Happy Halloween!

From our house to yours...

Poor Margaret feels sick and will be staying in from Trick or Treating. I'll try to get her to put on her Pillow Pet costume for you! Adorable.
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This past week was pretty brutal with all of the storm preparation and anticipation. I don't tell you this to complain, but to thank you for the prayers and good thoughts you sent our way. It was a very heavy time, and your concern helped us feel less alone.

The good news is that most of the Northern Virginia area was spared major damage unlike the Outer Banks, New York, and New Jersey.

The bad news is I experienced a lot of grief and anger and flashbacks for the better part of the week.

It was so hard to believe that with all of the advance warning and preparation this week we did not even lose power for a second, while on the day of Jack's accident the power went out, and roads and bridges were flooded, yet schools and businesses continued as usual, and we did not have any warning about how dangerous the situation had become until it was too late. And don't even get me started on the shitty little (empty) creek I saw this weekend.

We really are grateful to be safe and dry.

But we're still grappling with the big questions, and probably will be for a long time.

My love and prayers are with those families who lost dear ones during this storm, and for those of you who are dealing with the aftermath in both big and small ways.

Vacation Round-up

Dear Readers,

Thank you for weighing in on whether or not I should read the bathroom copies of Us Weekly, etc., on my beach vacation. For the record, I did NOT. Considering, however, that we got evacuated Thursday morning because of Hurricane Irene, there's really no telling if I would have held-out had we stayed at the beach an entire week.

Highlights of the trip:

Hanging out playing cards and drinking wine with dear friends.

Reading Oliver Twist aloud in the car.

Watching back to back episodes of Friday Night Lights thanks to Tom and Netflix.

Private pool.

Perfect Weather, impending hurricane notwithstanding.

Date night with Tom. Out by 5:30, back by 6:30. Are we sizzling or what?



Yes, I'm wearing a shirt.
Speaking of back by 6:30, when I saw the pics Molly took of us before we left, I realized I was having An Inch of Gray Emergency. Nothing like capping off a hot date with some Root Touch Up on the deck. What a guy!


North Carolina Aquarium. We even saw box turtles mating.

Evacuation Trip to Great Wolf Lodge.
My face looked a lot like the kids' did when I realized that after almost a week of earnest-- okay obsessive-- lice prevention at the beach house (plastic bags, sequestered pillows, lots of laundry), I would have to rest my weary head at a KIDDIE RESORT. Oy vey.

Fine dining.

Yes, that's leftover beach house fridge salad, saved in a cooler for dinner at Great Wolf Lodge. Tom wanted to pizza delivery; I wanted the buffet. He thought the buffet was too expensive. Soooo, we ordered the kids the buffet and we adults sat there with ice water, scowling at each other.

Instead of breaking down and ordering, which I really should have done, I stuffed my face on bag salad, cheese, and Oreos back in the room, before falling asleep in bed-- with Molly. Nothing like keeping the aggressive in passive/aggressive.

Tom and the kids had fun on the awesome slides...

but none of us feels compelled to go again. It just wasn't really our vibe. If we're not even going to spring for meals there, you can bet the resort didn't get buy-in from us for: building our own wolves, having a robot serve us ice cream, getting kiddie pedicures, filling plastic cups with candy ($8!), and sporting temporary tattoos.

Let's remember that when Tom took Jake to Legoland in California, he bought him a $3 Lego mini-figure as a souvenir, and when I took Molly to the American Girl Doll Store in NYC, I got out of there having spent just $19. I would tell you that our entire honeymoon cruise bar tab amounted to $2.50, but that's simply too depressing.

Simply put, it was time to come home.

So now we're home, the laundry is in the machine, and we're awaiting a hurricane that may or may not batter the East Coast.

And you? What are YOU doing as summer winds down?