Crazy October!

October seemed like such a long month, it started off great, ended kinda crazy. Highlights from October include:

1) Girls trip to NYC
2) Fall leaves/pumpkins
3) Trunk-or-treat
4) Hurricane Sandy

1)  NYC GIRLS TRIP: I was so excited when I got the call about a girls trip with my good friends from the MBA program!  I am so glad it actually happened, and even happier that it was in an easily accessible location for me since I still have a baby.  We all met up in NYC from around the country, Washington, California, Texas, Tennessee, Utah, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.  Since I'm still breastfeeding I was able to join for 2 days/1 night.  It was a blast! I wish I could have stayed the entire 3 nights. It was like we had never left each other.  We lodged at the East Side Marriott, ate yummy food, saw a Broadway show, went shopping on Canal Street, (adventure) talked, laughed and really just enjoyed each others' company and having no kids around! I think it was a much needed break for all of us.

FOA Schwartz

The have giant candy everything!

Lisa, Emma, me @ Cafe Habana

Madison Ave

I was so excited to go here.  Seth and I went here in Paris and the macaron cookies are amazing!

Times Square

Brunch at Sara Beth's

2) FALL: We had a grand time raking/blowing leaves.  It was the first time Addy got to play in them! I think she loved it!  She kept saying "party, party!" while throwing them in the air

We have a TON of leaves.  Living in the state with the most trees is sure beautiful, but it keeps us busy.

Picking out some pumpkins

Super cheesy! She is straining her neck muscles! haha

 

Addy and Cohen got a surprise Halloween package in the mail from grandma and grandpa G

We invited some friends over to decorate/carve pumpkins with us one night. I just realized that we didn't take a picture of the finished pumpkin Seth carved! oops.

3) TRUNK OR TREAT: This is the only time we got to dress up because Halloween door to door trick or treating was cancelled due to the Hurricane.  We had a blast!  Addy decided what we were all going to dress up as.  She has been planning it for months!  I have to say, I think we looked pretty darn good!

Snow white and her prince

Something that you may not know about Addy is that she is a triple threat.  She sings, dances, and acts.  At our house we often act out Disney scenes from her favorite princess movies.  It is usually the scene where the princess is kissed/rescued by her prince. Since we were all dressed up she insisted that we perform her favorite scene.

The wicked queen giving snow white a "bad apple"

Oh no, she took a bite (really)

Don't worry, her prince will save her with true love's kiss

Cutest Dopey ever

4) HURRICANE SANDY: Usually we watch these sorts of things from the comfort of our warm home and feel sorry for all the people affected.  Not this time! The night of October 29th, as we were reading Adalyn a bedtime story, we heard a loud snap and a thud on the back corner of our house!  We ran to go see was it was.  This was the view from our master bedroom window:

A large pine tree from our neighbor's yard fell and hit our house and slid down and hit the front hood of our car.  Luckily, the large truck barely missed it so we avoided serious damage to our only "family friendly" vehicle. We decided after that happened that it would probably be best if we didn't stay upstairs, in case a tree decided it wanted to come through the roof.  So we all hunkered down on our lower level and had a sleepover.  The power went off just before 8:30.  We were kept awake by the crazy strong winds and trees that kept snapping.   At first, we went to look every time we heard a tree; but then it just got to be too much! We decided to just wait until the light of morning to inspect the damage.  Here are some pictures of what we woke up to:

View from our front door. Tree from our house fell over onto the neighbors fence.

Same tree in front yard

Our neighbors had almost every single tree in their front yard down.  The trees missed hitting their house by inches.

Tree in our driveway

Our other neighbor wasn't so lucky.  This tree completely smashed his Mercedes.

I just have to say that I don't know how we would have gotten through this without our ward and the church that we belong to.  Our bishop started a facebook group the night of the storm.  It was great and allowed for people to post needs, power outages, generators for use, gas situations, etc.  A family from the ward lives in our neighborhood.  He and his son brought over their chainsaw the day after the storm to cut down the tree that was blocking our driveway. Here are some after shots:

We got firewood for our firepit!

Seth was able to go help out other church members and neighbors who needed trees and debris cleared.  Here are some other pictures he took in our neighborhood and close by.

Our power was off for a week.  I am grateful that we were fairly prepared.  We got a tip a couple days before to freeze some gallon size ziploc bags full of water to make giant ice blocks.  Luckily, we had just received an early Christmas present from my parents called a freezer...The blocks of ice kept our fridge things cold for days.  I had also been stocking up on ice from our ice-maker.  We had a stocked pantry, flashlights and candles and a gas stove and water heater, which means we could cook and take hot showers, unlike a lot of people.  There was a small about of people in the ward that did not lose power, and after 3 days of no power for us, we were able to take our frozen food over to a friends house who had power and freezer space so they didn't spoil (except 16 bags of breast milk that I had to throw away!).  A few days later, we took our fridge contents to another friends house whose power came back on who was leaving town. We could have very easily lost hundreds of dollars worth of food and we were blessed to have saved almost all of it.

Seth and I kept commenting that it felt like we were staying at my cabin.  (Although, we would have loved to have a wood burning stove!) No power, cold nights...Overall, it was challenging experience.  We had our good days and bad days.  It was especially worrisome trying to keep the kids warm.  Luckily, I don't think Cohen noticed the difference. (see below)  And Addy now has a new appreciation for electricity and power.  When the power came back on, I ran into her room and flipped on the light switch and said "LOOK!" then turned it off.  Addy got so excited and said, "Do it again, do it again!" I've seriously never had so much fun flipping on and off a light switch.  Then we went downstairs and did a little power back dance.  She is so grateful for power and tells me everyday how glad she is that we have it now.

staying warm

We had a lot of friends offer their homes to us to come stay.  We opted for a visit to some friend's from the MBA program in Philadelphia for the weekend.  It was a fun trip that took our mind off of the storm. 

I'm not going to say this was an easy thing to go through.  We didn't dare let our kids sleep by themselves because it was so cold.  (we ended up buying a kerosene heater in Philly, luckily only had to use it for one night) I know that there are so many people that lost everything, so we felt blessed and taken care of.  There are still people without power in our area today, 11 days after the storm. I am so grateful that the storm moved quickly and there wasn't a lot of water so our basement didn't flood.  We had some great family time because Seth didn't have to go in to work for 3 days.  We played a lot of Candyland, puzzles, books, princesses, etc.  We were able to get to know our neighbors better and ward members better.  We were blessed that we were kept safe and our home withstood the storm. We were blessed to have almost a full take of gas in our car.  We will have many more opportunities to serve those that were affected. I am grateful for a church that teaches us to be prepared not just spiritually, but physically and temporally as well.  We learned great lessons from this and ways to better prepare for the future!