Hurrication

Where would you rather be?

Or this...

I am having a blast on our hurrication. Just last week when Josh told me he needed to go on a business trip to Austin and San Antonio I was saying how I wish we could do a little week vacation and go to those plus San Marcos (right in between where the outlets are). I was thinking about how fun that would be but couldn't think of a time it would work out for a long time since we have already taken and plan to take a lot of time off. Well, in comes the hurricane to save the day.

The only problem was trying to get the house ready and pack up the car to leave. I moved all of our freestanding things in our yard to safer places, mostly the garage (grill, toys, chairs, table, plants), cleaned and organized--sort of--the house (which was probably a dumb thing to do before a hurricane, but it's been needing to be cleaned for so long that I was already in the middle of it to surprise Josh for when he got back), packed bags for all of us, made a bunch of food, dug around for some important docs to bring and stocked the freezer with ice, which sounds like it's just going to make for a wet garage now that power will be out for so long (out of all the food we'll lose there, the saddest thing is all the milk I've pumped...bye bye liquid gold). I had no idea if I should worry about flooding, so I just moved a few nice things to higher grounds in the house and shut the blinds in case glass blew in.

After I left and was feeling a little empowered by managing everything so well without Josh, my dad asked if I moved the car inside the garage. Looks like I missed an important thing! I was just thinking it wouldn't blow away, I didn't think about all the debris that could hit it, oh well.

We drove to Austin first since that's where Josh was working. The drive went surprisingly well. Both the girls have runny noses and City is teething and they'd miss their naps (they aren't into sleeping on the road), so I expected it to be a real test of endurance. We were soo blessed though, the girls did very well considering it was a 4 hour trip--which was also a huge blessing, it was supposed to be 3, but only an extra hour in evacuation? Awesome. I stopped once for a pit stop and to nurse City at a gas station. I went to the bathroom but wasn't sure where to put City, so I just put some paper towels on the nasty floor with liquid dribbles all over it (just hoping they were mostly water), and sat her there. How on earth do you do it with more than two?

Anyway, here's the funniest part. We walked down the candy isle and Hazel lit up and goes, "Gramma and Granpa's house!" It was hilarious. Any time she sees princess stuff or even sparkly pink stuff she says the same thing. She wasn't into that before we went home, but now will all sorts of good loot she picked up for memories she's always talking about them, it's soo cute! We were talking to a cop there and after I left, the guy at the check out ran out to tell me that the cop was their local celebrity in town. I guess he was on the 2nd season of Joe Millionaire. Then the cop came out and we all talked for a few minutes about it, too bad I didn't know anything about the show, fun anyway.

Then we picked up Josh and drove straight to San Marcos...ahhh. The first night we stayed in a hotel Josh got for a bargain--and it was even a suite with a seperate (without a door) room and mini fridge. I didn't know there was anything to this place besides shopping, but it was one of the most charming little college towns, I loved it. We went to Chipotle and then put them down and I went shopping that night and the next day we all did.

Now I know that there are fellow anti-shoppers out there, but this is the kind of place to change how you feel about shopping. I usually dread it because of so many reasons, takes too long, hard with kids, nothing fits right, what does is expensive, takes more time, and most of all, $$$, you always end up paying. The beauty about this place is that whatever you're looking for, and a lot you aren't, is to be found at these outlets. My favorite's are Crate and Barrel and Pottery Barn, although I did go to some clothes stores this time.

Let me just tell you my favorite thing we found: 8 (4 of each of the brown ones) dining room chairs ranging from $20-33 each. If any of you have looked for dining chairs, you might think I'm kidding here. All of West Elm's stuff was 50% off the outlet price and if it was redtagged (big scratches), it wsa 60% off, which was 4 of our chairs. It was awesome. They aren't the sturdiest or most traditional things for a dining room, but who cares, I'm SOO excited. No more rounding up our broken kitchen chairs anymore whenever we have people over. We also bought some matching bath towels and some kitchen towels (we have 4 that we've had since our wedding and are totally falling apart, 2 of which have those lovely crocheted tops to attach them to things).

OH, and these two amazing folding shelves, I'll have to send a pic later, they fold up super flat and they stack, which is perfect for what we need. Ive been looking for some small extra storage for our kitchen, this is soo exciting! Josh said he hadn't seen me that excited and happy in a while that he'd want to come here every weekend if it didn't take a hit on the pocket book. Just FYI, it's not spending money that's fun, that's a little painful, but it's finding a great deal on things that we either need or will seriously help improve the organization of our home so it won't feel quite so dormroomish. It's just nice to not feel guilty about purchases that we'd be making in time anyway.

Then we drove to San Antonio and we ate on the river walk last night, it's so pretty and quaint. The poor girls were totally exhausted by the end, but it's been a good lesson for us that it's not the end of the world if they skip their naps, not if it's for shopping and eating out:). Today we found a pretty park near the zoo where we ran 6 miles--not exactly the 14 or so we were supposed to do, but hey, it felt like a feat with the heat being close to 100. Then we went to Burger King for lunch and came back to put the girls down for a nap. Could a hurricane be any more fun? Last night as we went to bed and we were watching the news, we were kind of sad to miss such an exciting storm. But that all went away when we woke up to sunshine and an air conditioner as we turned on the tv to see what a miserable state things are in now. No regrets now!
I've never had so much fun during a disaster! I'm sure all the excitement will be terminiated when we get back to our house, but we're going to party until then. We were really excited to get good deals on our hotels with all the evacuees and have been surprised at how nice they've been, but just now I heard a bunch of water and Josh quietly shouting (the girls are sleeping). The sink pipes were gushing water all over the floor. Good news is that it's not our carpet or problem! I'm sure we'll have plenty of that to do when we get home I'm sure. Ew, except City just found a roach running around, so Josh needs the computer to look for a new place now (not like we don't have them in our own house).

Ta ta for now in my sister Tina's words. Happy Hurrication! Afton

ps--the other good news if our power stays off is that my Dad is supposed to come to San Antonio Monday night and we'd be able to see him. Things just keep getting better and better.