Happy first day of fall!
I am looking forward to a new season after a trying month. It’s been hard to get back in the groove after having a couple weeks of craziness due in part to hurricane Irma. I am very grateful that the storm was not as bad as what we had prepared for, my heart breaks for the people who were severely impacted by Irma (and Harvey). It was quite a scare starting on Wednesday September 6th, there was talk of a monster storm on the local news. I casually went to Publix mid-morning to grab a few things. The parking lot was packed and there were no shopping carts, all the water was completely gone which sent me into a bit of a panic. We watched the storm carefully that week and by Friday my neighborhood had been issued a mandatory evacuation. We had planned to move into my parents house on Saturday because they are higher up. As it shifted more towards the west coast that night my parents woke me up at 4am telling me to get up and pack. My thoughts and emotions were all over the place at this point. How do you just make a split second decision about ‘necessities’ when your whole life in a home you’ve built over so many years! I cried as we frantically packed a few things and loaded our car with minimal clothes, a cooler, and our three pets. Hunters parents didn’t want to leave and neither did my grandparents. I cried even more. We followed my parents up to my other grandparents house in South Carolina. My cousins followed us too, we had a caravan the whole way. Stopping every time we saw gas which was very scarce. Thankfully my dad has been making this drive for many years so we avoided a lot of the traffic that was being reported. It was such a eerie feeling to see so many people in a panic; cars packed to the brim, many with multiple pets like us, and lines so long at every gas station police had to come and direct because people were getting so crazy. I have lived in Florida my entire life (and so has my dad’s family) we’ve NEVER seen anything like this. Same with most of my closest friends, everyone left town. Floridians normally do not freak over storms. It was insane. We tried to enjoy our four days in South Carolina but I couldn’t help but wonder if we’d have a home to go back to. I’m thankful for friends who were in touch the whole time, knowing we were all in this together. After the storm passed, some friends that stayed in town stopped by my house to check on it. So much relief that the storm had died down and we only received minor damage. We drove back the next day, which was an even creepier drive than the way up. Even less gas and no power anywhere, it was really hard to even find a bathroom to stop at as everything was closed due to the power. No street lights either. It took 14 hours (normally it’s 9-10). When we got back my parents had power but we didn’t for two days so we stayed with them. I couldn’t believe it came on so soon. We’ve had friends just get it back this week. The photos from the Keys, Miami, Naples, etc are devastating. I can’t begin to imagine. It’s been really amazing to see how everyone has supported each other during this time. And all the people making supply runs down to the keys. We had 5 friends come over without being asked to chop down this giant tree that fell in our yard. These times help show us what and who matters most, I’m thankful for this experience because it definitely was a learning one. Thank you to everyone who reached out on insta to make sure we were okay!
Here are some photos from our time away. I always love being at my grandparents house. It’s so cozy and nestled in a sleepy little town. It was Blade’s first road trip and he had the time of his life being with everyone 24/7 and having so much space to run in the woods at their house. The last few photos are my house before we started clean up (which is still in progress, the tree services have not been able to pick up debris yet and it’s still piled in front of everyone’s yards!).
I finally feel like I’m catching up and am looking forward to starting a new week with hopefully less drama! And back to posting some new work and exciting projects next week 🙂
Hope you have a great weekend.
XO
(above is the back door which was unusable at first, bottom you can see how big this monster tree was)
