We went back to the beach bright and early Saturday morning. The drive back showed a lot of damage to trees and buildings here and there. Several stop lights were out. The closer to the beach the more damage. We had the marble tiles blow off of the front of our building and a concrete bench was broken but that’s it for a 90+ mph sustained wind. Not bad at all! And we never lost electricity. It’s probably a good thing that we share the same grid as the fire department across the street.

The first night back we all sat together on the pool deck and someone declared it to be a survivor’s party, which I posted on Facebook. It was pointed out to me that it was in poor taste because people did die in this hurricane. It was not my intention to be that kind of jerk, but we all felt so relieved to be back and find that things were pretty damn okay here! We decided to go check things out that evening and realized how good we had it. Most of Daytona had no electricity and it was a mess! They have been working hurriedly to clean up. Thursday was the beginning of Biketober Fest, so it was supposed to be a madhouse around here for the next few days.

Late Wednesday afternoon we found out Jenna was in the beginning of labor. She went to work at Florida Hospital Waterman, where she works as the Foundation manager, at 8 a.m., had a doctor’s appointment in the hospital at 11 and Sloan Charlotte Krager was born via c-section at 7:08 that evening. We arrived at the hospital 15 minutes before she was born. Damn bikers made the drive quite a bit slower than normal.

We held that sweet little baby when she was just a few hours old. And so many hours over the next few days. We. Could. Not. Get. Enough. Of. Her. Jenna was finally released early Saturday evening, we helped them get settled at home and took off for the beach. It was their time to nest as a family and learn how this was going to work. Rick will fly back to Tucson next weekend, work a couple of days, and fly back with our son Tyler so that he can meet his niece. I will stay here so that I can help Jenna if needed. We feel so fortunate to have this sweet little baby in our lives after the year from hell we had last year.