Sunday, September 14

ike aftermath.

we got to my parent's in katy on thursday afternoon, before the storm, with our stuff & our animals. our friend, juliet, & her son, jaxon, evacuated with us because her husband-to-be is a medic in league city and had to stay behind. once we got there, we started getting my parent's house ready for the hurricane - taking everything loose into the garage, boarding up, etc. then we just waited.

we spent the day friday making sure everything was ok before ike hit. friday night, we went to bed waiting on ike. we lost power about 3 that morning but we had the ac low enough that it didn't really bother any of us.

when we woke up saturday morning (yes, we slept through the entire hurricane - don't know how but we did), no one knew what had happened during the night. i thought i'd heard a branch hit against the board on our window but didn't hear anything besides that. when we looked outside, this is what we saw...



kinda bizarre that we didn't hear a thing (and neither did 4 dogs!). we spent that morning cutting up the tree and taking it to the curb in the rain. the half of the tree that fell on my dad's shed caused some chemical to leak into the drainage and dad wanted to figure out what it was before it went everywhere.

for the next 2 days, we helped dad get the tree cut up and moved out of the backyard. it was a REALLY big tree so it was quite a job. they also took apart the shed and stored everything that was in it. did i mention that my dad had had hernia surgery a week before and couldn't lift anything bigger than the chainsaw?? let's just say brian ray earned some serious son-in-law points! this is what the pile of tree looked like when they were done (they put it all in the yard of a vacant house down the street :)).



we got power back at my parents about 3 on saturday afternoon so we only went without power for about 12 hours. we were lucky! we decided that we'd stay at my parents until we figured out whether we had power back or not. in that time, we worked our booties off, but we also played a bit as well...
jaxon & i in the mud.


i think addie's comfy on her daddy :)

on sunday, we got a call from my in-laws asking if they and brian's aunt & uncle could stay at our house. apparently we got power back on before almost anyone else in league city so there was a slumber party at our house that night (and we weren't there :)).

the next morning, we packed up - all of our stuff, 2 dogs, 1 rabbit, 1 cat, and a 21 month old (sounds like a zoo huh??) and headed home. it didn't take much longer than normal to get home. when we got here, dad and brian repaired the shingles on the roof that had ripped off and recemented the fence posts so that they are more sturdy than before. i unpacked the cars and got our house back to "normal" in time for everyone to come over for dinner that night.

we spent the week cleaning up everything, having big, group dinners, and trying to get back into the swing of things as quickly as possible. for "hurrication," there was alot of manual labour done!

we are glad things are getting back to normal - the tv stations aren't covering ike 24/7, we don't have to hear the term "hunker down" every 5 seconds, "certain death" isn't an everyday term, and the storm surge isn't coming and taking our house away.

thank you so much to everyone who has been thinking of us & praying for us. we were very blessed & hate that so many families were affected by this hurricane and lost everything. we thank God every day that our family & our home were spared and pray for those who weren't so lucky.

school starts again next monday after more than two weeks off although teachers go back this friday. until then, i'm playing house wife and getting as much done around the house as i can.

some random pictures: (more on my picture site - link on the right)

kemah - before the storm.

a car outside our neighborhood -
there were 3 total (this plus a hummer & a mercedes)

galveston - the seawall.
brian's aunt went down there on friday before ike hit.

Thursday, September 11

ike.

we are evacuating to katy(my parent's house) with caddy, rylea, and addie.