random baby pictures!

It has begun.

School that is.

Actually it began a week and a half ago, but I'm just now getting around to this post.

Most years, I'm really sad to see my kids go off to school. I was still a little sad this year, but it was VERY apparent that Ellie and Nico needed a new project in life. And what better project than school.

Ellie started 3rd grade this year. At first she was disappointed she didn't get the teacher she wanted, but once she started, that has all changed. She loves her teacher. Ellie says she makes things fun. After meeting her at meet the teacher night, I can confirm it would indeed be fun to be in her class. Here's hoping it is still fun come June.

Nico started kindergarten. Yup, that's right, he's in school for real. Alex and I were a little apprehensive to see how he would do. However, our worries seem to have been needless (thus far), as he LOVES school. LOVES it. He gets excited to go. He comes home off the bus cheery. He's in his element. He did, however, ask me yesterday when he was going to learn something at school. I attempted to explain to him that sometimes the most important things we learn in kindergarten are how to be a student and how to be around other people. I think he was hoping for calculus.

And now, here is what you really came to this blog for... pictures!

Happiness is a green monkey.

Shortly before I left Utah, my mom gave Nico and Ellie green monkey stuffed animals. "Great," I thought, "something else to pack." Ellie and Nico however, really liked them, so I didn't even try to leave them behind as I did certain other plush toys (ahem LaRayne!).

Upon arrival in NY, the monkeys were happily slept with and were the animals of the moment for Ellie and Nico for a little while. Perhaps Anders saw the older kids carrying them around or perhaps it was the monkey itself. I don't know. All I know is that Anders got hooked. He carried it around all the time. He cuddled with it. He saw it in the swing once and climbed in to be with it. He laughed with it. He loved it. So much so, that we told Ellie she should consider giving her monkey to Anders, since in this case, possession was 10 10ths of the law. She graciously did give up her stuffed animal and Anders happily continued on with his monkey shenanigans.

Enter Liam. Liam is a bully. Liam routinely steals everything Anders has. If Anders has a toy, Liam takes it. If Anders has food on his tray, Liam takes it. If Anders has a binky, Liam takes it. Even if Liam already has his own binky, or food, or toy. Liam is a taker. Needless to say, Liam took the green monkey. Over. And over. And over. Anders was very sad.

All was not lost however, since there were two green monkeys about. Thus both babies happily tote around a green monkey. Nico even gave his monkey to Liam. Ellie and Nico are awesome big siblings.

Anyway, all this to explain why this is often the scene in our house:





Having learned super parenting skills from several friends, I asked my mom to get me a couple "back up monkeys" should one be lost, destroyed, or what not. They should arrive shortly. I simply do not want a Mino or Kiki incident on my hands in a few months.

Guess who Ellie and Nico have discovered...

This is how I find Ellie and Nico most mornings... and afternoons... and evenings lately. These giant tomes are the only Calvin and Hobbes books the library had. Ellie and Nico don't seem to mind.

Farewell, Irene

And that's about it! Irene turned out to be much friendlier than everyone feared. We suffered no real damage here, and most of our neighbors had a similar experience. A quick tour of the neighborhood showed branches everywhere and the occasional tree down, but I couldn't find any examples of damage to homes. From what I could tell, the only areas that flooded were right by the shore.

Transit in the NY metro area remains down, and will probably stay that way through tomorrow at least. Reports from friends and coworkers in the city suggest that damage was limited in there as well.

So, we are feeling relieved. This was a good practice run for the next big storm!

Irene is here!

We made it through the night with no adverse circumstances, although one neighbor lost a big tree. Our trees came through unscathed, and even the sunflowers are still up. But the main body of the storm is just now arriving, so we are not done yet. The wind is definitely picking up again out there.

Many on Long Island have lost power, but our neighborhood is still online. Crossing our fingers there. We had some heavy rain last night, but no flooding.

Irene's center is now predicted to pass directly over my office in Queens. I wonder how the Olmsted Center will do with that?

Update: LIPower says that out of 617,612 customers in Suffolk County, 206,997 are currently without power. Our power lines are still up, but we've had about five brownouts in the last hour. I suppose it's inevitable we will be added to the outage list at some point.

Irene's coming

As you may have heard, we are about to be smacked by Mother Nature. As I type this, just after 11pm Saturday, we can see the beginning of Hurricane Irene forming outside.

It's been calm here today, even with the mandatory evacuation of the south half of Patchogue (not our half, fortunately). There were a few little rain showers, but nothing to stop us from getting everything ready. Or at least as ready as we can be -- it's hard to know what to expect.

The forecast has changed from time to time. At the moment they are saying that Irene won't even be a Category 1 hurricane by the time it gets to us, merely a strong tropical storm. But those in charge are very worried about the slow speed of this storm, meaning it will be dumping lots of water. We are bracing for extended power outages and possible flooding. Unlike New Orleans, we're above sea level -- slightly -- and the island has a good pitch down to the bay. We also have the benefit of Fire Island between us and the storm, which we all hope will absorb a lot of the storm surge.

Still, what can you do but prepare as best you can and deal with things as they come up. Before I left the office Friday, we moved all the computers away from the windows and covered everything as well as possible.

My office is in a low-lying area, so it may well be flooded. Also, they've never really fixed the roof after last year's tornado drove several trees through it. Unfortunately we ran out of tarps, and had to cover documents with whatever we had at hand.

Naturally even a hurricane is no excuse to let any deadlines slip!

We spent most of the day today preparing everything here at home. Our garage sometimes has minor flooding issues, so I had to make some improvised dams. The Chevy gets to stay in the garage since it doesn't have comprehensive insurance.

Harriet also gets to stay in the garage. No insurance on her either.

Ami planted sunflowers that did really well this year. We will miss them. I'm also very worried about all the new plants I put in this spring, including some great (and expensive) trees.

The main body of the storm is supposed to hit us tomorrow around 8am. Right now it is raining lightly, with a light wind moving directly west. The clouds are moving much more rapidly. It's kind of eerie to feel such a little wind while the clouds race past silently. We are east of the projected center, and the storm is rotating counterclockwise. So the wind starts out east to west, then it will shift around from the south and end up west to east as the bottom of the storm comes up.

If we still have internet access, we'll give another update tomorrow during the day. If communications go out, don't worry, I am pretty sure we'll be fine here. We have lots of water, batteries, and enough food storage to last through several hurricane seasons (thanks Marge). So we'll try to put something up as soon as possible. Here we go!