8.29.2011

Hurricane Weekend!

Happy Monday readers!

Wow, what a week we had here in Virginia--first an earthquake on Tuesday and then a hurricane on Saturday!

Hurricane Irene caused quite a stir here in Richmond--most of the city is without power (fortunately ours came on yesterday afternoon) and there are trees down all over town (including on my Grandma's shed).  Luckily, however, all of us were safe.

Though, I know that hurricanes are serious business, I've always associated them with a level of excitement.  When I was younger we often would miss school due to hurricanes and there's just something fun about the power going out.

This weekend was no different.  Bryce and I braved the storm at his house on Saturday.  The power went out around 5:45 pm, but luckily he has a gas stove so we still had a great dinner...made in the dark.

We had already planned to make dinner that night, so I had brought over the fixings for risotto.

Making risotto by flashlight...

Without the camera's flash--this is a more accurate picture of the experience!

The risotto--yum!!

We were hard at work!

Because of the storm, we weren't able to go to the store and get the rest of the ingredients for dinner.  We decided that for a meat we would reheat some leftover meatballs from an Italian dinner with my family Thursday night.

Final product--without flash!

VOILA!  A delicious meal made with no electricity!

After dinner, we decided to camp out downstairs because so many trees were coming down all around us.  We had quite the set up with sleeping bags, a camping light, and Bananagrams--one of my absolute favorite games!


We were also able to listen to tunes on Bryce's computer while it still had battery power!  We checked the storm out online with his wireless card too.  This is what we saw:


The next day we both spent helping our families clean up!  A tree went down at his mom's house and one went down at my Grandma's.  After that we all enjoyed the electricity at my house!

My Grandma's Shed

The tree's root system!

Did Irene affect you?  How did you brave the storm?

Have a great day!