All Eyes on Gustav!!

Hello all! Well, if you haven't been hiding under a rock for the past few days, you probably know that there is a hurricane threatening to slam into the gulf coast. Especially interesting is that tomorrow is the 3rd anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, so that just adds more emotion to it. Here is the current picture of the projected path of Hurricane Gustav and where it is expected to make landfall (current as of 2:20 pm central time on August 28th, 2008!).

See that little end dot right on the Louisiana coast? Yeah, that dot pretty much signifies our house! How nice to make it onto the map, huh?

Evacuation plans are being made, and since we are pretty darn close to the gulf, we'll be among some of the first waves of evacuations. Those right on the gulf would be first, of course, but we'd be soon thereafter. We are north of the Intracoastal Waterway, so that's good news as far a flooding probabilities go!

As for preparations, we are pretty set. We aren't planning on staying, but we still have to prepare the house. It's interesting to be taking part in this because it's not like a tornado where you have but a few minutes to grab some things and get to shelter. We know where the storm is, we know how fast it is coming, and we know when it will hit. So there is that degree of uneasiness, but not all out panic because it's not going to come out of nowhere!

So, on a funny note, yesterday I gave Tom some instructions to pick up a few extra gas cans at Lowes so that we could bring extra gas with us during the evacuation. I went out with some friends to see a movie, and when I got home later that night, I saw no gas cans, but I did see a fog machine. So, I asked what exactly we needed a fog machine for!?! (I'm pretty sure I've never seen "fog machine" on a list of emergency essentials!) He said it looked like fun. Yes, perhaps if we weren't preparing for a potential disaster I could see the fun in a fog machine. Actually, thinking about it, I still don't see much fun in a fog machine... I picture Tom standing in line at Lowes with everyone around him loaded up with batteries, plywood, bottled water...and he's in line purchasing a fog machine which will be pretty useless once the power goes out, mind you! I just don't understand my husband and his impulse buys sometime!

All that aside, never fear, we are prepared and I will update everyone on the situation when I get a chance!

Tropical Storm Edouard

We moved to the gulf coast about nine months after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit this area. As expected, there was always that fear in the back of our minds that something that devestating could happen again. But the longer we lived here and learned more, the less nervous I became. According to our FEMA printouts, this house has never flooded, and until recently was listed as a floodplain level C, which meant that it was least likely to flood. (Since we purchased our house, everything has been raised to a level A, making flood insurance extremely expensive, but, fortunately, we got grandfathered in.)


All this aside, we have always been very good about keeping emergency essentials up to date and having our 72-hour kits at the ready. We haven't ever desperately needed them, except for a few times when the power went out for a few hours. The boys were disappointed without the Wii, but we got some good s'mores out of it, so not a total loss! In the two and a half years we have been here, not one tropical storm has come our way.


Well, Tropical Storm Edouard is brewing off the coast of Louisiana as we speak! The natives tell me that tropical storms, though lacking the wind speed of a hurricane, actually drop much more precipitation. Also, it's not really headed directly at us. (The projected path actually shows it headed right for Los Shephitos of Houston, but we are currently in a tropical storm warning as well.) So, as Edouard brews over the warm waters of the Gulf, keep an eye on the weather map and think of us down here in the swamps of Louisiana!

School Shopping!

So, William officially starts Kindergarten in a few days! Hooray! He's so excited and can't wait to be in school all day Monday through Friday. (I think Natalie feels the same way about him!)

This being the weekend before school starts, the fine state of Louisiana's powers that be have proclaimed it "tax free weekend" (insert applause). Of course, that's only the 4.5% state tax that we're not paying. We still have to fork over the 4.5% parish tax, but I'm not sure everyone gets that besides me. Either way, eveyone-myself included-waits until this weekend to purchase school supplies. Keep in mind that it is also mandated in this very fine state that all public school children will be outfitted in school uniforms. Fortunately I had already purchased William's school uniforms when we were visiting Kirk and Jackie in Houston in the beginning of the month, so we're not looking at any major purchases. Just a short list of kindergarten supplies, right?

Yeah, not quite as easy as it sounds. And it wasn't the 50 trillion people all trying to get into the same two school supply aisles as me that was annoying. It was the incredibly specific school list from William's school that really got to me! Good luck finding a two-pocket plastic folder with no prongs or pictures on the outside of it. I had no problem finding two-pocket plastic folders, but they all had prongs in them. Then I found some of the prongless variety, but they were not plastic, although I'm not entirely sure what material they were. Tom got so frustrated looking through stacks of folders he finally said he'd just remove the d@*n prongs himself! But then, we finally found one, that's right just one, in a stack of prong-filled plastic folders there was one lonely two pocket plastic folder sans prongs. Never mind the fact that it is the color orange that will eventually burn your retinas if you stare at it too long. It is plastic. It has two pockets. It has no prongs. It is perfect.

(Let's not get into the non-plastic HEAVY DUTY zipper flat rectangular pencil bags we had to find next.)

Mamma Mia!

While visiting my brother and sister-in-law in Houston a few weeks ago, it was brought to my attention that I haven't blogged in a while. "Since April" is what I was told (and they were right!) I actually have alot to put out there, but just haven't had the time. We did just get back from our annual trip to Ohio, but more about that later. I haven't even downloaded the pictures off the camera yet, so that will be for another day.

But I did want to jot a quick post about the movie Mamma Mia! I just got back from watching it with a group of friends and it was so much fun! Ok, it wasn't the best acting in the world and I read in many reviews of the movie that the choreography was terrible, but honestly, I didn't even notice. It was just so much fun singing and dancing throughout the whole movie (yeah, the movie was at 10:30 pm and we were pretty much the only people there...) Oh, and on the way home we were laughing way too much and decided to do chinese firedrills. (I've suddenly become a 14 year-old again...) So, if you're looking for a good time and you love ABBA, then you must see this movie, preferably with a group of wild and crazy girls!

Married White Female...Republican

Ah...election season has been in full swing for a while now, and I truly enjoy sitting back and listening to all the political banter. It's all so interesting to me! I remember when Tom called his grandparents to tell them that he had proposed, their first question to him was not "is she nice?" or "is she a good person?" it was "is she a Republican?" To them, that one question would answer all their questions about me. At the time, my political affiliation was really indifferent to me. I had never voted in an election (not because I was too young, but more because I didn't care) so I had never really considered this question. Of course I answered "yes, I'm a Republican" because I supposed between the two major parties, this was more alligned with my personal beliefs.

Well, since that question was posed to my then fiance', I've spent alot more time figuring out just what I thought was important to me and my belief system and now I can say with a resounding "YES" that I'm a Republican.

All this is coming out right now because the other night Tom and I were watching the movie "Juno." It's a movie about a high school teen who finds herself pregnant and initially sets out to abort the baby, but then can't. She instead sets out to find the perfect adoptive parents for her unborn child. She doesn't want to keep it, but she doesn't want to kill it based on the fact that by this point "the baby had fingernails!!" It was an interesting movie, but I especially liked it because I'm very pro-life. Even before I really cared about politics, I felt abortion was wrong.

So, because I'm a flaming Republican, I read Ann Coulter books while working out. Today I started reading "Godless: The Church of Liberalism" by the divine Ms. Coulter. I've read it before, but I find that reading her books while working out really helps to get the old heart rate up and pumping! Anyway, I wanted to include a passage from this book here about abortion:

"Liberals are more upset when a tree is chopped down than when a child is aborted. Even if one rates an unborn child less than a full-blown person, doesn't the unborn child rate slightly higher than vegetation?"

I love it! Yea Ann Coulter!

This is about my kids. Because I should.

I never really feel like blogging because I never really have much to say. Everything is pretty much same old, same old. No overly funny stories, no crazy trips across the country. Nope...it's just spring time in Houma.



But since I feel like I should post something, I will! Our kids are so great. William is really growing into such an amazing little boy. He is so incredibly friendly and kind (maybe not always to his sister, but anyway...) Complete strangers tend to notice this about him.



Two weekends ago I decided to take the kids on our own spring break to Fort Walton Beach, Florida. Tom had some "business" in Florala, Alabama, which is just over the state line north of the Florida panhandle. So, I drove north, dropped him off for the weekend, then drove straight south to the beach! I got us a hotel right on the beach with a balcony and a view of the Gulf.


It was a little daunting taking this whole trip on my own, but the kids were such great little helpers! We spent the first night on the beach till about 8pm. They just didn't want to leave. Being on the beach was so relaxing and just the break we needed from Louisiana.

While there, William would make friends with anyone his size. The other kids tended to be nervous about a strange kid at first, but they would soon warm up and they would become the best of friends for the day. On the morning we were scheduled to leave, we went down to the beach for one last romp. William quickly became friends with Logan from Indiana. They played for about 2 hours, but then we had to go. Just as we were packing up to leave, a grandma and her grandson came over to us. She was wondering if her little guy could play with William. I apologized, but we had to go so that we would have time to check out. She was sad because she said her grandson is really shy but really wanted to play with William because he seemed so kind and outgoing. Isn't that really what all mothers want to hear? It really made me feel good!

And then there's my Natalie! Where William came into the world at 8 pounds 12 ounces of 100% hulking boy, Natalie is the polar opposite. Even from birth, (6 pounds, 3 ounces and half a push to get her out) they have been so different. William has always been the top of the percentile chart, but Natalie has always barely made it on the chart. Still very slim, I do think she's finally starting to sprout vertically!

What a funny girl. When she was a baby, we took to calling her "Stinker Binker" because she always had the foulest smelling diapers. "Stinker Binker" was soon shortened to "Binker" and from there to "Binkey." And it's stuck! If you ask Natalie what her name is, she will tell you it's Binkey. Any other name makes her angry. I can't call her "sweetheart," "girly," or even "young lady." It's just Binkey!

She's the sort of little girl who wants to hug, kiss, and cuddle all day long. If I could just do those three things with her all day long, she would be the happiest child on earth. Unfortunately, I can't do that, so she has her moments, but she's still becoming very fun. She loves animals, especially pandas, giraffes, and the lioness (what is the plurel? Lionessi?!?) And she loves all things pink. It doens't matter what it is, if it's pink, she loves it. She enjoys playing soccer in the backyard, especially when I block William so that she can score a goal for Team Panda! Oh, and did I mention she inherited, among other things, her mother's long tongue? Well, she did. I had to take the picture when we were in Florida and got some ice cream. She used her tongue like a little spoon to scoop up the ice cream to deposit into her mouth. It was hilarious to watch. And she was in a trance-like state the entire time!

So, I guess when I have nothing interesting to blog about, I can always blog about my kids. They are fun, exciting, and ever changing. (Speaking of "ever changing," William is constantly hungry/eating, though never gains an ounce. He must be growing again. Good thing I get such a great discount at The Children's Place, or I couldn't afford to keep him in clothes!)

...and a Happy St. Patrick's Day to you, too!

Oh, the fun we O'Brien's have on St. Patrick's Day! It all started last week with William asking me what a Leprechaun is. I explained it was a wee folk who will give you his pot o' gold if you catch him...and they also like to play pranks, too. I'm not sure if that last part is really part of the lore, but I threw it in for good measure. Last night, William went to bed determined to catch that leprechaun. Well, his mommy is always two steps ahead of him!

With a bottle of green food dye in my pocket all day, ordinary things would magically turn to green and I would exclaim, "William...you just missed the leprechaun again!" and he would laugh hysterically at the newly green item. To give some "for instances," last night I turned a whole gallon of milk green. This morning, I asked William to grab the milk out of the fridge for breakfast. He opened the fridge and yells out "oh, my gosh! The leprechaun must have put his finger in our milk, mom! I gotta find that guy!" He then went to school telling the tale of his green milk. (I'm sure he got alot of strange looks for that one!) Later on today, I asked him to grab a bottle of water out of the fridge for me...low and behold it had turned green, too! And when we tasted it, it still tasted like water!

The highlight of the pranks would definitely have to be when I put the dye in the water tank for the toilet right before bedtime. When he flushed the toilet and green water came out, I thought he was going to explode! "The leprechaun did it again, mom!" But, alas...the leprechaun got away. No pot o' gold this year. But William has grand plans for next year, and so do I!

On a nostalgic note, I remembered a story from St. Patrick's Day past that I shared with Tom and he said I had to blog it for posterity's sake. Well, this happened way back when I was in first grade. The morning of St. Patrick's Day I was picking out an outfit for school when my mom decided to teach me a little bit about our family's geneology. She was explaining that some of my ancestors came from Northern Ireland, therefore they wouldn't have worn green since they would have been against anything Catholic/Southern Ireland (? not sure if I got any of that right at all.). Anyway, she explained that in order to honor our family history, maybe I should wear orange instead of green. Sure, mom. Sounds good to me. So, I get to school and we have a spelling test and after the spelling test we are given a printout to color. It's of a shamrock. Now, my mom never told me I couldn't celebrate St. Patrick's Day, but that's what my 7 year-old mind determined she was getting at. So I pulled Mrs. Beten aside and told her, "I'm sorry...I can't color that picture. My family doesn't celebrate St. Patrick's Day."

So, I tell this story to Tom and he asks me what my teacher's response was. I thought about it and really she didn't seem to be surprised at all. Then I reminded him that we were the only Mormon family in the school district and many people find Mormons to be weird, and maybe she just thought Mormons don't celebrate St. Patrick's Day! There you have it, Mom! I stuck up for the family heritage at the ripe old age of seven!

And a last note: we found out that you can hook the Wii up to the internet and purchase/download old Nintendo games (you just turn the Wii-mote on it's side and it's set up just like the old-school Nintendo controller!) We downloaded Mario 3 for my sake and it was so fun to play! I am absolutely terrible at it! But I reminded Tom that I haven't played in probably 15 years (oh, my gosh I am old...) and Rome wasn't built in a day...