Hurricane Matthew 2016

The effects of Hurricane Matthew began on a Saturday morning, and thankfully Stuart was home with us!  At breakfast, he was trying to convince James that today would be the day that they would watch Star Wars together... 

We ended up at the museum instead - a wise choice since the boys don't do well staying inside all day long (it was absolutely pouring the rain, and neither wanted to go play outside in it after breakfast).  Even with all of the flash flood warnings, most of Durham seemed to have the same idea because it was very crowded! (However, I magically got some photos with only my people in them!)

After rest time, we made pizza for the boys to have for dinner.

And then after pizza, they decided it was time to play in the rain (as the evening went on, the rain got harder and the wind a smidge stronger - though we didn't really have any more than 15-20mph or so).

Around bedtime, I got this notification on my phone - ha! "Bad running weather today. Better tomorrow."

Saturday evening, just as Stuart arrived back home from picking up our grown up pizza (no deliveries available with the flood warnings), the power went out.  We were pretty surprised because we have never lost power before, and we have had several thunderstorms with much stronger winds than we experienced from this hurricane.  We are spoiled and used Stuart's AT&T hotspot to watch Netflix by candlelight.

However, the next morning the power was still out - coffee and reading by candlelight.

By lunch on Sunday, we started eating up the perishables as fast as we could (though we stuck some meat and a full gallon of milk in the freezer - did you know that a full freezer can hold it's temp below 32*F for 48 hours when the power is out?!).

The boys in their church get-ups with laundry hang drying in the back (weekend laundry was going full tilt when we lost power).

Sunday evening, still no power - dipped into our perishables for dinner.  All the essential macronutrients included (with a little EVOO added in)!

And here is Stuart wrapping up his Sunday evening, preparing for his 24/7 call week that would begin the next morning at 7am... by candlelight.  He's a good doctor and I love him for that.

(Our power came back on late that Sunday night a few weeks ago, but some counties in NC were still without power last week - schools have even been out waiting for power/water to become available again as far east as Johnston county, the county my mom works in, only 1 hour from us here in Durham!  Many counties are STILL dealing with flooding and are just now beginning to be able to go into homes and businesses closer to the coast and assess the damage.  Pray for these people and their communities.  Many of them only recently recovered financially (if they were able to at all) from bad hurricanes, with similar flooding situations, like Floyd and Fran in the 1990s).