Thankful Through the Storm

This last week has been an emotional one for us here in the sunshine state. Early last week, we started watching the news diligently and following along to see where our 1st hurricane in 12 years hit would along our east coast — Hurricane Matthew.

By Wednesday morning, as I participated with Liam in National Walk to School Day, I knew it was just a matter of time before we all received news of school closures & preparations for the storm to come. Sure enough, we received word late that morning that both the county schools and the university where I work were both closed down Thursday & Friday. This was real & it was time to get prepared.

The last time a major storm affected our area here in Central Florida, Stephen & I were not yet homeowners OR parents. I have to be honest that preparing for this storm AND waiting for it to come felt VERY different this time around. I had a lot of nervous energy on Thursday. I just kept cleaning & doing laundry. I had to keep busy. I also took Liam to Publix….He was hilarious, as he kept yelling out, ‘you were right Mommy, the shelves are empy!!’ — I had told him that the store might look different because many people were buying food & water to prepare for the storm 🙂

We prepped as best we could in the time we had. All of our patio and front yard stuff got piled into the garage, along with our stockpile of water. Again, since we hadn’t been through a storm while in the house before, we kinda felt like we were winging this a bit.

Tub full of water….always a precaution. We did remember that from Charlie.

We went to sleep (well, as much as we could, anyhow) on Thursday night knowing that the winds were picking up and Matthew would be moving through by early morning.

We dozed off and literally woke up to answered prayer ❤ ….the storm veered to the East about 10 miles, and it was just enough to keep the eye & all the worst winds off shore from our area. We had some high winds & gusts and a good amount of rain still throughout the day, but nothing overwhelming. So, so thankful & blessed!!

We were so relieved to see that our family & friends here in Florida were all okay, as well. Especially Stephen’s family in the Vero Beach area, as they were much closer to Matthew’s impact. We were also worried about my dad’s house up in Jax, but they fared well, too. Both of our mom’s are also here in FL & they are also doing well! Prayers for all those still recovering & waiting for power to be restored. St. Augustine is one of our favorite places to visit, and they were hit very hard 😦

On Saturday, we all went outside, as a family, and began the clean up process. Luckily, the debris wasn’t overwhelming for us. It was nice to get it picked up, and as we were outside, we saw many of our neighbors also out cleaning up their yards, too. Liam enjoyed being a helper….Timber, as well! What a difference a day makes in the weather, right?!?!

Being cooped up in the house for a few days did give me a chance to finally finish up our Halloween decorations! Liam & I also baked up some yummy Halloween cookies 🙂

Once we were out & about, we took a trip to the Orlando Science Center to check out their new traveling exhibit — TOYTOPIA. It was so cool to see so many of the toys that Stephen & I played with as kids. Liam enjoyed the Toy Story display and the awesome model trains that was both Lego & electric!