Henri

One of my aunts lives in Florida. Hurricanes are something she talks about every year. In central Pennsylvania we don't give much thought to hurricanes. The worst it means to us is some extra rain as we're not close enough to the coast to be in the direct path of any hurricanes. Several years ago we had a vacation to Williamsburg, Virginia that we had to cancel because of a hurricane. On Friday night when Paul came home from work he told me about Hurricane Henri, which was headed toward Long Island; the kids and I had packed our suitcases earlier in the day without any idea we might cancel the trip. I texted my Aunt, and she suggested we wait to see if maybe it would veer East into the Gulf Stream. I woke up shortly before 3am on Saturday morning, and I never went back to sleep. It was a complicated decision because Rachel was with us and was supposed to fly back to Chicago from Long Island on Wednesday evening, and Wendy was supposed to fly from Chicago to Long Island today. In the end, Wendy decided to drive to Pennsylvania today with her eight-year-old daughter, Grace. She'll spend two days here at our house and then drive back to Chicago on Wednesday with Grace and Rachel. If my Aunt has electricity, the kids and I will drive out there on Wednesday morning and come back on Sunday. We're praying her basement won't flood and she won't lose power or will at least regain it by Wednesday. I'm not usually willing to drive through NYC on a weekday, but since she's putting her house on the market next month, I'm willing to drive out there on Wednesday this time. Given how much the world has changed over the past 18 months, I'm not certain Paul will ever agree to go to NYC again so this might be my last time ever driving in NYC. Time will tell.

One of the main takeaways from 2020 was to roll with the punches as everything was cancelled for months at a time. As someone who enjoys making plans, sometimes that is hard for me to do. I always bounce back, but sometimes it can be hard to swallow at first. The last few days quite a few things have been cancelled:

1. Paul's dad changed his mind about joining us on the vacation. The kids and I were very disappointed. He doesn't feel he can be away from the concrete plant for that long.
2. We had been planning to attend a free Christian music festival on Friday night that was only 20 minutes from our house. Yvonne had expressed an interest in their family joining us and that was part of the reason they made plans to stay with us from Thursday night through Saturday morning. While we were bowling on Friday, Rachel made it very clear she didn't want to go to the music festival so none of us ended going.  This was hard to swallow for some of us, but I did enjoy playing a game of Boggle (that Paul won) instead that night. Had she let us know this earlier, I would have cooked something for dinner that night. I only purchased pizza at the bowling alley for dinner for the 14 of us because I thought we were going straight from the bowling alley to the music festival. 
3. All of yesterday's plans were cancelled due to Henri - the Roasting Ears of Corn Festival in Allentown, National Canal Museum in Easton, Morristown National Park, and spending the night at a hotel in West Orange, NJ. Last year the plans to visit the same places/events were cancelled due to COVID. I don't think I'll schedule them a third time especially since Aunt Janet is moving to Nevada.
4. All of our plans for today were cancelled due to Henri - Thomas Edison National Park and then driving to Janet's house on Long Island. If we do go to Long Island on Wednesday, I'll have to pick which national park in New Jersey to visit on the way home next Sunday (Morristown, Thomas Edison, or Paterson Great Falls).

Amidst the disappointments, there are still many things to be thankful for such as:

1. Nadia and Ian were able to help with a service project in our town last Wednesday night.
2. We got to spend time with 9 members of Yvonne's family from Thursday evening through Saturday morning. Everyone except for Yvonne and I bowled two games on Friday afternoon. It was the first time that Julianna, Micah, or Wesley ever bowled. The kids also were able to play some arcade games as those are included in the kids bowl free program if you need to rent shoes. Joe was able to borrow Paul's bowling shoes.
3. Although I think they liked the lemon crinkle cookies I made earlier this year better than the lemon bars I made for them last week, they always like my pasta, and the cinnamon baked French toast was also a hit for breakfast along with a bacon and cheese frittata. Rachel had asked for chicken Alfredo so I made a pasta bar for Thursday night - three types of noodles (fettuccini, spaghetti, and rigatoni) and two sauces (marinara with meatballs and Alfredo sauce with chicken). 
4. The kids had lunch at Kids' Café a few times last week. 
5. After getting less than 6 hours of sleep on Friday night, I was very thankful that I got almost 11 hours of sleep last night. I can literally go years without taking a nap. I am not a napper, but I took three ibuprofen and a nap yesterday afternoon, and I woke up feeling a LOT better and my fever was gone. 
6. The hotel reservation for last night was supposed to be non-refundable, but the hotel made an exception and gave me a full refund.
7. Rachel arrived at our home on Thursday evening with the Towfighis, and she'll be here until Wednesday morning. She and Nadia are loving having so much face-to-face time after being limited to Zoom for the past 2 years. They had a "sleepover" last night. If they had followed Rachel's schedule for the evening, they wouldn't have gone to bed until 3:40am, but Nadia was ready for bed at 2:30. Paul played a few games of Racko with them, but I was asleep during their entire sleepover. 
8. Wendy and Grace are on their way here!! I haven't seen either of them in two years. I am very, very grateful that Wendy is willing to do that much driving for a two day visit. Pecan pie bars are in my oven right now as she loves pecan pie!
9. Kellogg's is offering the program to receive free books again this fall. It's been up to ten free books in the past, but we're still thankful for six free books! Ian and Nadia helped make the selections. I had purchased crackers that cost $2 which is what enabled us to earn free books.
10. I found a away to stream the new Paw Patrol movie for free on the same day it was released to the theatres on Friday. We shall see when we ever make it back to AMC. We haven't been to a movie theatre since 2019 aside from an IMAX movie at a science museum last October. I thought only the younger kids would watch the movie, but eight of the eleven cousins watched it together. Micah wanted to watch it again so he must have liked it! I don't usually let the kids watch TV in the morning, but since I thought we'd be at the music festival that night I let them watch it before we went to Kid's Café for lunch. I don't think they cared what time they watched it, lol.