Hurricane Ike Weekend and everything but the kitchen sink

If you've watched the news in the past 48 hours I'm guessing you heard about Hurricane Ike. 3 days before landfall it was predicted that our inland area would feel the storm that was roughly the size of Texas as it passed. Not as a hurricane but as a severe storm. Things looked very promising for a good amount of rain. I got daily updates from the school district about the "plans". As it turned out school was early released on Friday because several schools in our district were turned into hurricane shelters for people on the coast.

Thinking of our family, I made sure we were stocked with supplies to last 3-4 days, or more like 2 weeks. I filled the car with gas, thinking I'm only going to be driving though if we have to flee. Soccer games got canceled, all church activities were canceled (except actual Sunday Church). We were all set and prepared to hole up in our house and brave out a storm. Movies-check, junk food-double check!

And then... we didn't even get a drop of rain! We had a little bit of wind, but it was so humid and hot. At least we had dark clouds for a few hours, but then the Sun was out an shining most of the day. It was so unfair, I made all the preparations to have a kick back stormy day. But when we saw the news of the coast I realized we were pretty lucky to not have to deal with the aftermath of a big hurricane. Here's a picture of the worst of our "storm" So what did we do with our free weekend? Friday night the boys went to a friends birthday party that was previously canceled because of the hurricane and then on again. They absolutely loved it. Darin especially loved it, but it's pretty hard to go wrong when you put 8 boys together with a basketball hoop and a wii.

While the boys partied at their friends Ken and I had a nice little date. Last weekend me and the boys re-created me and Ken's favorite dishes from restaurants in Cancun. We had coconut shrimp, steak, scalloped potatoes, creamed corn, caramelized onions, and even the waffles for dessert. It was super fun and yummy and we got to play games with Josh and Reianna (she made awesome pina coladas). So obviously with being spoiled so much last weekend, Ken wanted to do it all over again. We had Cancun Dinner Take II. It was alot like how we did it in Cancun. In Cancun we had our amazing dinner on the beach, and then the next night we ordered our favorites from the same restaurant as room service and ate on the balcony while we played cards. So on Friday I did the coconut shrimp, potatoes, sauteed mushrooms, and salad. He grilled the steak to perfection and made the pina coladas. We jumped into bed and watched a movie while we ate. It was a pretty good date night! I'm loving this drink mix. Reianna taught us a trick--to add a splash of sprite since we don't add the rum. We cleaned house. I am in a major mood of getting rid of junk, hair, whatever. By the way I chopped 5 inches off of my hair this week and only 1 person noticed, I am seriously sad! The boys also got their hair chopped. Aren't they so handsome! I've been cleaning up Ken's office, and my big craft closet, and my closet. They have been a disaster and I have been thinking that I need to focus on cleaning and organizing key spaces like closets so that way when I clean my other rooms they will stay clean for more then a day, since everything will be put in it's proper area. Ken's office now has three times the space. Why I cleaned it is anyone's guess. Since this is a picture of where he normally works... I can't blame him, I love my chaise too, and it is nice and bright and happy in our family room. As you can see he has no problem focusing. I do love my serious Ken! Ken and my Dad got the French Doors installed this weekend. As you can see we are really in a hurry to get the new office finished (I'm not serious at all, this will probably take months if not a year:-) In other organizing news, we are almost all set-up in our entry way for the boys to have a crash landing pad for when they get home from school. All we have left is to hang the shelves with hooks for their backpacks. I'm very proud of them, they have been doing an excellent job keeping their shoes in the basket. I also bought and we hung (that't the big deal!) pictures of the kids in Cancun on this wall. I love my house being such an open floorplan. I really love it! Like how from my family room, breakfast area and kitchen I can see into the gameroom. It's fabulous, it would be more so if the kids would actually play more then 10 feet away from me but that is a whole different blog entry. But the downside is that in most of the major rooms you cannot find a wall space that is bigger then 5 feet wide. I'm not exaggerating. Most of the rooms only have one wall that is that large and of course that is where you would put a bookcase, entertainment center, or piano. The other walls either have an entry point, an angled wall, or a bunch of windows. I didn't really realize this until I had decided to put up a whole new set of pictures of the kids. And with 4 of them that takes major wall space that I had a hard time finding. Here is the 4 feet of wall space I found for the pictures in part of my entry. Speaking of the entry, since we had nothing to do on Saturday I got the boys to do misc. jobs around the house like cleaning baseboards, windows, and the stair railings. The stairs were so disgusting, you could see grimy and colorful handprints all over them, it was so bad I thought I would have to re-paint them. Nathan worked hard scrubbing down each and every spindle and they are gleaming white now. I don't need to paint. However I made the mistake of telling him I would pay him $.15 per spindle. It turns out we have 81. So he made out with over $12! That is a ton for them since they normally only get paid $3 for mowing the lawn (either front or back). Yes, we are cheap. But I consider it a privilege for them to earn money doing jobs around the house so that's about all they get paid for. Don't the stairs look great! After chores we all piled into my bed, ate yummy pizza rolls, and watched Treasure Island. Okay, the kids and Ken watched and I fell asleep halfway through. I wish we could have taken a picture of all of us in our bed. We are really starting to outgrow one of our favorite traditions. After my nap we ended up leaving the house because we needed misc. bike parts and Ken needed to get things for Sunday School. We ended up getting Nathan a new bike since we thought it was time for him to stop hitting his chin with his knees when he rode. Darin needed a new back tire since he is a drag racer and loves to come speeding at you and then slam on his brakes and fly into the air and stop all of 4" away from your legs. Nathan, our night owl loved staying up late working on bikes with his dad. Darin was way too tired and went up to bed. Maybe that will teach him to not wake up at 4am on a Saturday! In other Family News, Ginger's 2nd top tooth finally broke through. A whole entire month after her 1st top tooth came through. She is so cute! And Ginger is totally walking all over the place. As you can see I'm still her favorite. Which I totally love!

I tried out a new breakfast on the boys this past week too. It's called Frog in Hole or a One Eyed Sailor. They loved it. Basically you cut a hole into a piece of bread. Melt butter in a skillet place the bread in it and crack an egg into the hole and cook. They totally loved it!