Typhoon Vongfong

There is always the threat of a typhoon creeping up on our little island, but like most weather, it is difficult to predict. Typhoon Vongfong (yes, it's an awesome name) was called "Earth's Strongest Storm of 2014" but earlier in the week it appeared that it would probably miss our little island in the Pacific. However, 2 days before the weekend, it changed course and headed right our way. I can't tell you how excited I was about the fact that I wasn't working on the days the storm was predicted. I did my one typhoon at the hospital and I don't need/want to experience it again!

Friday night we went to a dinner at church and then headed home, ready to spend the weekend indoors! We still had lots of water from the last typhoon, stocked up on flashlights and batteries, filled up the bathtubs, put all our outdoor furniture in the house or garage, and we were ready to ride out the storm, together as a family, the way typhoon weekends were intended to be spent!

The storm really started picking up Saturday afternoon. Rowan was going crazy not getting to go outside. He kept looking out at the rain begging to go out. We kept him busy with legos and snacks and he stayed pretty happy. Rowan isn't quite old enough to sit and snuggle and watch movies (which is good, but would have been pretty helpful this weekend)...so we stayed nice and busy. It was pretty fun. He is at a really fun age right now.

 

 

Rowan learned all about jumping this weekend which I think will turn into a bad thing/lots of injuries in the future. He jumps on EVERYTHING. He has an awareness of edges, but when he gets going, there's not a lot he can do to jump. It's a little ironic that one of his favorite books right now is "No more monkeys jumping on the bed". I fear that he is going to fall down and bonk his head.

 

We had a fort building contest with some of the neighbors (15 mins to build your best fort and send a pic). We had just cleaned up and were feeling lazy, so Rowan and Grant hid under the ottoman instead. It worked :)

Had LOTS of fun with the lantern and flashlights...he's obsessed.

Saturday night I put Rowan in bed with us when we went to sleep because the storm was SO loud and rain was pounding against his bedroom window. I didn't want to have to worry about something blowing through. Around midnight I woke up and heard nothing. I looked outside and realized we were in the eye of the storm. Very cool. So calm, no wind or rain, the sky was brighter. I wished it had been daytime to really see the difference, but it was still noticable. The storm started again a little while after, but not nearly as intensely so I put Rowan back in his bed, because he is in insane sleeper and was all over the place in our bed.

Sunday morning was still stormy but nothing crazy. Our power was still out (it went out in the middle of the night), so our neighbors Kyle and Ali had us over to cook on their propane stove. We had a delicious breakfast of pancakes, sausage, eggs and muffins.

By the end of the weekend it looked like Vongfong had hit inside our house (even though I cleaned up several times). All day is too long to be inside with a toddler :)

Finally late in the morning/noonish, they called "Storm Watch" which means we are finally allowed to cautiously emerge from our homes. We still didn't have power (although it kept going on and off enough to tease us all afternoon), so we decided to go out for a walk and see what the storm had brought in. The waves had crashed over the wall and onto our street during the night, causing a muddy mess down the road from us.

The water is a disgusting muddy color and the wind was still really strong (there were gusts that threw wind up on our legs and it felt like shards of glass stabbing me). It was so nice to finally get out of the house again though ;)

Dressed up in our rain gear to head down the street for dinner.

The Finlaysons invited us over for a candlelight/lantern dinner of whatever we could all find in our houses. We ended up with buffalo chicken sliders and chili dogs which actually hit the spot.

Grateful that the storm died down as much as it did, it could have been much worse. It is also wonderful that we live in a cement house that feels completely solid even in the roughest winds. Almost done with this typhoon season, let's hope we're done with them for awhile.