Seriously, I think we do. It was AMAZING to see how everyone pulled together to help everyone else.
We helped several of our neighbors take down their fences, with my chainsaw-weilding hubby. He and some of the other guys also helped out a couple of the neighbors with huge trees on their houses and in their driveway. We all shared what ice we had, and we took ice to our elderly neighbor, Miss Elsie. We hosted campfires in our little outdoor fireplace each night, and all we were missing were the marshmallows for the kids! Maria and Sean offered up their home for James, so his mom, Lauren, could visit his sister in the hospital. The kids played outside all day while we worked in the yards (imagine that!) My doodlebug and our neighbor, Brooke, both 5, had pinecone picking up races! We all pooled our frozen foods together to get the most use of everything before it went to waste in the trash. For any of us individually, we would have been eating some pretty blah meals, but thanks to Jude and her resourcefulness, we ate like kings. (I think she missed her calling as a chef!) She doesn’t have a gas stove, so she took turns on mine and our neighbor Maria’s. Over the last few days, she made us crab and corn chowder, beef and pepper noodles, salmon and scallop alfredo. I mean, who eats like that after a hurricane?
Cleaning up the mess was definitely a lot of hard work, but it is amazing what fun we had at the same time. We are just so blessed that no one was hurt, there wasn’t really any major damage around us, and I think that it really made all of us take a moment to reflect on what really matters - the people we care about!
There are so many others that I’m not mentioning, but my hat is off to ALL of you!
Here are just a few images I took with my little point and shoot. (It was still too rainy out for me to take out the big cam!)
