Summer Count Up 11

This is my last count up, because this is the last week of summer vacation. I always get teary-eyed on the first day of school because I miss the routine of summer and on the last day of school because I miss the routine of the school year. I can't believe that Hannah and Lizzie are starting THIRD GRADE tomorrow. I hate to be cliche and all, but seriously WHERE THE HELL IS THE TIME GOING???? Anyway, we had a great last week of summer which included both an earthquake AND a hurricane. Good times!

Day 68: We looked at this condo with a lake view and totally fell in love with it. Prices are rock bottom, but unfortunately NOT so rock bottom that we can buy it, but boy oh boy was it tempting!!

Day 69: Our annual trip to Walter Francis Dam. We had a picnic this year (you'll see more Poconos pictures during the week) but couldn't take our walks down the road because it was covered with water. And this was BEFORE the hurricane! This is the view from the road to the dam:

Day 70- Waterpark Day. One of the highlights of our trip to the Poconos is visiting H2O, the waterpark there. It's a lot smaller with fewer rides/slides than Great Wolf Lodge, but the kids all still love it. Here are Hannah and Liz coming down one of the slides in a double innertube:

Day 71- Aunt and Uncle Anonymous came to spend some time with us on Tuesday and left Wednesday morning to go home and prepare for the hurricane that was supposed to hit them, but hit US instead. Here they are with the four kids:

Day 72 - No trip to the Poconos is complete without a trip to Hog Heaven, the local ice cream place. As you can see, Grandpa is especially excited when we go. ;)

Day 73 - The NY Garritys had to leave early Friday morning so we were left to fend for ourselves without Tommy and Brenna as built in playmates. We thought of them often throughout the day, including when the girls visited the fort the four of them (plus to other kids in our little condo area) built near the playground:

Day 74 - All good things come to an end. For us that meant leaving the Poconos on Saturday to get home in time to take the patio furniture off of the patio and fill the bathtubs with water in preparation for the hurricane. Oh, and we also had to get Cash back home with us. The girls actually missed him while we were away. Here they are with the very odd statue of a wildcat chasing a deer that is near the registration building at Split Rock. About 10 minutes after I took this photo it POURED rain ... which it then did for about the next 24 hours:

Day 75 -- I was styling in my new boots (9.99 at Target on clearance) when the hurricane hit us Saturday night into Sunday. We didn't get a whole lot of water, but we did get a bunch of branches down in the yard. Oh and my power went out for two minutes at 4 a.m. causing me to have to reset all my clocks -- I am wondering if FEMA covers emergencies such as that...:

Bonus Hurricane Photo:

The hurricane wasn't so bad. We were prepared (had chocolate and canned chili on hand) and really the scariest part were all the tornado warnings Saturday night. Luckily the girls had a campout in the basement so I didn't have any worries about them. The next morning we went out to look at the storm damage. This is the road to the girls' school. That yellow sign is the bridge that the water is supposed to go UNDER, but instead it went all around it:

This is one of the tree branches that fell in our yard. We had another tree top fall down closer to the road, too, but my camera was out of batteries so I couldn't take a picture of it:

This is the Manatawny River, which was pretty high, but we've seen it higher. It was moving debris pretty fast though:

And this is the Schuylkill River, which flooded its banks, but again, not as bad as we've seen it in the past. So we are all very thankful that the storm wasn't as bad as predicted. Now I just have to figure out what to do with all that emergency chocolate:

So, that was our summer. Seventy-five days of fun. We just got a call that it MAY be 76 days as some of the schools don't have power, but I'll post more about that if it happens. The girls were sad to see the summer end, but once they packed up their backpacks, laid out their clothes and had their baths, they were excited about tomorrow.