Hurrication 2018

After carefully watching and tracking Hurricane Florence we decided to evacuate Wilmington on Tuesday, September 11 around 11:30am.  

We packed up the kids, their baby quilts that Grandma Flaming made, clothes for a week, gifts and party stuff for Benny's birthday, all important documents, and drove away from our home with the mindset that the rest was just stuff that could be replaced.  

It is a little crazy trying to pack up and get the house ready to evacuate.  Many people have asked what all we did. We took pictures of the entire house inside & outside. We unplugged everything, except major appliances. I cleaned out the fridge & freezer. We turned OFF the ice machine. We put all yard stuff in the shed as well as the pillows and cushions from the screened in porch. We moved furniture in our porch along the brick wall.

We drove from Wilmington, NC to Charleston, WV.  We hit traffic off and on in NC and then some major traffic, due to bridge reconstruction, in WV.  We spent the night at a hotel.  The next morning we hit the continental breakfast, then swam for 1.5 hours (while Jake logged in to work) and then grabbed a snack from the continental breakfast, showered up and hit the road.  That hotel lost money on us! 

Wednesday we drove from WV to Aunt Anna's home in Carmel, IN. We arrived before dinner.  Thursday morning was Benny's birthday!

Aunt Anna has a really fun park, with a splash pad, that you can walk to from her house. We did that daily and loved it! We also found her local library.

Saturday morning we got up early, drove to South Bend, IN for the Notre Dame Football game versus Vanderbilt.  We did the whole experience with tail gating, walking around campus, and even meeting up with our local friends, the Wetterlund's.

THANK YOU, Aunt Anna, for an amazing day! Great memories were made.

On Sunday, 9/16, Jake kept tracking the storm and both of us were speaking with friends that were still in Wilmington.  At that point we knew that the girls did not have school the following week.  Flooding was bad, there was still no power and everyone was saying, "if you are somewhere safe, stay put." For multiple reasons, we decided to drive up to MN on Monday, September 17 and stay with my parents. What's another 10 hours of driving?!?

While in Minnesota we had so much fun with our families. We had lots of playtime with cousins including doing the Mall of America, bowling, their local library, and a big girls sleepover with Margot.

I even was able to meet up with a couple of friends.

Lily & Ella had haircuts while we were in MN.  We had them scheduled for Friday in Wilmington, but that was cancelled. I knew we'd have lots to catch up on when we got back home, so we checked that off of the list in Minnesota. 

We also went downtown one day and saw Auntie Bekah at work and had lunch with her.

 There is always reading with Grandpa & Grandma.

Fresh squeezed lemonade with Grandma. We even got to pick the apples off of Grandpa & Grandma's  apple tree.  Then we made apple crisp - yum!

Another fun big kid date to Charlotte's Web.

We also got to see Morgen play in her volleyball game at FBCS, Carsten play FBCS soccer and Ethan play rec soccer. It was rather cold at the soccer game on Saturday. In fact, it was pretty cold our entire time in MN.  So we wore our one pair of pants and one sweatshirt every single day. 

We want to say a HUGE thank you to all of our family who housed us, fed us, entertained us and spent time with us while we were evacuated.  

We started the drive home on Sunday, September 23.  We drove from MN back to Anna's in IN.  Then on Monday, we drove from IN to NC. When we started the drive, on Monday, we weren't sure how far we would make it.  We were trying to get to Raleigh, NC and then see if we would get a hotel or push on home.  We had heard many stories of how terrible the traffic could be, also I40 was still closed.  The Lord went before us, we didn't experience any traffic and I40 opened back up, heading into Wilmington, a few hours before we got there.  

As we pulled onto our street "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" was playing on our radio. God was so faithful in so many ways. In wisdom when making all the decisions regarding evacuating.  In protecting us with all of our travels. In providing for us. In protecting our home. Our home was dry inside and no damage was sustained.  We had & have a lot of yard work to do, but that is all.  A few big tree limbs fell down but they fell away from the house. We are so thankful. We are praying for those who were not as fortunate.  We are seeking ways to help those in our community who are in need.