Happy Birthday For Yesterday Elizabeth & Unreal Storms...

It was our girl's 2nd birthday yesterday... (I would have posted an entry yesterday, but we had a black out... but more on that later) I'll be having a big blog post later about our day and all that happened... but I just wanted to quickly post to let everyone know that we're all okay.

We've had the worst storms in 20 years hit Brisbane yesterday afternoon/night... We actually went out to dinner to Trangs last night (special birthday dinner treat for Beth), but while we were out a MASSIVE storm came through... on the drive home we saw the signs of devasation... we passed at least 2 huge trees that had fallen down and were blocking the left lane of the road.. and lots of small trees had lost their branches... it was a total wreck. We came home and were greeted with a blackout, water had seeped in through the sliding door and a few windows, debris in the backyard... We had bought an easel as part of Beth's birthday present and I had unfortunately left it out under the pergola and after the storm it was totally destroyed... the wood has splintered and broken in half in parts and there are bolts and pieces everywhere... We'll have to get her a new easel now (which isn't a bad thing - the first one was a bit dodgy!)

I think we were lucky to escape with just that damage... Our suburb is listed in the top 3 suburbs affected by the storm... and hearing stories at swimming and on the news... people have lost their roofs... had trees fall down on their houses... schools are closed due to damage and powerlines falling down ... we are just so happy that we are safe and that our house is intact.

The blackout actually lasted 16 hours for us... we were lucky there was enough hot water for Phan to have a shower this morning and Beth and I went to swimming and came home to find the power back... I am so eternally grateful to have the power back... as I write this there are still something like 55000 SE Queenslanders without power... As my sister so eloquently put it in an email to me... "We *NEED* electicity!"... and isn't that the truth! We are so dependent on it...

Anyway... I have to go audit the fridge and chuck out most of the stuff (I'm figuring 80% of the food and fridge is going to be off after not being on for 16 hours!) and then pop out to the shops to restock and buy more batteries and candles in the event of another blackout (there's another storm on Wednesday apparently)... hopefully the shops are functioning okay... I hear the woolworths near our place had part of the roof blown off... and apparently there's and IGA in a suburb nearby selling icecream for a dollar on the proviso it's eaten in 24 hours!

Well, there's my little update for now... I'll be back later...