It's Gonna Be a Long One...

I hope your comfortable I have ALOT to report on! I guess first thing is first. Hurricane Ike. I apologize for not updating faster we have been trying to get back in the swing of things and luckily Tuesday our daily routine was back to normal. I should go back to the "beginning". Hurricane Ike hit us Friday the 12th at about 3AM and honestly it wasn't as bad initially as I thought it would be. We slept through most of it...we did wake up to hurricane force winds and a tree sitting in the middle of our boat! The high winds and massive amounts of rain lasted most of the day. A side note, our power went out BEFORE the hurricane even hit! We had a generator so we were able to set up one TV, a light, a fan, the frig. and a microwave. So in all honesty we never really had to "ruff" it. However, any loss of power is hard on a house of 8 people (Cindy moved to Texas...that story is coming later in the post, and had arrived the day before the storm hit). We did pretty good the first 24 hours, we watched the storm which lasted most the day, went out in the afternoon to look at our yard and our neighbors and watched lots of news. By day 2...the business of no power was old! The biggest problem was the heat (we were hot!) the fan just wasn't cutting it and the kids were miserable! Problem #2 the inability to take a shower! So by the morning of the 3rd day we had enough. With no power in sight (we got a date of October 4th for power returning!) we called up family in Kansas and got the okay to head North! We left the afternoon of the 15th for Galena Kansas (it's right on the border of Kansas/Missouri). It's about an 11 hour trip but it was a LONG trip we were willing to take in order to find civilization! Once we got on the road we were shocked by the magnitude of people the storm had effected! It took us 2 hours PAST Houston to find an operating gas station! And in all honesty most of our area looked like a war zone! We ended up staying that night right outside of Dallas. We ended up getting to Galena the 16th around 12. I've always loved my family in Kansas. My Aunt Lola is a Drama teacher and one of the coolest people I have ever met, my Uncle Dennis is an avid sports lover, my other uncle Jim has a son Jake who is a year older than Joey so he was great entertainment for my kids and...My great Aunt Madge and Uncle James (Mamoo's Brother). They have been married 50 plus years and are hilarious! They fight all the time (not really fight more like argue) and it's sooo funny! They kept us laughing and in good spirits! If you guys are reading THANK YOU for your generosity! Not many people would take in 3 women, 2 toddlers and a baby! We stayed in Galena until the 20th. By that point Ron had lost Cindy's dog (he found it the next morning), the sewage was leaking and Ron was just in general "sounding bad" so...we went on a hunt to find a bigger generator (3 stores later we found one) a window unit air conditioner and more non-perishable foods. Having gathered up the said belongings we were on our way home. We got home the night of the 20th. The 21st was an "easy" day, we had 2 generators so we had more outlets and the extra power enabled us to use the shower (it was cold but it was running water so that's all we cared about) And just as we were getting used to our new "pioneering" lifestyle the afternoon of the 22nd our lights came one! Shocked we were beyond shocked our lights came on that early! We got lights before Kingwood and Houston which I hear NEVER happens! Post-storm has been hard "swallowing". Most of our family "fun" spots are no longer there. If you know me, my favorite spot in the Houston area is Kemah...it is GONE! It's just not there anymore. Galveston another family favorite is destroyed. It's just amazing how insignificant you are to the forces of nature. The Houston area has vowed to rebuild which I'm sure they will, we are just going to really miss those places in the mean time. Before I move on from this topic I'll leave you with some pics.


Julianna watching on the car TV, we were able to charge it in the van and bring it in for her to watch Movies (life saver until we got the 2nd TV set up)

Our family room set up. 1 Adult TV, 1 Kid TV and fans

Our boat

The baby with her personal fan (she was so hot...but surprisingly still smiling)

That's not a river it's our road!

Our neighbors roof across the street in the woods

The baby in her swing in our hotel in Dallas...notice that swing had to evacuate too! We haven't figured yet how to live without it!

Driving through Oklahoma

Allie in Missouri! We had to buy her some winter clothes! There was a noticeable temperature difference!


In more recent news...Joe started back to school on Tuesday! He was so happy to be back to his "normal" routine! Dance and The Little Gym opened back up as well so the kids were able to attend Wed. Julianna still loves dance...asking me everyday when can she go to dance class! Joe is warming up to The Little Gym, we kinda have to force him to go in the door but by the end of class he is enjoying himself. As I said earlier Cindy has moved here! We are so happy to have some more family around!!! She moves into her apartment tomorrow (that's what we will be doing all weekend, helping her move). She starts mortuary school (yep you read that right!) on Monday and is in her last week of bartending school (she is going to bartend after school and on weekends to pay her rent). The baby has had a pretty bad cough/cold I think from the temperature difference up North. I took her to the dr. on Tuesday and she got an antibiotic. She now weighs 19 pounds! She's a healthy girl! My sister Kristy and her husband and daughter (who I've never even gotten to meet yet) were supposed to visit last week but because of the storm had to reschedule :( The airport wasn't even open the day they were supposed to fly in. The good news is they are now coming the 7th of November! So we are definitely looking forward to that! I believe that's it for now. I'll leave you with some pics. of our bon fire we had on Monday and a promise to post pics. of Cindy's new apartment this weekend!

Julianna and I

Cindy helping the kids roast marshmellows to make smores

Joe putting out the fire just like Grandpa!