Stranded- Henry.

As the hurricane moved up the coast, we got multiple reports about how bad it was going to be.  At the very least, we were sure we'd lose power, as Pepco, our power company tends to go down every time it sprinkles.  School was preemptively cancelled for Monday and Tuesday and papa and June decided to stay in Ohio until it was all over (more because of the huge snow storm moving across West Virginia and Pennsylvania.)

I woke mama up at 7am with a report that weather.com said we were under the worst part of the hurricane. She tried to tell me it was neither windy nor raining, but I believe what the internet tells me.  Mama quickly started hoping the electricity would go out soon.

Luckily, she had a few crafts in mind for the long days we'd be stuck inside.  First we made crystal ornaments by dissolving Borax in hot water and hanging pipe cleaners in the solution.   

The next morning we had crystals.  This was really fun, but really only took up about 5 minutes.  

  

I went out into the hallway (I'm pretty sure I'd at least put on pants at that point) to decorate our front door.  June made the little pumpkins.  Grace and I decorated the big pumpkin.  It's a combination of all kids' Halloween costumes.  Yellow hair for Rapunzel (Audrey), pirate eye patch and sword (June and I) and a missing witch hat for Grace.  I even set up some glow sticks and the flashing flash light to make it look spooky at night.

Did you notice Miss Leah's door in the party pictures?  I decided I wanted to decorate our door too.  This is Frankendoor.  (And I put the stickers on too.)

Mama let me look at a kids' crafts blog and I got the idea of freezing toys in big chunks of ice.  Mama also made some colored ice cubes too.  Then she gave me big containers of baking soda and vinegar and an eye dropper.  I stayed busy for an hour.  Gerogie, notorious bath-hater, cried for 20 minutes, thinking we'd make her get in too.  After she realized she didn't have to get in, she had fun playing with bath toys on the outside of the tub.

On Monday night, the hurricane (now a superstorm) finally hit us.  It did get pretty windy and rained some, but it didn't seem like anything too dangerous.  Mama thinks there wasn't much damage because the big storm this summer already knocked down all the dead branches.  We parked the Camry under a big tree hoping it might fall down and crunch it, but the tree proved to be too sturdy and strong.  

On Tuesday, we still had power.  Mama and I set up the sewing machine and made a project of every stitch on the machine.  

And Georgie and I cuddled on the couch and pretended to sleep.

While we played, mama worked on a project for June.  June loves the Dolly Parton song "Coat of Many Colors," so mama decided to make one for June.  Just like in the song, mama made it all from scraps of fabric she had or that Aunt Jenni donated for the cause.  The patches are even sewn on to an old sweatshirt Miss Cooper gave us from when she was a kid.  We think Dolly would be proud.