Last week I panicked when I heard the call to say we could expect a tsunami hitting our beaches within the hour after an earthquake in the pacific, so what did I do? I got my kids to pile all the scrapbook albums and photo boxes into the car whilst I jumped in the shower! I think best while in the shower! LOL
Once I was clean and dressed and had a plan in my head, I got the kids to pack a bag with some of their clothes whilst I organised a back up of the accounting program onto my external hard drive and got a chilly bag full of food for us and the dogs. As soon as the external hard drive was backed up we jumped in the car with the three dogs on their leads and headed to a playground in Hastings (friends had text to say Civil Defence had told them to take their Holiday Programme crew there).
Long story short, thankfully the warnings came to nothing even though we were confused by differing reports all day, and after spendind the morning at the playground and the afternoon at a good friend's place (who was willing to take our three dogs too) we came home in the rain. I didn't dare ask the kids to help empty the car as they had told me in no uncertain terms all day that they will NEVER take all those scrapbooks and photos in an emergency again!
If nothing else the day made me rethink my priorities. Whilst the kids are the most important to evacuate, if I this happened again and we got warning of an impending evacuation I would only take...
* us
* clothes
* food
* blankets
* pillows
* toiletries and medication
* personal documents
* survival kit (torches, batteries, matches etc)
* irreplaceable photos (some of which are already scrapped so will put these all into one album)
* the external hard drives
* and the box of negatives.
(what else should be a priority??)
at least then there would still be room in the boot to put the chooks (DH decided they would be more important than the dogs as they could produce eggs or if needs be could be killed and eaten!!)
That would leave room for us (and the cat and dogs) in the car!
btw - DH thought I was nuts when I called him at work and asked him to come home and help pack up the car or to at least meet us at the playground. He never once called us throughout the day to see how we were. Next time I won't bother packing him a change of clothes or his toiletries! LOL
Here is a layout using this weeks YT digi template which I have adapted to suit the theme for a challenge at SBO for the Ready, Steady...it's nearly Christmas competition. I am not entering the competition as we were required to create a paper layout to be eligible to enter. I have a photo of my brother's giant Christmas card (Father Christmas) so will adapt the digi template yet again to a 8x8 size for his album.
This one of TJ having fun wheeling the dogs around the back yard. I used Fancy Pants Rough and Tough range with some hand stamped stars on the background.
This is my attempt to create a silhouette of me! LOL This layout is about having to rethink our disaster evacuation plan (see previous blog post).
Using title stickers, alphas, glitzers and patterned paper from the range to list '9 things the I (Alyse) love'. A very typical teenage girl list.
Alyse met Tori whilst she was working at the Holiday Programme and they hit it off immediately. The title spot (clock) inspired me to use these photos of these two cuties!
When I first saw this photo of TJ's funny face I was ready to delete it but then realised it was perfect so used it for Alyse's album. These two have a love hate relationship and I thought it was quite funny that Alyse had to be nice to her brother whilst she was at work in the cafe! hehehehe
I used the Bo Bunny Popsicle patterned papers here and cut the bingo cards into butterflies using a Cuttlebug die.
I have used the tag on a layout about Alyse's class going to the Victorian Christmas display at the museum and dressing up in period costumes. (the layout isn't finished yet hence the sneak of the tag only LOL)