The Tuesday before the hurricane hit and a day before we left, we started scrambling to get packed, get the condo, hopefully, some what flood proof, and to help our neighbor get his boat out of the water.  The only good thing about a hurricane is you have a lot of time to prepare.  It’s not like a tornado when a siren goes off and you have 5 minutes to get yourself down in the basement or to be blown to Oz like Dorothy.

We brought in our patio furniture and put it in our living room.  The cat thought that was great fun.  Now he had a really high perch to sit on and watch the “Florida mice”.

Thanks dad!

The whole day we had the TV on looking for updates on the hurricane.  Here is the American Model’s path for the storm

American model

Here is the European Model

European model, right over us

Either way, looks like we are screwed :(.

While packing for what could be an extended stay up north, I also packed my favorite shorts and t-shirts…just in case I had nothing to come home to.  Plus I took all my underwear, cause you just never know ;).

Then I went thru our files and pulled things like, the car title, our ss cards, our passports, info on the boat, birth and death certificates, Gary’s service papers…all the things I thought I couldn’t live without and would be hard to replace.

Then we picked up anything on the floor we wanted to save.  We took all Gary’s tools that were on the floor

Gary’s Tools

and put them on the kitchen counter tops.  I went thru my pots and pans and pulled my favorites out and put them on the counter tops.  I went thru the bedrooms and we pulled up the bed spreads and piled what ever we wanted to keep on top of the beds

Favorite laundry basket 😉

Of course the cat, big help that he always is, was chillin on the couch

One Cool Kat

What’s the matter?  Why are you guys running around?  Isn’t it time for nap???

So after I finished packing the clothes and important papers, I thought, what else do I want that I can take with me now, that I would miss if I never saw it again.  I already had all my pictures and most of our important documents scanned to an external hard drive.  I did that all before we moved on the boat and just continued the practice after we bought the condo.  So what did I take?  I took my favorite coffee mug

Mug from the Minnesota Resonance

That mug is older than my kids!  I’ve had it for a really long time and I didn’t want to lose it.

Then I grabbed

Ahhhhh

Gary gave me this when we were dating!  How could I leave that behind?  Gary asked me what the heck I was I doing?  I said I am packing as if I’ll have nothing to come home to.  You should take what ever you think you’ll miss.  So what does he grab?

Snooozle

He has had this little fuzzy thing for a long time.  When you squeeze it, it makes noises.  He squeezes it almost every time he walks past it…..Snooozle!  Of course he grabbed manly things like his guns and ammo.  You never know when the zombie apocalypse could happen.

We finished up pretty late in the day and by then our neighbor got home from work and he wanted Gary to help him get his boat off his lift and onto his trailer

Neighbor’s Go Fast Boat

After they put it on his trailer, he tucked it under our car port

Boat tied tight

After we had left he did a spidy web of lines to hold it in place.

As far as Gary and I were concerned, we were as ready as we could be.  I spotted this guy just chilling waiting for the big blow though

Mr. Frog

Hopefully he’ll still be there when we get home.