March Madness...Princeton style

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Originally uploaded by gennabby.

Alright, people. When Matthew told me we'd be moving to Princeton, I had visions of ivy and stone, stained glass, picturesque seasons. And then we got here and the summer was "one of the soggiest on record: we never get this much rain!" That made fall kind of a flop, with leaves browning and clinging to the trees instead of blazing with color and falling off, the way they are *supposed to*, which was "so unusual; we always have beautiful fall foliage!" And then winter. Blizzard after blizzard of record setting snowfall. Abby had over a week of snow days, I learned how to shovel a driveway, and we prayed that the roof would not collapse under the weight of 2+ feet of snow. All the while, the locals were awed and promised: "This is the most snow we've had maybe ever! We haven't seen a winter like this in over 20 years. It's never like this!"

And then we had our first spring rain and wind storm this weekend. The rain was interesting, the wind was loud. Abby and I stood at the window watching trees bend and sway, and she asked me: "Mom, do trees ever just fall over?" I replied, "Yes, but it is really rare." 30 seconds later (not kidding) I hear WHOMP! And run to the breakfast room to see an evergreen the length of our entire house stretched across our whole backyard. Our neighbor's tree (the one we were just watching) took out the fence and is napping on our patio. I'm glad it didn't hit the house, though Matthew would have loved to remodel the family room on the insurance company.

That was excitement enough, but then the electricity went out, taking with it our stove and our heat. But what we didn't think about was that it also took out our sump pump: and that, I now know, is even more important than heat. Yesterday Matthew and I spent hours cleaning up our flooded basement. Thankfully we didn't lose anything precious to us. It was just a soggy mess.

But you know what? It's all ok. We are all safe. We have our power back on (while many in Princeton are sleeping in Dilon gym on campus because their power wont be back on till who knows when). We got to light candles and run around with flashlights and eat pizza in the dark. Matthew and I have a cleaner basement than planned. And Matthew got to tell Abby at 7 am this morning that school was cancelled due to blocked roads and power outages, to which she replied: "That's the best news I've heard all day!" It has been really wild around here, but kind of fun, and totally unexpected.

So that's the weekend update here.

By the way, if anyone has a chainsaw, can we borrow it for a couple of days?

huh?

Noah was whining for cereal when he woke up from his nap today. I decided I would not say for the 100th time since breakfast:"Noah, no whining, please." Instead I said "MeaMeaMeaMeaMeaMea" in a high pitched voice. He looked at me and said:
"Don't speak kitty cat."

That may be one my favorite Noah quotes so far.