Hurricane Michael

We had our first hurricane scare since we came to Florida.  On Monday, the computer predictions showed Fort Walton to be in the path, so we decided to so some preparations.  Bode's school was cancelled for Tuesday and Wednesday (and today as well).  We woke up early Tuesday morning and put up the storm shutters.  After a couple of false-starts (we put them in wrong), we figured everything out and were done in about an hour.  We also took everything off the dock, because even though the storm was still more than a day away, the water was rising.

This is a shot of our neighbor's lot--she's a little lower than us.

Note the wave-runners are gone--we originally had them tied down, but with some of the predictions, we thought it best to get them out of the water.  We spent the rest of the day getting stuff into the house and doing final preparations.  It was still a very beautiful Tuesday night.

The dogs were oblivious and continued to fight in the backyard.

At the end of the day, Bode declared that we were ready.

The house was a little eerie with no windows open to the back yard.

We woke up to calm conditions on Wednesday morning.  It was only after Uncle Dave called did we realize the storm had been upgraded to a Category 4 storm.  Fortunately, all the predictions showed it hitting well east of us.  I went outside a number of times in the morning, and everything seemed fine--a little stormy, but nothing awful.

I also took a movie.

We did get some rain, and the wind picked up for a couple hours in the afternoon.  However, by the evening, things were back to normal.  Bode even ventured out on the dock.

Ashley and I took the shutters off the house, and enjoyed the sunset--the sky was an amazing color of orange and yellow.

We spent the morning cleaning up the yard--a lot of twigs and small branches.  We were very fortunate that the storm was east of us.  Bode's school is in session tomorrow, and Ashley and I will be back at work.  It's a beautiful day here--we both went for a jog, but we'll probably have to do some work for our jobs this afternoon (bah).  Pleasant day to all.