Hurricane Irate (err… Irene)

So, Irene sorta came to visit without an invitation.

Any of YOU are invited to come drop in on us without one, but we do wish that Irene had checked first to see if she was welcome (she wasn’t, for the record) We were up in PA from Friday evening until about 9pm Sunday evening, for my Grandpa Rice’s memorial service. He was an awesome man, and no amount of my typing would do him justice, so I won’t even begin to try. Suffice it to say that 2 days wasn’t enough to celebrate his life, but it’s what we had.

We were gone for Irene’s tantrum, but got back in time for the cleanup. Not knowing what to expect, I prepared myself for a totally obscured driveway, and 2 or 3 trees crashed into our roof at various points. Since the forest comes right up to the house, that wasn’t a crazy visual, by the way.

As it turned out, though, there were some pretty big branches across the driveway (draggable to the side), and some trees fallen over (away from the house) but we were remarkably fortunate to escape as unscathed as we were. Every tree that fell was pointing away from the house, and even the ones that are leaning are headed away.

After Quinn went to work today, the kids and I did too. Ben was my amazing right hand man. That kid did a full day’s work without a single complaint, and didn’t stop until I did. It might have been the bribe promised reward of pizza, or maybe he’s just getting more mature, but he was a real trooper today. We got the whole driveway cleared out and swept, and a good portion of the yard cleared of debris, before my blisters and back called a halt to the work. Nate and Naomi would have been great as just cheerleaders, but as workers, they left something to be desired. Aah well. ☺



There’s a lot left to be done, and many trees to be removed, but it was good to stretch out today and get a lot of the aftermath cleaned up by hand. I’m sure my opinion will change as the week goes on, but for now, I’m stubbornly pleased to have gotten so much accomplished with my own muscles. I’ll post pictures as the work progresses. ☺

First Day of School!

So today at a little before 8am, Ben (6th grade) stepped onto the middle school bus. Then at nearly 9am, Nate (3rd grade) and Naomi (kindergarten) were off to Dowell Elementary. When Quinn left for work, that left me…. All….. Alone. In the whole house! By MYSELF!!! I still haven’t processed it, actually. It’s the first time in over 11 years that I’m going to have the entire house, entirely to myself, for the entire day. The mind boggles. I told Quinn I was going to make carpet angels, and then pass out. As a side note: it’s amazing how many little noises there are here. I never heard them before, and now I do! I keep getting startled by the rustle of a paper, or the creak of a branch outside the windows. I LOVE IT! :D

Bowie and Annapolis day trip

So yesterday, Quinn signed up with Aerotek in Bowie (pronounced “boo-ee” - strange, eh?) to become a 6 month contract worker, after which he’ll transition over to Progeny! Yay! His official start date is tomorrow, so after we wrapped up the paperwork in Bowie, we headed over to Annapolis to celebrate with the kids. We parked pretty close to the dock, and had lunch at a place called Sugar Buns in the Kitchen.



VERY interesting place, super tiny and filled up with more brightly colored paint than any preschool I’ve ever seen. Yelp had varying ratings, from horrible to awesome, so I was curious which end of the spectrum we’d experience. Quinn ordered for me... I got the lobster roll sandwich. YUM! He got a portabella & onion sandwich, and Ben got the Mega-BLT (or something like that) It was basically 2 slices of bread, with 2 sandwiches-worth of B+L+T inside. It looked great! The littles got mac-n-cheese, which was about 1 cup of Kraft box mac-n-cheese, with a little bit of grated cheddar on top. So basically, the 3 “adult” meals were very good, but the kids stuff was totally meh. Quinn and I also shared a cup of crab bisque, which was phenomenal. The broth was thin, but very flavorful, with white wine. Yum! Quinn didn’t like that there were a lot of crab shells in it, but I didn’t care.

After lunch, we wandered down to the end of the dock and let the kids run around on the bricks while we lounged in the sun. What a lovely way to wrap up Quinn’s “summer vacation”! We strolled back towards the car, and stopped at a Starbucks on the way. All in all, we had 8 minutes left on the 2-hour meter when we got back in the van and headed south. What a great little visit!