounts of rain. When you woke up, I got up with you (sort of as a peace offering after my mistake the night before). We went downstairs, I made you breakfast and we popped in a movie. Zoe cried to go outside and when she came back in I realized I need a towel to dry her off. I ran to the basement to get a Zoe towel only to discover that water was POURING into our basement AGAIN!! This time it wasn't my fault! (Thank goodness!)
I left Zoe wet in the mud-room and ran to get Daddy screaming, "Wake up the basement is flooded!" I ran back to the basement and found that the pipe from the sump pump had blasted out from such force from the amount of water, and it was now pumping water directly into the basement. Daddy came down and re-secured the sump pump pipe to drain correctly rather than into our basement. Again, we found ourselves vacuuming up the water and drying things off. We were not off to a great start with our Hurricane Irene experience, and the water we had dealt with wasn't even related to the hurricane yet!
We continued on with our day, waiting for our lights to flicker before we lost power for a week... but we never lost power at all. It was amazing! 700,000 people in Connecticut were without power, but we were still a glow! We felt so very fortunate. The only real damage we had to deal with was a few down tree branches in our yard, but others weren't so lucky. There are some amazing (sad) pictures from some of the damage around town.
We are counting our lucky stars that we were safe during the storm, and I am thankful that you will not remember for yourself what a flake your mom was with the bathtub ordeal. I know you will hear the story, and I will never live this down, but hey.... I can't be perfect all the time! ;)
I love you, Tyler!
Always,
Mommy
xoxo
We decided to take you out to dinner to TD Homers, where you ordered your own meal, a hot dog with French fries. After dinner, we took you cosmic duck pin bowling for the first time. You had a blast! You had a couple of gutter balls... even with the bumpers, but you also got a spare! Pretty impressive little man. You had a total score of 66. Not bad for a first time at a real bowling alley. What a wonderful weekend! While I am sad that I can no longer call you a baby, I am looking forward to all of the adventures to come.
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