Hurricanes and Birthdays

We’ve been staying occupied today by all sorts of preparation for the upcoming visit by a certain Miss Irene.  At this point, we think we will be staying in Manteo; however, we may move over to the church building during the storm since our house is surrounded by tall, heavy trees which do not tend to do well with high winds.

It sounds right now as though the hurricane may veer inland and come up through the sound, hitting the south end of our island with storm surges.  This is a very low lying area so, in addition to the high winds, the flooding issue is definitely one to be concerned about.

From what the locals have told us, one of the downsides of evacuating is that sometimes you can’t get back home for many days because of the roads being closed, which presents its own set of challenges.  So we’ll see. 

Thanks to all of you who have been thinking about us and checking on us; I’ll keep you in touch as we go along.

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And now on the final birthday installment!

Sarah celebrated her 16th birthday on three different occasions:  1) with her three friends two weeks before the actual date  2) With her grandparents and our friends, the Martins, the night before the actual date 3) And then--TA DA!—on August 23rd, her actual birthday.

Her big day started with a scrambled egg/waffle breakfast made by my very own hands.   (I kind of caught Sarah in mid-strawberry-chew  here.)

Then we all  (all referring to her grandparents, Steve and me) thought it would be funny if she had some coffee, since she was celebrating such a momentous, almost-grown-up birthday.

Sarah is like me.  She really does not like the flavor of coffee.  Can you tell?

I was coerced into taking a sip of it myself, in order to provide some additional merriment for the gathered troops.   May I just say that the picture on the right is rather tame compared with another picture Steve took of me post-sip which was exceedingly awful.   (But which I couldn’t bring myself to post.)

I really and truly absolutely loathe and abhor the taste of coffee.  Ick.  Just.  Ick.

After breakfast, Steve went off to work, Ken and Vernie left for Charlotte, and Sarah and Snowy hung out on the couch to wait for me.

Sarah’s birthday request was for her and me to spend the day reading a book together, going out to lunch and just doing some general mother/daughter hanging out.

We ate our lunch at Big Al’s in Manteo, which is famous for the thousands of Coca Cola items on display.

We decided to eat outside because the sky was perfectly blue, the weather was perfectly balmy—and the company was perfectly lovely.

We also went to get Sarah’s bangs cut in preparation for the start of the school year. While she waited for her appointment, her big brother called to wish her a happy birthday and they chatted cheerily about ten minutes.

After we got back home, her friend, Taylor joined us for dinner, followed by one more donning of the Happy Birthday Hat and one more singing of the Happy Birthday Song.

To sum it all up?

Sarah’s Sweet Sixteenth Birthday was a celebration spanning three events, two weeks, and one special girl.

And what a sweet birthday it was.

And for a little ending bonus, I just ran across this collage I did several years ago.