Jim Cantore? Is that You...Again?

My hurricane stories HAVE been told. It is one of my favorite things to tell about. I am sure you have all heard them before. BUT with Irene looming just East of where I am now, it got me thinking... Here we go again! Looks like Irene is missing us, but still... HERE WE GO AGAIN!! It really is a rather interesting story....


I have lived in 5 different areas and there is only ONE area that I have lived in that I was NOT hit by a hurricane! That ONE place? HERE! In South GA! And so it is safe to say that I have not been hit by a hurricane while in GA... YET!


I grew up in Pensacola, FL which is the City of Five Flags. It should be called the City of Hurricane Alley! My most memorable Pensacola hurricanes were Erin and Opal! Opal being my most scary one because we had to evacuate to a shelter so we went up to the a high school and had to leave my beloved Benny (Benji, my dog) home. We put mattresses in the center room of the house and locked him in there. It was SO SAD. Luckily the house was fine and so was Benny. But the high school we went to (which would later be MY high school)... well... the gym roof got blown off. Should have stayed home!! HAHA. No power for weeks.


After marrying TJ, he went up to Yorktown, VA for A school. I went up there after a month away from him... we rented this studio place. We were there TWO months and a week before we were leaving, hurricane Isabel hit Hampton Roads in VA. It had been a while since their previous hurricane!! I come to town for two months and BAM! FROM nhc.com- "Isabel is considered to be one of the most significant tropical cyclones to affect east-central Virginia since Hurricane Hazel in 1954." 

We then moved to Cape Canaveral/Cocoa Beach, FL. That is when the real fun began. We lived directly on the ocean on Patrick AFB. While we lived there, Hurricane Charley (cat 4 by landfall) hit the WEST side of FL, coming up through the Tampa area. I really did not think we would see THAT much damage. But as the neighbors trampoline, dog houses, grills, and patio furniture went flying by my back door and water began to seep in my bottom floor, I thought otherwise. 


Frances was next. Hurricane Fances (cat 2 at landfall - Sept 5th), however, forced us to a mandatory evacuation of the island because it was coming in directly from the Atlantic. TJ had to, of course, leave on the boat, so I left with Gracie and headed to Pensacola to stay with mom and dad. I could not get back on base where I lived after the hurricane so I stayed a little while in Pensacola. A little over a week later and I had to go because Ivan (cat 4 by landfall Sept 16th) was headed up to the Gulf Coast. By the time I got home, and realized my house had flooded again (worse this time of course), I had to leave again because Hurricane Jeanne (cat 3 by landfall Sept 25th) was forcing another evacuation with another east coast hit on FL. This time I went to a hotel with another one of the wives in Orlando (that is another blog for another time....looooordy), and was not able to return home for a quite a few days. Trust me, two women, 3 dogs, in a small hotel room with NO POWER is not that fun. When I did get home, my house was flooded again. Needless to say, I got 1 good steam cleaning and 2 complete carpet changes that year!! PS- those were the first FL east coast hurricanes in over 10 years. 


I finally ended up in South Texas! After two smooth years of no hurricanes, Hurricane Dolly (cat 1 by landfall) found me! Although TJ was not stationed on a boat at the time, the CG had convievently sent him to VA for a school that week. Mom and dad had come to see me (without knowing Dolly was headed that way as well) and us three rode it out together. No power for over a week and the flooding was ABSURD!! That hard hard hard South Texas ground does not drain well. From weather wiki - "Hurricane Dolly is considered to be the most destructive hurricane to hit the Rio Grande Valley in 41 years; the last such storm was Beulah in 1967, but Beulah was not more damaging; it was just deadlier."  


SO, now I live in South GA, and I have come to the conclusion that it is now IF a hurricane comes to find me again, but WHEN! Although this part of GA has not been hit in like a billion years and the last time any part of GA was hit was in 1979 when David hit Savannah! I will still believe that it is not going to happen AFTER I move. 

Elleah, you are the greatest! (Elleah's Antics Pt 2)

I am always saying that spending one day with Elleah will give anybody enough material to write a bestseller. Or at least a pretty entertaining blog post. Seems like the last 3-4 months has been a whirlwind of entertainment for the Runnels' household. Here are a few of my favorite instances:

• We were dog-sitting for a week to a dog named Sprite. Well Sprite got out of the fence quite a bit and we had to chase her down. One time, she got out while Elleah and I were napping--for 3 hours!!! We hopped in the car and when scouring the neighborhood. I had the windows down in the car and from the backseat, Elleah starts yelling "Spriiiiite, where you? Spriiiiiite." I though it was adorable so I told her to keep it up. Then she starts shaking her cup towards the window and saying "Spriiiite, chocky juice...." trying to lure Sprite back with her with Chocolate Milk!! HAHA. PS-the lure of chocolate milk did not work, BUT we did find Sprite safe and sound. 

• She is seriously into singing. She has recently found the spare plunger (yeah I said it... our spare TOILET plunger) from the bathroom closet. She carried it into the livingroom, set it on her lap tray, and started to sing into the handle like it is her microphone stand. She then puts it in our face saying, "You want some?" No Elleah, I do not want a toilet plunger near my mouth. And try to take it from her and it is ON! PS-We got her an actual microphone and stand for her birthday and it has replaced the plunger for now! 

• We have been teaching Elleah to say please and thank you. She is great at this actually. Maybe a little TOO great though. When I tell her to do certain things such as pick up her crayons or go get in her bed, she says "Please No mommy, please" OR "Please stop mommy, please"! Haha what do you do about that? She is saying it like you want her to & you do not want her to think that saying please does not work. She also says thank you about everything... I lift her onto the potty "thank you mommy", I wash behind her ears "thank you mommy", I let her out of time out "thank you mommy", and even when I change her pull-up (if necessary) "thank you mommy". This is not a bad thing, just super funny that she says thank you about EVERYTHING! Gotta love her!

• She used an old cellphone and dialed 911 the other day. That was fun. 

• She gets me up every morning by climbing on top of me and saying "moooooommy, I want eeeeeeat" LOL

• She gets OBSESSIVE over certain people. Out of the blue she dials in on a certain person and will not stop saying that she wants them. For Example, Mike's first day of football camp, the first day in MONTHS that we can NOT call him up any time and she wants MIKE. And that is all she says ALL DAY "I want Un miiiiiiiike." 

• When Gracie barks, she yells "hush Gracie" and puts her finger to her lips. LOL

• She says "oooooo ooooooh." It is kind of hard to type how it actually sounds, but it is when she is excited. It kind of sounds like something Oprah would say. haha. She also says "Oh boy" and "Oh YAY." 

• While in a restaurant one time, she saw a big, tall guy come in. Kinda looked like her Un Mike, but he was black. So instead of yelling "Miiiiiike" she yells "Chocky Mike"!!!! Kinda freaking hilarious and as far as I know, her noticing the difference in her milf and chocolate milk is what prompted this same distinction! PS-the only thing better than a Mike to her is a chocolate Mike... but then again, who wouldn't love that?! 

• She stops dead in her tracks to yell "Yay, Home Runny" every time the crowd on TV gets excited during a game. They are ALL home runs to her. Awesome!

• When we tell her it is time for bed, she says "I play morrow?" Yes baby, your ONLY worry in this life is whether you get to play tomorrow.... and I intend to keep it that way for a while!! 

• She thinks she is a big girl when she says "I'm gonna go outside, k?, bye". 

• She has begun answering Dora's questions. When Dora waits too long (you know that pause that Dora does?) she yells the answer to her again in a frustrated manner!! hahaha

• When she toots, I say "Did you just toot?" and she laughs HYSTERICALLY!! Then does it again, on purpose! She is the only girl I know that can stand there and toot on demand!! (she will read this when she is 16 and just LOVE me..haha)

• She kisses MY bobo's. Love her! 

• She told me she had a bobo and this when I asked her where, she turned around and pointed to her butt and told me to kiss it. I know to her it was an innocent bobo that needed a kiss... but I could not help but laugh at the thought of her telling me to kiss her butt. One day that will not be so funny! 

As I am sitting her typing this, I realize that I could be sitter here forever typing up all her little things! Maybe I am the only one that finds them funny, but watching her little personality develop is soooo adorable and fun!!! I guess this is a good idea of who she is, so I will leave it here!!

Telling her to "smile"...

Telling her to give me a "funny face"....

This is what she decided to do with the BOX one of her birthday presents came in! hahaha 

 

Camping - With 2 Kinds of Hot Dogs

In every happy marriage, you must learn to give a little and compromise. I am spoiled and well taken care of, I have never denied that. So in order to show my husband how much I appreciate and love him for all that he does, I must occasionally give in and do what HE wants to do. That is why I went camping.... in a tent.... in August, with a (almost) 2 year old. God love TJ though, because I am not sure what is worse.... me camping in a tent, in August, with a (almost) 2 year old, OR TJ having to camp with ME and a (almost) 2 year old... in a tent.... in August. We took our dog by the way.. so that made it extra fun.

So TJ picked a campground right on the beach and let me just say... he did GOOD. We went to St Augustine to Anastasia State Park. So gorgeous out there! We got out there at about 6pm on Friday and started to set up. It took approx. 2 hrs and 7 minutes (just an estimate of time) to construct our tent. WHY? Because TJ bought us a new 10 person tent a while back and this was only our second time putting it up... just the two of us.... with a TEN person tent..!! A family of THREE, that all sleep on the same air mattress... yeah, its large. But I guess that makes it fun. By the way, if you are not completely in LOVE and have a stable relationship with your hubby or significant other, do not try putting a tent up together... it could cause serious issues in the relationship. haha

TJ....so proud of completing the "tent task" 

Elleah started having the time of her life as soon as we stepped foot out of the truck. I decided to just let her get dirty and go at it hard. And she did not disappoint. No bow, no shoes, and no snazzy outfit.... the girl looked a-mess!!!! Still cute, but.... well... you can see for yourself...

Such a mess... but still amazingly cute!!! 

All that playing ended up like this though.....

Tuckered

I don't know if you can see it, but she IS wearing her glow in the dark "I heart Vampires" tshrit. And don't judge me.... the way I see it... we were out in the woods.... in a TENT... she needed to be on somebody's team.

We woke up the next morning and after TJ cooked breakfast, we hit the bikes and headed to the beach. Gracie couldn't go to the beach so we left her in the tent with 2 fans and a bowl of food and water!! Yay.... such a good idea. I will revisit this in a second. First of all though... the beach!! What a perfect day to go. We took the bikes down along the water and rode for a good while. Then we decided that the water was looking too great to not be in...

Mr Hasselhoff himself (TJ said that when he saw this pic)

Well... we had a great hour and a half by the water and then returned to the campsite.... where Gracie had decided NOT to stay. Why I did not think she would be able to get out is beyond me. This is something I should have thought about when we decided to leave her there. I should have said to myself  "Self, this might not work." So in a panic, I hopped in the truck and roll off to search for her. It only took me a minute to remember I had a smartphone and I looked the # up to the rangers station! I called them and they called the rangers to check if they had seen her. One guy had seen her.... and she was riding around with him in his golf cart!! hahahaha. He took her to our campsite # and told TJ that Gracie told him that she did not like camping without a/c. This particular park ranger spoke cocker spaniel. The vision I have of Gracie finding her own thing to do and cruising around on the cart cracks me up. The ranger said he went around asking if anybody lost a dog, but then decided she could ride around with him until somebody reported her OR he was able to get a chance to take her to some a/c. THANK GOD he was such a sweet guy!! We felt so awful though... and pretty stupid! We got cleaned up and decided to get in the truck and go riding around St Augustine. We were not even out of the park gates and Gracie and Elleah were BOTH knocked out.

Our second trip to the beach that day was a little different.... we took the truck, not the bikes, and we left the truck running with Gracie in it. Oh yeah folks, we are awesome. But in our defense, we could not PAY Grace to get out of the truck. I swear if she could talk it would have sounded a little like "Rorge, I ran away once, and I will soooo do it again.... just try and call my bluff... I am keeping my a** right here!!" By the way, I do not know WHERE she gets that naughty language from! So we left the auto start on and let it run its course.... then every 15 minutes, we had to walk back up, recrank the truck, and go back down to the water. Needless to say, we had a BALL, but it only lasted about 45 min hahaha.


This was no ordinary camping trip, people! We took glow sticks, water guns, and silly string. The glow sticks and water guns were a HIT with Elleah. The silly string?... not so much!! She could not work the can and did not want TJ's help and DID NOT want to be sprayed!! 

This is what TICKED looks like... haha

So, you know that expression... "Go fly a kite." Well, we did...

Elleah flying her first kite!

You know how I am always trying to be festive?! Well, camping is no different....

Our setup for dinner!!! hehe. Working with what I had!! 

How come even when it is 5 thousand degrees outside one still feel the need to start a campfire when camping?! To roast a weenie of course! 

Teaching E to roast a weenie! 

I hate sleeping outdoors, in the heat, with the bugs and the raccoon's and the other scary things. I hate being sticky and sweaty and icky. I hate my doggy running away. I hate camping. BUT... I love camping with my little family!!! I LOVE sleeping ANYWHERE when I have them to snuggle up with (even if it IS 5 thousand degrees). I LOVE teaching Elleah to fly a kite and roast a weenie. And I even LOVE that she hated silly string. I LOVE that SHE has so much fun camping, so it is all worth it and I will go whenever my duty calls again. TJ and I really do camp well together though. He loves doing and prepping and grilling and the whole kitten kaboodle. And I love letting him do all that while I do not-much-of-anything. Teamwork folks!!! TEAMWORK!!! 

A few things I learned this weekend:

1. I need to try harder to make E hate camping! ;-P

2. Do not wear white while camping!

3. OFF is my BFF!

4. Dogs can open tents!

5. Some park rangers conveniently speak Cocker Spaniel! (who knew) 

6. If the campsite is secluded enough, one could go all weekend without having to wear a bra! *a camping PLUSside* 

7. A tuba placed on your picnic table will keep the campsites on either side of yours vacant!!

More pics on facebook!!!!!!! Till next time....