We were very lucky during the hurricane that hit our area last week. Some went without power for eight days -- including folks just one block away -- but we came through relatively unscathed. Our big Oak dropped a lot of leaves and some small branches, and we lost power for almost 24 hours, but nothing major. Our dogwood snapped in two near the top, so that has to go. By contrast, our neighbors across the street had it really rough -- a tree in their neighbor's yard fell on their (brand new) house, and tore a hole in the roof, leaving them with major water damage. On Kensington, a tree fell on a brand new Ford Explorer (irony: the license plate on the car was a variant on the word KNIVES), and took out two telephone poles. Yipes.

Despite all of the destruction, some good things did come out of Isabel. We ended up meeting many of our neighbors for the first time -- two new families on our street, as well as several families on Kensington Street. We also were lucky enough to have our neighbor John share some dry ice to ensure that my stash of frozen breast milk didn't go bad. That's true friendship!

Alex is certianly having an interesting first year -- it's all about the blackouts!