Hey, Who Turned Out the Lights??

I went to Tallahassee this past weekend to visit with my brother (Drew) and his pregnant wife (Marquesas). It was his birthday last Saturday.

For those of you who can't read Drew's shirt, it says "Marquesas is so freaking hot!" Cute, huh?

We had a very interesting visit. As most of you know, I was preparing the beginning of last week for Tropical Storm Fay that was headed my way. The kids first day of school was even cancelled due to the threat of the storm. Well, the middle of the night, right before it was supposed to hit us, it turned sharply to the right and ended up coming ashore a few hours south of us. We barely ended up getting any rain that day. In fact, it was pretty much hot and sunny all day. So weird. So, TS Fay went across the state of Florida, out into the Atlantic, turned sharply to the left and then hit Florida again, going straight West through the panhandle of Florida....which is right where Tallahassee is.

So, my sisters and I drove up through the storm. I bet you think that sounds insane, right?? Well, it wasn't so bad. Oh, except for the frogs who we think must have been displaced because of all of the rain/flooding who kept jumping into the middle of the road, waiting until the car was right above them and then trying to jump again. Not only could you hear the thud as the poor critters lept to their deaths, smashing into the bottom of the car, but you could actually feel the thud from when the frog was big enough. It was unpleasant. Although, that was slightly less unpleasant than when we drove through the small town of Perry, which apparently is located down wind from a trash dump. I swear, the smell was so pungent you could actually taste it when you breathed through your mouth. I grabbed my pillow and stuffed my face into it. I figured if I passed out form not being able to breathe, at least we would be out of the stinky little town by the time I came to.

So, we got to my Brother's house late on Friday night. It rained pretty hard all night. We got up and went out to lunch the next day, which was my brother's birthday, and it was still raining, as you can tell form this wonderful shot out the windshield.

The wind was never really bad. The only thing we were really concerned with was the rain. It did end up starting to flood.

We went out to eat and then we went bowling. The first bowling place we tried to go to didn't have power. I remember thinking "ohhh, those poor people," because I am sure it was really hot inside that building. So, we went to a second bowling place and it was open. I suck at bowling. I think I bowled a 65. My sister, Jill, said she sucked too. Then she bowled a 128. Apparently, her version of sucking and my version of sucking are completely different.

After bowling, we headed back to my brother's house. When we got there. There was no electricity. We played games for a while. It started getting pretty hot and sticky. My SIL called a friend of hers. They had power. So, we decided to head out to a little pizza place for dinner. That way we could be in the air conditioning and wouldn't be sitting around sweating, making the house smell like Perry and, hopefully, would have power by the time we got back. While we were eating, the power went out in the pizza place. We left and the power was still out at Drew's too. Needless to say, we didn't sleep a whole lot that night.

Apparently my niece, Devyn, discovered that the dog, who normally wouldn't let her get near, was getting distracted by looking out the window and would sneak up and get a good rub in and yell "YEAH!" before the dog would run off. Since it was dark inside and light outside, it made a cool picture.

We got up and left Tally the next morning. The power was out until later that afternoon.

I had a good time, even if we didn't get to eat the peanut butter pie that Marquesas had made for Drew because we couldn't open the fridge door and let out the cold air that was in there keeping all the food from spoiling until the power came back on, which was well after we left. I bet it was yummy!

I am guessing it will be a birthday that Drew will not forget any time soon. :)