Tropical Storm Irene

I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday weekend. We certainly are. I sometimes wish I had the ability to blog contemporaneously. Maybe readers would find that more interesting than reading about events that occurred a week ago but if I had that ability then I probably wouldn't be living the life that I'm living and I would rather have that. So let's go back to last Sunday and the onset of Tropical Irene in New England.

Anna and Emily were awake before 6:30 that morning. I flicked on the television set in my bedroom to determine that status of Irene. I had heard the winds blow in earlier that morning and was hoping for confirmation that we would be able to drive to New Hampshire. Rich and I briefly conferred and agreed to hit the road as soon as possible. To get out before the onslaught of the storm.

As you can imagine, there was absolutely NO traffic to slow us down.

The girls, especially Allie and Emily, have a minor obsession with rest areas. Perhaps they just like the freedom from their car seats. Emily calls it a resting place instead of a rest area. "When are we going to be at the resting place?"

Despite the rain, we arrived in North Conway shortly after 11:00. Three hours after we pulled out of our driveway. Although the rain had been somewhat heavy here and there, about twenty minutes before North Conway, we hit torrential downpours.

We decided to stop for lunch before unpacking our clothes, toys, food and supplies at the chalet. Although I dislike feeding fast food to the girls, Rich and I believe that it is okay in moderation. We are both normal weights and live a somewhat healthy lifestyle so we are of the opinion that fast food here and there is not the devil. Plus McDonald's had an indoor play place. It was nice when we first arrived because there were only three other kids in the play area. After we finished eating, it was another story. I think anyone and everyone with kids stopped there for lunch (or just to play in some cases).

And this may be because I am a helicopter parent but why are there so many parents out there who don't parent? Kids are not going to learn to wait their turn or to not push other kids unless you, the parent, tell them not to. Gah! I actually did yell into the tunnel at one boy. "NO! YOU need to wait your turn. PLEASE."

After unpacking at the chalet and relaxing for a bit, we decided to drive to the outlet mall, which is about ten minutes or so away. We had watched the weather forecast and it appeared that the downpours were subsiding. I should have mentioned that my brother-in-law informed us on Saturday that Story Land would be closed Sunday, re-opening Monday if they had power.

This fall will be the first big season change where I do not have a bag of clothes purchased the year before stored away for the girls. There are some outfits that I purchased with Gymbucks and they do have some dresses and shirts that still fit but they need clothes, which was one of the reasons for the shopping excursion to the outlets.

One problem. The outlets were closed.

So we ended up at Walmart, which unfortunately was fairly small. The girls each picked out a Hello Kitty hoodie. Grammy and I made an attempt at browsing the fabric section but the girls were just too worked up. They were mad that they couldn't shop for clothes and didn't understand that there wasn't much of a selection since a majority of the clothes in the store were summer items.

It was a chilly night so Rich made use of the fireplace and we spent the rest of the evening at the chalet hoping for sunny skies come morning.