We're back

We made it back to Massachusetts safe and sound. We'll post later about our trip to Savannah and Charleston. We got our stuff moved into our new place, but it is an absolute wreck right now with boxes everywhere. We found mold growing on half our stuff when we got to our storage unit so I spend a few hours yesterday with a bucket of bleach trying to kill it all. Who knew mold loved particle board so much. I don't even think there was any standing water, it was just all the heat and humidity they had here this summer. I think the cleaning was pretty successful, but if we die of mold poisoning, you'll know what happened.

We have had to deal with serious dog odor, getting locked out once already, trying to cook dinner for the Elders who helped us move our stuff (note to self, one day is not enough time to get things put enough away to cook real food), and of course the mold and just the ordinary moving hassles. We're glad to be back and can't wait to be all settled in our new place. We'll post picture when we get a chance.

You could have fooled me

So this "hurricane" never really happened for us. First of all, it hasn't elevated to be an acutally hurricane at this point, its still a tropical storm. Secondly, it veered of the course the National Hurricane Center predicted, but followed the path predicted by the local weather people in Florida, heading more East. Because the heavy winds and rains of the storm are located to the East and North of the eye of the storm, it totally skirted us. Today was a slightly breezy and overcast day with not a drop of rain. If I hadn't know we were supposed to get a hurricane, I would have just thought it was a bummer that we didn't have beach weather today. We're VERY glad we decided not to leave considering if we had, we were thinking about staying last night in Daytona Beach which did get part of the TS.

Now the only concern is our drive to Savannah which we were planning for Thursday morning. The TS is supposed to come back to land after a brief swim in the ocean right at the Florida/Georgia border on Thursday morning. We are thinking about leaving tomorrow to avoid that, but we're not decided for sure yet. I hope it doesn't rain the whole time we're in Savannah, I've been really looking forward to it. If anybody has any travel advice on Savannah or Charleston, I would love to hear it. We will be in each city for about a day, so not a lot of time, but it should be a lot of fun.

Hurricane Party!

This afternoon Suzy and I decided that we will ride this one out. The storm does not look like it is forming and strengthening like they had forecast that it would. Fortunately things should not be too bad. This morning we spent time at Wal-Mart stocking up on some emergency supplies like snacks, Gatorade, and water. We are ready to hunker down and have a Hurricane/Tropical Storm Party. Here are some pictures of our gathered supplies and the storm clouds brewing.
We plan on taking numerous pictures during the storm and hopefully we will get some great images in the middle of a hurricane/tropical storm. Stay tuned for more updates and pics.

Bad Hard Drives, Lightning, and now Hurricanes...

They say that everything happens in threes, so two weeks ago when my hard drive failed I suppose that I should have expected the rest. First let me back up several months to expose my inaction. I have several classmates who have the same model of MacBook as I do, and several of them suffered the pains of hard drive failures during the school year. Silently I said to myself, "That really stinks, but it won't happen to me." Ha! Famous last words. Despite the warnings of my classmates to back-up my hard drive, my frugality and stubbornness won out and I did not. So two weeks ago, yesterday (Saturday) I opened my MacBook, and without warning I got the dreaded grey screen with a flashing question mark (see image), indicating that the computer could not find the hard drive. Needless to say I was distraught, we lost all our photos from the last year and a half, plus a lot of other stuff. My fears were confirmed when we drove to the closest Apple Store (60 miles away) to take the computer in for repair (fortunately it was under warranty so the new hard drive did not cost us).

While we were away at the store the second time to pick up the computer a severe summer thunderstorm hit Sarasota, as tends to happen in Florida in the summer. During the course of the storm lightning struck our neighbors house, just 20 feet from the side of ours. The surge of electricity fried several of the electronic equipment in the house including our portable DVD player. Apparently our neighbor got it worse as he lost all the televisions and computers in his house.

As our time is drawing to a close here in Florida, we were rejoicing in the fact that we made it through the summer without experiencing any serious threats of hurricanes, but here again we were over confident. Little did we know that Friday night as we stayed up late watching the Olympics, tropical storm Fay was forming near Puerto Rico. We had been planning to leave here on Thursday and taking a nice trip up the east coast stopping in Savannah, Charleston, and Baltimore on our way back to Amherst. Now it seems that our plans may be accelerated. With most projections of Faye increasing in strength to a category 1 and possibly category 2 hurricane we are seriously considering taking off for Savannah early. Currently here in Sarasota we are under a Hurricane Watch, meaning that hurricane force winds are possible in the next 36 hours. So much for spending our last few days in Florida lounging in the sun on the beach. We are waiting to see what is going to happen and will probably make a decision on what to do late tonight or tomorrow morning. I tried creating a poll in blogger to see what everyone else thought we should do but it was not working, so you can respond in your comments...

What do you think we should do now that Sarasota is under a hurricane watch?

a) Cowboy up and ride it out and have a great story to tell,

b) Wait until Monday to see what Faye is doing before making the decision,

c) Don't risk it, pack up and leave in the morning.

We will probably be posting more soon so everyone knows what our plans are. I know that when my parents went through the hurricanes in 2004 I was always worried about them and if they were okay.

So the lesson of this post is: BACK UP YOUR HARD DRIVE (especially laptops, their HDs are particularly fragile).

Happy name day to me!

My name day was actually on Monday, but my parents have been visiting, so I was too busy to post about it then. For any of you who aren't familiar with Czech (and probably a lot of other Eastern European countries) customs, they have a male and female name for each day. These 365 names are the only approved names, so peoples names seem to repeat a lot. Depending on your family traditions, it can be a big day over there, almost on par with your birthday. My name (Zuzana in Czech) day is August 11th.

This is also a significant Czech day for me as it is the day I went into the MTC. Its hard to believe it was four years ago now, but a lot has changed since then. I miss the Czech Republic and its customs and people. Hopefully Casey and I will be able to visit sometime not too far away.

The picture of Prague is just for ambiance.

Three Down, Six to Go

That's right, we're having a baby! Its been hard to keep it a secret, but I went to the doctor today for my 13 week checkup, and the baby is doing great. We're excited to finally have all of our family and friends in on the good news.

Its been a hard couple of months. I've been pretty sick and have had a hard time eating and keeping what I'm eating down. I think its starting to calm down a little, but I'm still not very interested in food or eating. At the doctor today they said I lost 9 pounds since my last appointment, so I'm trying to be better. Its the best diet I never wanted to be on.

The baby is due on February 8th. Casey has the whole month of January off, and will just be starting school when the baby comes. At least its his last semester and will hopefully be the least busy of all 4. We're really excited and a little nervous, but we can't wait to welcome our new addition.