silence

You would think that no power would mean that everything is quiet and dark, wouldn't you? The answer, surprisingly, is no. Dark, mostly, but the neighborhood is actually quite a lot noisier because of all the generators running. Being a true Floridian apparently means owning a generator; therefore, we are not yet true Floridians. We lived for 77 hours out of a cooler, cooking on the camp stove and the grill, and reading at night by Andy's headlamp and candlelight. Our big concession to modernity was letting the kids watch Winged Migration on the laptop at night. I didn't realize that the laptop was actually a hurricane supply. Overall, we fared very well, since Andy is a whiz with the grill and camp stove. Krissy, who lives down the street, got her power back on Tuesday, so Wednesday night we all hiked down to the "bathhouse" and got a hot shower (this is something I really find hard to live without) and a fresh oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. The kids enjoyed having Andy home and helping him around the yard. Michael especially enjoyed having the entire week off of school, although I don't know if he would be so thrilled if he knew that he will have to make up those days by losing holidays throughout the rest of the year.

I heard yesterday that there are still 70,000 households in Lee and Collier counties without power. I know some of them. Apparently, FPL is saying that some people may not have power back until Thanksgiving. I hope that is a "worst case" guess and not actually true. You can tell when a block has gotten power back because it goes suddenly quiet as everyone rushes out to turn off their generators.

I thought I'd share some pictures, too: just a couple of shots from around our neighborhood (the lake is actually our backyard). On Tuesday we all went to church (Andy to work, me--honestly--to get coffee) and helped pick up the branches on the grounds. Even Elanor helped a little, which was hysterical to watch! Michael loved it so much (and worked so hard) that Andy let him stay through part of the afternoon to keep helping. Needless to say, he was one tired boy by the time bedtime rolled around.

It's been a great week, all in all. We were blessed by not losing anything but the power (and a palm tree under a power line) and some mystery leftovers and popsicles in the freezer. I know there are a lot of people still without power and I hurt for them because it gets really frustrating after a while. But overall, the damage in Fort Myers seems to be limited to power lines, landscaping, and traffic lights, so I think we are all pretty thankful.