Hurricane Sandy

Hello, World!

(These photos are also on facebook, but not the stories.  Since all of our family is not on facebook, I put them on the blog.)

I tried to get these photos moved around some, but the website was being tricky.  These were all taken last Saturday, when Frank and I and David went to New York to help with storm damage.  I typed in the stories, but they are AFTER all the photos, at the bottom of the blog post.

If you click on the photos you can see them a lot bigger, too.

Police were everywhere, sadly in case of looting

Toboggans to drag the debris to the street

Interviewing a resident trying to clean up

Supplies provided for volunteers

David models the 'Helping Hands' pinny

Frank adds more SLUDGE to the pile: wet insulation, drywall & wood

Binoculars full of sea water

David helps clear debris.  The mask is because it was so dusty.

The basement window was a portal for trash, to be loaded onto the toboggan

ready to drag the next load of muck

Collection of player piano rolls of music

Storybook that was floating for days

Now THIS is an old album!

Blurry, yes, but I'm holding one of the ceiling panels we were tearing out.

My boot.

Thank you, Rustic Crust, for free pizza & water for the volunteers.

Frank & David take a pizza and water break

more damaged ocean-front homes

houses and restaurants being renovated

More boardwalk splinters.

picture of Grandpa: submersed in seawater for days

Here is the boardwalk, even that lamppost and railing, lifted up and slammed against the restaurant.

Our Demolition Crew! Fran, whose dad lived here, is in the red jacket.

Just wanted to give a synopsis of our Saturday.

HURRICANE DAMAGE HELP.  Our church has been organizing groups of people to go down to New York, helping clean up the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy 3 weeks ago.  It's a long drive anyway (4 hours), but "things being as they are" we were warned it might take 5 hours to get down there.

Frank and me.  My pinny is on backwards.  Don't worry I changed it! :)

So anyway, this past Saturday, Frank, David and myself drove down past Long Island, to Breezy Point where the storm caused huge amounts of destruction.  It was a little overwhelming to just absorb it all.  (And I've HAD electricity and the comforts of home for the past 3 weeks.)

PINPOINT THE SPOT.  Breezy Point is at the south end of Long Island, NYC.  (go ahead, mapquest "Breezy Point, NY" and zoom in once or twice...it helps to get a visual...)  It's kind of this long stretch of sand.  On one side is the bay, and on the other side is the Atlantic Ocean.  It has a grid of streets, including thousands of homes and dozens of businesses, in quite a few neighborhoods.

SO. MUCH. WATER.  3 weeks ago, Hurricane Sandy caused the bay on one side, and the ocean on the other side, to come together.  The entire stretch of sand of Breezy Point was covered, 5 feet deep in sea water.  Imagine walking down your street with water up to your chest or chin.  This meant that EVERYBODY's basement windows broke and the water filled their basements up to the ceiling.  Some homes had water just up to their front door, while others' homes ("luck of the draw"), 3 or 4 feet lower on the other side of the street, also had a couple of feet of water on their MAIN floor, so TWO levels of their homes were destroyed instead of just one.  All cars parked on the streets were under water.  Just barely.  But 5 feet of water just about covers most normal sized sedans.

DEBRIS REMOVAL.  We went to the sidewalk in front of a public school, where our missionaries had equipment for us to use.  Shovels, buckets, gloves, masks (for dust), and toboggans.  Debris would be loaded onto toboggans, then hauled out to the street.  Every night the city would send dump trucks around all the neighborhoods, to collect all the debris on the streets, and haul it away.  A few vacant fields away, there are MOUNTAINS of destroyed furniture, drenched drywall and soggy insulation, tons of household items that couldn't handle being submersed in sea water for days.

Once there were 10 people in a group ready to work, they had 2 missionaries go with us to a house on their list, to work.  (Residents had been given a phone number to call and request help, free of charge, with their homes.  So far there were 200 homes on "the list," and it the list was growing daily.)

LIVING ALONE.  That gives you a background.  We got there and were assigned to Fran's house.  Fran's 96-year-old father "Steven" actually lived in the house by himself.  He built it in 1960, and like everyone else, he ignored the evacuation warnings because it was "just a big storm."  So when the water rose, this little old man's neighbor "Jeff" watched with horror as water filled the streets, the basements, and kept rising.  He waited until the water stopped rising, and swam/waded next door to Steven's house, to let him know what was happening.  Jeff described the water level to him. Steven said "I don't believe you."  So the Jeff urged him to come to the front door and look for himself.  He did, and his eyes got big and he still couldn't believe it.

Frank adds more to the pile

DEMOLITION.  Our job was tearing down wall panels, soggy insulation, ceiling panels, and taking all the unsalvageable objects from the basement to the street.  We pretty much gutted the basement.  Other assignments were not as big.  One woman needed help tearing out linoleum in her kitchen.  Another family drew a line on the wall and had helpers remove the soppy drywall underneath that line, as high as the water went.  Many scrubbed mold off of walls. (so. much. mold. eeeewwwww.)  Whatever people need help with, they can call to place their order, and volunteers come to their address.

Our stack.  The city's dump trucks drive through every night to collect people's debris from the neighborhood curbs.

Boardwalk again, with the pilings in the background, where the boardwalk was before.

They were getting responses from all along the East Coast, of people who wanted to help.  It's such a neat thing to see.  But afterwards, we were able to come home and sleep in our comfortable houses.  Those people couldn't get away from the mess.

I'm standing on the piling taking the picture, see my shadow?

This is where the boardwalk USED to be.

So, without making this volumes long, I'll post photos and let you see the area.  We walked to the beach at the end, to see damage along the shore.

BOARDWALK SPLINTERS. The storm surge literally lifted the boardwalk up and over about 30 feet, slamming it into the row of houses/hotels/restaurants there.  It was pretty overwhelming.  Here are photos of those nice houses/hotels/restaurants along the shore, that got hit so hard.  And the cement pilings (supports for the boardwalk) where the boardwalk USED to be.  The waves lifted it up and over, no problem.

I'm glad we could go help, even a tiny bit.  I'm still a little overwhelmed when I look at the photos again.

Kari

Halloween 2012

Hola!

This week has been a wild one, and we weren't even hit very hard by the megastorm Sandy.  I'll do another post on storm things, maybe, but I did want to count my blessings that even though about half the town lost power and lots of trees and branches came down in that horrifically intense wind, we could hold some "normal" things in our town.  Like Halloween.

SENIORS DRESS UP.  Traditionally at our high school, on Halloween Day the seniors are allowed to wear costumes to school.  They get pretty creative, actually--it's fun that they have a chance to showcase their talents and look silly for the day.

David is a senior this year (I'm still allowing that to sink into my brain...it should take a full year, or 5).  He and a group of friends each dressed up like different characters in the Super Mario game.  It was very fun.  David was "Shy Guy." 


I put a picture of the actual character in the corner so you can see the resemblance.  :)

He even spray-painted his worst pair of sneakers.






Here is me helping him with makeup before seminary, getting all dressed up Halloween morning.

Here is the Mario group, and I can't name all the characters except probably Mario himself, and Luigi, and Princess Peach.

His other friends were Calvin and Hobbes, Zorro and other super heroes, etc.  There were 13 kids who came over.

iTUNES GIFT CARDS.  Kara and a few friends made up their costumes to be iTunes gift cards.  Those gift cards USED to have the bright card with the silhouette dancing.  They dressed in black and put bright cards behind them.

(Apple has since changed the cards, of course!  I thought it was a fun idea.)

OVERLAPPING PARTIES. Kara's friends came over to eat and get costumes ready around 5.  The plan was to leave to trick-or-treat around 6.

David had his friends come over around 6, to socialize and then to go out trick-or-treating in our neighborhood.

TRICK-OR-TREATING PHILOSOPHY.  My philosophy on trick-or-treating has evolved, over time.  I think, if the kids make the effort to dress up and wear actual costumes, I don't mind teenagers trick-or-treating.

The ones I roll my eyes at are the ones who ring the doorbell at 8:45 p.m., when all the little kids have gone home, and there stand 2 teens in regular clothes, holding pillow cases.  Please.

But if they make an effort, no problem.  And most of the neighbors were good sports about it.  One said "You're too tall to trick-or-treat," then they crouched down, and she gave them candy.

Another neighbor looked at the group of 13 teens and asked, "Okay, which one of you is from this neighborhood?" Then David and Princess Peach spoke up.  They all got candy.  Overall, it was a fun evening for them!

More later, love, Kari

Oh, P.S.  Here is when David tried to take OFF the face-paint... The white and black mixed together, and he got this great ZOMBIE effect!  We'll have to use that one another year.

Annual Pumpkin Carving

Muck Removal

Hola!

Couldn't get through October without having our traditional Pumpkin Carving Family Home Evening.

(Again: thanks to Kara, we decorate for, and celebrate holidays to the max!  The fall school and sports schedules overwhelm me so much, I would - sadly - probably take a "pass" on some of this.  But energetic Kara will have none of that!)

We usually wait until pretty close to Halloween Day to carve the pumpkins.  Maybe we learned that in southern California, where it's always warm and your pumpkin gets old and moldy after just a few days.  But even here in the Arctic North, we have a few warm days in October, so we are still better off waiting.

Make sure all the gunk is cleaned out...

Eeewww...

searching for the perfect pumpkin face

Get the music playing on Pandora.com...

Sometimes we like intense music from adventure movie soundtracks.  No words, just fast orchestra music that keeps you on the edge of your seat.

(Think John Williams with Star Wars, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  Also Hans Zimmer, with Pirates of the Caribbean, Mission Impossible, The Dark Knight Rises, and Inception. The music is phenomenal.  They belong to an amazing, elite club of genius composers.)

Puking Pumpkin

So anyway, David (our high school senior) found this great group who plays very intense music--their music could be part of soundtracks for very intense movies! We really like the music when he plays it for us on youtube, and we ask him the natural question, since we like it so much: "What group is this?"

"Two Steps from Hell."  (Oh.  Bummer.  Now I can't recommend it to anybody without swearing.  That's a little awkward.)

Teresa requested the Open-Mouth, Puking Pumpkin.  Sometimes it's a little ridiculous, what you can find on the Internet.

Got to get a picture of this on my phone

Here are the final products, with candles to show them off on the doorstep!

Thanks to all the Whitesell participants. :)

Fall Stuff

This is about the 10th time I have tried to post on the blog, and then I am distracted by "the next thing!"

It's a rainy, blah day today, but I'll put up the photo I took yesterday of a pretty tree by the middle school.  We do have SOME really nice, picture-perfect fall days in October.  Just not today.

LEAVES CHANGING.  In front of our house the trees are still mostly green.  But as you drive around town, you can see the yellows, reds, orange leaves.  Very pretty!

NEW MAILBOX.  Frank spent time Saturday digging out the old and putting in a new mailbox post.  I think it looks much better!

Now the mailbox has the same "look" as the lamp post.  (in the 2nd mailbox photo you can see the lamppost to the right an behind the mailbox.)  Here are some before and after photos.  Somebody kind of bumped our mailbox, so it was held together for a few weeks by duct tape.  (I dont' have photos of the duct tape, sorry...)

PET CEMETERY.  We said good-bye and had a mini-funeral for Spice, Kara's hamster, who passed away last week.  Hamsters only live about 2 years, and Spice was 2 months shy of 2 years old.  We have a little "Pet Cemetery" in the back corner of the backyard.  It now shelters 3 hamsters, and a garden snake from a few years ago we found in the basement and kept for a little while.

Our backyard looks very different now (the tree in the center died last year), but I've pointed to where we buried the animals, way back in the corner.

BAKING A SNAKE.  Here's Kara's science project...she made a milk snake out of clay, baked it, and painted it to show the adaptive coloring!  It looks like a coral snake, which is poisonous, but the milk snake is not poisonous.  But its enemies don't know that, so they stay away.

Ok, by the way, there was only one "K" in the set of letters!  Kara creatively used an "X" for the second "K" in the title: "The Milk Snake." :)

DECORATING for HALLOWEEN.  If it weren't for Kara, we'd have a boring house!  For every holiday, she digs around in the bins in the attic and finds things to hang up, to decorate the house.  Halloween is only 11 days away, you know.

Well that was probably more than you wanted!  But doing photos on the blog (or anywhere) is therapeutic for me, so that's mostly why I do it.

Hope your October is going well.  Have a great weekend!  Kari :)

Mary Lou's Memorial

Hello!

I completely forgot to mention Frank's Virginia weekend, in the last blog post.  (We did miss him over the weekend.  It was a pretty quick trip.)

Frank got to visit with some family members he hasn't seen for awhile, when he went to a memorial service for his Aunt Mary Lou.  She passed away during the summer and Amelia (his cousin, Mary Lou's daughter) organized this additional memorial service, for those who didn't come to the one earlier in the summer.

I remember Mary Lou's passion for nature.  She would take these crazy-long camping trips, and got into birding.  Then it became a quest to search for birds, birds, and more birds, in their different habitats, in different regions of our country and Canada.  I think it was called the "700 Club" that she was in.  She observed and identified over 700 species of birds! I posted this bird on our blog once, and she told me almost immediately what it was.  (I can't remember the name now.  But she knew!)

Her brother Bill remembered how she was a voracious and fast reader.  When they were younger, he would watch as she would read, just slowly turning pages continuously.  He was skeptical, and didn't think she was really reading.  Periodically he would "quiz" her on the material she had just gone through.  And yes, she would actually remember the information!

Once she came to our house when we lived in Colorado, and she showed us her very fancy, custom camping van.  Frank and I were amazed at all the amenities, that she squeezed into a normal-sized van!  (Who cares if it rains or not when you're camping, if you have one of those cool vans?)

Here is a photo of Mary Lou when she was in her 20's (my guess).  Isn't she beautiful? :)







And here is the group of family members who went to dinner after the service.  Frank was glad to be able to visit with his aunt & uncle, cousins and their families.  It's good to get together when everyone lives so far apart.

Thanks, Amelia, for organizing this!  You're a star! :)

Joys of October

Hola--

It's October!  Yes!  I love this month.  New England has a few really beautiful months, and this is one of them.  The leaves have started to change, so as the month progresses the drive around town becomes brighter and more colorful.  It's truly wonderful.

Two weeks have gone by since the last post.  I'm thinking it has been more like two months.  It is fall, and every fall I am (Understatement Alert) a little overwhelmed.  They are all good things, mind you!  I just feel scattered.

PHONES.  This was a more painful and tedious process than we could have imagined, but we have a new family plan with phones for everybody.  (As my brother Kris would say, "Nice, Kari.  Welcome to the 90's.")  It is true we have always dragged our feet a little on the newest technology.  Why pay for the hype?  Just wait a few months/years and the prices come down.  We all have phones, I said.  NOT smart-phones, or the newest and fanciest version of whatever just came out from Apple.  Plain phones, no Internet on the phones.

We are ALL texting now, finally.  Some of us more than others, to be sure.  I think Kara -- 7th grade -- racked up 1000 in one week.  Please.  (Of course, I think she has more friends than all of the rest of us combined...?)

The catalyst that pushed us to finally get everybody phones, has been my own thinking: next year David will be in college and (pause)...will we EVER actually get a phone call from him?  Maybe not.  But we may be more likely to get a text from him.

So here we are.  We switched to AT&T--again, it was a nightmare, so I can't recommend them to anyone--because they had the best-priced family plan for us, with the corporate discount from HP.  And after hours and days of waiting on hold (you think I'm exaggerating but I'm really not), and occasionally talking to people, who had varied and different information they would make up...

(Happy Ending) Over the course of 2 weeks of agony, we finally talked to two different truly helpful people.  One of those people was appalled at our runaround story.  He went into the computer and gave us credit for 2 months of service on our account.  Yes.  I was floored.  Awesome!

IN OTHER NEWS.  A new mailbox post sits in our living room, to be hopefully installed this weekend.  I might have before/after photos next week.

SOCCER.  Kara's school team is doing quite well, and Kara is improving and really likes the game.

VOLLEYBALL.  This sport is such a highlight for Teresa.  She wishes it would last all year.  It does make for some loooooooooooong days, though, leaving the house for seminary at 6:00a.m., school, vball, and on game days home at 8p.m.  Homework, she is not so fond of.

PUMPKIN LAUNCHER.  The Young Men at church are in charge of the youth activity this week.  David has been building, along with other youth and leaders, a pumpkin launcher.  They will get into groups to design and decorate a pumpkin, then they will launch them outside.  Prizes will be given for creativity, design, distance, etc., etc.

TUTORING.  I finally have a schedule pretty well in place for my tutoring at school.  (Bonus: they even sent my time cards, after about a month, so I can get paid!)  They are such nice kids.  I have a really good job.

FIVE THINGS to be THANKFUL FOR.  To finish the post, off the top of my head:
1)  I am thankful for reliable transportation.
2)  For sweatshirts in the fall.
3)  For other adults who care about my kids, too.
4)  For sunshine breaking through the clouds.
5)  Comfortable, nice-looking shoes.  On sale.

Happy Week!  Kari