The floor is pretty much complete. There’s still some cleaning work to be done and the molding around the edge of the floor still needs to be put down in a few areas. We also need the guys to help us get the TV and sofa back where it’s supposed to go. This evening Jennifer and I put the kitchen table back where it was supposed to go and we reassembled the girls’ playroom so that when the kids get up tomorrow morning they will have a room to play in.

After dinner we went outside to play since it’s the best way to wear the kids out before sending them to bed. I’m amazed at how well Abby is getting at riding her bicycle. We’ve always had trouble with teaching her to pedal backwards in order for her to slow down and stop. Just last week she was screaming as she tore down a hill out of control. Today she was going down steep inclines and weaving in and out of people with no problem and using her brakes the entire time. It appears that she’s finally starting to get the hang of riding her bicycle.

Tonight is the last night we will have Lucas and Connor staying with us. I’m already planning pay back. Our fifth wedding anniversary is coming up in a few weeks and I’ve also bought tickets to another musical for me and Jennifer to go to at the end of October.

Jennifer is worn out and has gone to bed early tonight. We could probably handle either the floor being ripped out for a couple of days or taking care of the kids across the street if they were discrete events, but having these going on at the same time is wearing thin. Jennifer’s biggest complaint is that she can’t sit down. On the bright side, the floor is looking really good.

Today while moving the refrigerator back in place, they scratched the floor and had to redo a section. This held them back a little bit, but they got the kitchen complete and the dining room. What’s left is the living room, kid’s playroom, and the hallway back by Emily’s room. They’ve said that they are going to try and be done tomorrow. We will be able to move the furniture back immediately, but any area rugs that we have (which we have two) are going to have to wait a week before we place them down so that they floor has time to dry.

Lucas and Connor have been behaving fine, although we keep them on a pretty short leash (figuratively, of course). Lucas has a problem where he tends to hit other kids. We punish him each time he does something like that. In fact, all the other kids got a cookie right before they went to bed tonight, but Lucas did without because he wasn’t listening to what me and Jennifer were telling him. It seems to be working, because Lucas has a notebook in which his teacher writes comments about how he did in school each day. Today she wrote that Lucas seemed much more behaved than normal and well rested. Interesting.

If you haven’t heard, there’s another hurricane heading our way. Ivan is currently a category four hurricane and it looks like it is heading on the same path as Charlie. This has been an amazing hurricane season. In my lifetime I had only gone through one hurricane: Alicia in 1983. Now here I’ve gone through two, possibly three, in one year.

I was awaken this morning to scratching in the ceiling above my head. Frances’s winds were still blowing and with each gust there was more scratching. It turns out a squirrel had taken refuge in the ceiling of our bedroom. Once the winds calmed down the scratching stopped. Jennifer later went outside and discovered that there might be a crease in the roof line where a small critter might be able to get in. Next weekend, or sooner if I hear more scratching, I plan to check it out by climbing up into the attic.

Today was rearrange the house day. Before the hurricane I had decided to move the TV and a few other things away from the window in our upstairs family room. Since everything was already moved around, we decided to go with another look and pull the futon away from the stair railing and the TV between the two big bookcases. Tomorrow they are starting work on our floor so we moved all the stuff in the girls’ play room either into Abby’s room or the garage. We also moved the kitchen table into the garage and a few other items into our bedroom.

We walked around the neighborhood and surveyed some of the damage from Frances after dinner. It was much more tame than Charlie. There were a ton of downed branches, but we only saw one downed tree. Today’s picture is of the small tree outside our house. Several of the branches on the left side of the tree are broken and crushed. It makes it look pretty bare on the left side now.

It appears that we have survived our second hurricane. The rain and wind started picking up late last night around 12:30 a.m. and then it settled down again. This pick-up of rain and wind every few hours would happen throughout the day. In fact, it’s still going on right now. It would pour down rain with strong gusts of wind for about 30 minutes to an hour and then it would be quiet for two to three hours. The news reported that our area had 5″ of rain and sustained winds of 51 miles per hour. We never lost power, although it did flicker every now and then. Believe it or not, but another hurricane, Ivan, has started to head our way.

All of us sleeping in the same room last night was a disaster. Around 3:30 a.m. Emily woke up and wouldn’t go back to bed, she kept giggling, and Abby kept pointing it out. Since the weather was pretty tame at the time, we went ahead and put her in her room while the rest of us went back to sleep in Abby’s room. Needless to say, our blow up mattress isn’t the most comfortable thing in the world and I will be looking forward to sleeping in my bed tonight.