Another year has gone so fast!

We “downsized” to a town home this spring.  Our town home is on a beautiful river, overlooking a mangrove island and is only a short distance from the ocean by water.  We have a dock in our backyard, Our boat sits there and at a moments notice, we can go out to the ocean to snorkel, fish, or just enjoy the water.  We were lucky to have Ansje and DeMoyne, Jack and Oeke, Paul and Louky all visiting Tina and Ralph.  They all came to see our new place and we took them out for a boat ride.  Everyone had a great time and Louky got a new hairstyle!

As you all may know, it can get a little windy here in Florida from time to time.  Our back to back hurricanes created quite a bit of havoc down here.  

Fourteen days without power can be interesting.  Virtually all employment is shut down.  There is no fresh or frozen food.  PB & J on crackers with warm soda was a lucky find.  All frozen food had to be thrown out because the core of the first hurricane lasted over three days and without power, you couldn’t cook any of the thawed food without power. The sewer systems don’t work without power, and started backing up in areas.  Water could  not be sanitized so only bottled water was safe to drink.  

Gas is very hard to find.  The gas stations that could pump gas ran out, the lines for fuel stretched for up to a mile at times. The ports were closed. Florida’s main source of petrol is by ship.

There are no traffic lights, its not that they didn’t work,  they weren’t there at all.  They had all blown away.  It is amazing that without visual cues, how easy it is to run through intersections.  All intersections became four way stops.  Try doing that with 16 lanes all heading toward each other.  We were under mandatory curfew at dusk for weeks. Driving at night was way to dangerous.  Huge power lines and trees were down all over.  

Without power, few businesses could open, so there was no work. We were lucky that my employer continued to pay me even though we were unable to open. There wasn’t much to do besides try to clean up the debris.  Does anyone need firewood, we have lots down here in Florida.  We don’t have a fireplace. We were lucky enough to find a generator after the first hurricane.  We powered our house and our neighbors house with it.  The generator wasn’t powerful enough for air conditioning but that was alright.  It was nice to have fans  and a refrigerator and a radio to listen to.  We learned to appreciate the little things like, ice.  Ice is something you really enjoy after cutting up all  the firewood we had in our yard.  As a note, if you or any of your families were involved in the massive effort to restore power to Florida after  our four hurricanes, words can’t express how much we thank you.  We cheered every power truck that went by.

We must admit, the second hurricane that hit the area we live, was a big surprise.  We usually watch these for weeks before they hit shore, but this one was heading away from us. We even quit tracking it. Suddenly it turned around and came back with only 36 hours notice.  If any of you watched these hurricanes (Frances and Jeanne), we live basically where they both hit shore.

By the time the second hurricane came through, we were all pretty exhausted.  The power had just been restored.  We were slowly getting supplies back in the stores and there were no gas lines. We had returned to work.  Huge piles of debris were everywhere  and the cities were working hard to remove it as fast as they could. But we now had learned what to do.  We live in an area that is an evacuation zone during even a minor hurricane. So during the second hurricane, we evacuated to Disney World!  We knew to empty the freezer and take the contents with us during the second hurricane.  Our hotel had a full kitchen, so we dinned on baby back ribs, and steaks while in Disney World.  We snuck the cats in (don’t tell Mickey!). On our way back to survey the damage, we picked up supplies to get us through the powerless days.  But with a generator, it was pretty tough to complain.

We were lucky to have all of our family and friends survive, mostly intact.

If any of you every come to visit, please bring a blue tarp.  It is our new state flag, almost every roof is flying one.