Weekly Happenings- Halloween Inflatables, All the Sticks & Finding Stability

Hi everyone!  It's officially been a month since Helene hit the mountains and October feels like it hardly existed for me.  With everything being canceled, this is the first week I've pulled my planner back out and tried to get a grip on getting real life back on track.  It feels strange that some parts of town, like ours, are starting to move forward, while others are still frozen in time, buried in mud and dust.  I had to drive through Biltmore Village this week and also by the front of the Biltmore and it was humbling.  I covered floods when I worked at WLOS, but this is truly like nothing I've ever seen before.  There are so many people still just trying to put the pieces of their lives together, so please remember them in your prayers.

We got some wonderful news last Friday that the boys are going back to school today.  They have a short day for today and next week but starting November 4th, the school schedule should be normal again.  They have been out of school for a month and a day.  I was worried it might have been longer than we were out, so I'm so grateful for that.  Please say a little prayer for the kids and teachers going back today.  I think it's going to be a hard day all around.

Life feels a little more stable this week as we have had power and internet all week.  We are still dealing with bad water, with no signs of improving but we are getting used to dealing with bottled water.

The Hubs was able to buy a chainsaw and start to tackle the mess in our yard.  This pile of debris is just from the trees in our yard, not even the ones in a wooded area of our lot.  There are huge piles of debris and still downed trees everywhere you look.

We are so so so lucky that none of this ended up on our house.

The boys have been great helpers and stick movers!

Those good ole tractors have been coming in handy!  They love helping and are at the age where they can be useful, which is so nice.

And we've also done a lot of playing in the leaves.  I'm super grateful our playset didn't get knocked over in the storm, because we've been using it a lot with everything closed.   Our neighbor lost theirs to downed trees.

Fall is also peaking this week.  It's a strange combination of beauty and destruction in the trees right now.  I think it's one of the worst fall color seasons we've had in years.  I feel like the trees are just tired!

And we also tried to spread some Halloween spirit with our inflatables!  We all love these and they are so much fun to have.  I can't believe Halloween is next week.

And finally, proof that I'm here!  Jackson snapped this photo of Makena and me and it felt like a nice way to show face and say hi!  We've had one of the hardest months ever, but we're still here and grateful for a safe family after all of this.

Thank you again for reading this and checking up on my family!  I'm hoping with the boys starting school I can get back to some sort of normal schedule again too.

I also wanted to point out that while we are ok, there are still so many families who aren't doing ok.  So please remember them in prayers and financial donations, if you can.  From what I'm hearing there are lots of supplies here now, but people will need donations to rebuild because so much of the damage will not be covered by insurance.  If you'd like to help, The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina is one that I know goes directly to helping people here.  I also know some people personally who need donations, so if you'd like to help directly, let me know and I'll send you links.

Thank you everyone!! xoxo, Julie