As I climb into bed, the blinking lights out front from BGE’s standby man, Larry’s generator humming, and planes flying overhead every 6 minutes, I pause to reflect on the day.

Actually, I should start the tale with yesterday.  Sandy dumped a ton of rain on us.  We stayed indoors all day.  By midday, our back yard and woods were swamps and pools.  I had to go outside once or twice to fix the gutters during the afternoon.  All in all, we were holding up well.

By the evening, small amounts of water started seeping in the basement.  Eden and I stayed ahead of it for a few hours with a wet vac.  By 9, it was clear that the ground was saturated and we started to lose the battle with mother nature.  The telling sign was when water began bubbling up from cracks in the floor as if from a natural spring.  Still we soldiered on.  At around 10, Eden was way in the back room when the power went out.  She wad a little freaked, but found me in the dark.  We all went upstairs and showered and went to bed.

I became a little nervous, so brought Noah and Maggie into bed with us to ride out the storm.  In the morning, Marcia cooked eggs and bacon on the gas stove.  We assessed the basement … totally flooded.

Rap, rap, rap on the door.  Ian and Kerry Rathmell stopped by.  Offered us freezer space.  Also pointed out why our power was out.

A few more neighbors came by, the Marions and Blair’s.  And then we were off to hunt for coffee.

After Starbucks met our craving, we started in on the basement.  I will not mention the trips to the hardware store or all the mishaps getting started.

But, by 1:30, we started pumping out the basement, pulling power from Larry’s generator.  Eden helped the whole time and Noah and Liz helped as well.  By 3:30, we had pumped 1136 gallons of water from the basement.  Then we swept the floor clean.

While in the backroom, we came across the Halloween decorations.  Got in the mood and decorated.  Then got dinner at Chick Fil A. 

On the way home, we found out that Liz has a presentation due tomorrow.  No power or internet, we went to my office.  Didn’t get home til 11:40.  We were greeted home by the BGE standby guy and a lot of red caution tape.

It had been a long day.  And a challenging one.  The things we need to do tomorrow are not reasonable.  And the days to prepare for Disney World are slim.  But we’re weathering it.  And everyone is holding up just fine.  No ‘woah is me’  here.  Everyone pitching in as a family and not complaining.

For the most part, I can handle this.  The only thing wearing on me is the inability to take a hot shower.  Gross!

Saturday morning was great for the Kennedys. Lot of accomplishments all around.

Marcia ran the 5k, the first she had ever run.  And the first distance run since before Jack was born.

Eden ran her first 5k. She did awesome! She finished 2nd among 8 year olds, and finished ahead of a ton of 9, 10 and 11 year olds.

Noah trucked on the fun run. He finished 2nd on the fun run. And man that boy was running.

Liz ran with her old man, and with two of her friends, Molly and Mackenzie. The display of sportsmanship and competition between the three of them was awesome. They finished within 2 seconds of each other, and won their age group. Most impressive was their time, 23:20.

And, of course, I was only 2 seconds behind them. It garnered me 3rd place among 30-39 year olds.

I’m so proud of the family for the way in which they compete.