Pix from IKE

Here's some photos of the main street just outside our subdivision the morning after the Hurricane. They're blurry, since we had to take them from our car. You can see the power lines twisted in the trees, this is why we were without power for 12 days.

yIKEs!

12 days, 17 hours, 23 Minutes, and 13 seconds. That's the amount of time we were without power, after Hurricane Ike plowed into Galveston. This was definitely a new experience for us all. We were very prepared we felt, though, after a week without power you really realize how much you depend on a simple thing such as electricity. I was so proud of the boys, they handled this so well. We set up our "kitchen" in the backyard, with the BBQ and camp stove to cook our meals. We ate like kings the first few nights, with the freezer thawing out most of the meat and other treats, after about 5 days we had emptied it out. We were very thankful after the storm that a nice cool front came in and kept it nice and cool during the day and into the night. That made not having A/C a little bit more bearable. But it didn't last the whole time, the heat did return and it was hot! My old boss let us borrow his generator after his power was restored, that helped keep the house a little more inhabitable. But it still was too hot at night to sleep, and we're grateful for our friends in the neighborhood that had power that let us seek shelter in their homes in the meantime.

As for the storm itself. It was one of the more terrifying nights I've had in a long time. The winds started up around 7 or 8 at night, and lasted until the early afternoon the next day. You could hear the trees getting whipped and beaten by the mighty wind outside the windows. We huddled in the laundry room for safety. The power went out around 2:00 AM, with a vibrant green flash that lit up the darkened sky as large oak trees toppled the power lines making the transformers pop. Jen and I stayed up most of night, listening to the radio as they kept filling us in on all the details of the storm. There was a lull around 4 AM, as the eye passed over. And then, it was even more wind and driving rain. We felt the back half of the storm was more intense then the front half. The winds were blowing from the West now, and as we went outside that morning you could see all the trees that had blown over laying towards the East. Most of the damage in our neighborhood happened with the latter part of the storm. Little by little, the neighborhood sprang to life, neighbors were coming out to check on each other. As we surveyed the damage we knew we were blessed, we had only lost a few shingles but hadn't had any wind or water damage. Many people around us had large hole in their roofs, and water leaking in as well.

Its now been two weeks since it came, and life is starting to get back to normal. The kids returned to school this week, as did I. Businesses are starting to re-open, gas is available as well as food. This was a very bad storm and we feel truly blessed to have made it through without any major problems. We've decided when the next one hits, we're going to probably try to evacuate, especially if it is more then a Cat 2 storm. The city had done a very good job in maintaining order during the days leading up to it making landfall. The evacuation plan they set up worked very well, and there wasn't this mass exodus like we had back in '05 with Rita. Once again, thanks for all your thoughts and prayers during this time.

Hurricane Ike, Day three.

We made it. We want to thank you all for your thoughts and prayers, over the past few days. We are still without power, and will probably be until the first of next week, or so we're told. When we regain power we will post more. We know the Lord was watching over us and we are very grateful for that.

Hurricane IKE

We just wanted everyone to know that we are ready and prepared for IKE to hit us. Right now it's estimated that landfall will happen sometime tonight, around 1:00 AM CDT. We're pretty much in the projected path, but luckily we're far enough inland that we should not be affected by the storm surge or any of the main flooding. We're expecting to get winds in excess of 75-85 MPH, for at least 10 straight hours. Thankfully, we are prepared with food and water in the event we lose power and other utilities and we hope we'll be able to ride this out. Please keep us in your prayers and we'll try to keep ya'll updated as soon as it has cleared.

First Day of School

Christian started 1st grade and Brandt started kindergarten on August 25. It was a day that I have been anticipating. I was fine with Christian going back to school, he loved kindergarten he met lots of new friends and learned a lot . I remember being worried that Christian academically wasn't ready, but we had already keep him back a year and he was the tallest kid. Well to state the obvious, everything turned out okay and he was ready to be gone all day. Brandt on the other hand is my baby, well he was my baby for such a long time, and he plays the part very well. Brandt still take naps off and on. Last year he would come home from preschool and sleep and that was only 9:00 to 1:00 3 days a week. So of course my mind is thinking "how is he going to make it all day five days a week from 8:10 to when the bus drops them off at 4:10?" What will he do when he gets tired or if he just needs his quiet time or if he just needs his mommy, after all Brandt is a mommas boy. Plus I think he looks so small, well compared to christian who is tall. Anyways I wasn't ready to send Brandt off which is weird, you hear all this mom talk about how hard it is to send the 1st child off to school. Well I was OK with my first but not my second, I guess it's because Brandt always needed me more then Christian did. Christian is a very independent type of person compared to Brandt's personality. Plus I wasn't really happy about Brandt's teacher, he got the only one I didn't want. Well need less to say it was a hard Day.

Christian looking like a big boy for 1st grade(it's the only picture we took, don't you love his excitement?)

Brandt all ready for his Big Day as a Kindergartner.

Here are some observations from the days leading up to the first day of school.

We had "meet the teacher" on Friday and Brandt was happy and liking it plus he gets his new school shirt which he has been waiting for.



Brandt was worried Sunday night that he might not like his first day of kindergarten. Christian being the supportive big brother says, "Brandt, if you feel like crying, you can have your teacher call my teacher and I will come down and be with you. Will that make you feel better?" And of course Brandt said yes.



The morning of school he was so happy to wear his new shoes and outfit. He got to use his new lunchbox and backpack that he picked out, which you can pull it like a suitcase. He also said he was scared and that his tummy hurt so he wouldn't eat anything. I felt so sad to see how nervous he was, but he sure did look cute.



On the third day Brandt got a new teacher because we had to many kids in kindergarten which turned out to be a good thing. Since Brandt had commented about his teacher was she kinda mean and she yelled at us on the first day. We now have Mrs. Gresh and we are liking her. She called me that night of their first day of their new class to see if Brandt was OK. Brandt went up to her about with about 2 hours left of school and let her know that he needed to go home now, he was tired and wanted to go home to sleep. She said that she then decide to have rest time and a few students including Brandt fell a sleep.S o Brandt is loving rest time because he falls a sleep everyday for about 20min then she wakes them up to keep learning. He also seems to be meeting new friends and got a birthday invite from a kid in his new class.



Christian also had "meet your teacher" Friday night and has a couple kids from kindergarten class that are in his 1st grade class. Most exciting thing is that his best friend Kyan is in his class this year. Turns out they even sit right by each other, We both told them they better be good or they won't be sitting by each other for long. Christian was so happy to start school because he thought he new everything and he already had friends. Plus he wanted to wear his new clothes and shoes. He also got a new Star Wars back pack, and we all know how Christian loves Star Wars. So when he got home I asked him how the first day was he said that 1st grade was "easy cheesy". The second day wasn't quite so easy the thought 1st grade was hard he had to write all day long with no center time. He to is also meeting new friends and has a new little girl in his class chasing him around at recces. How cute!



Jared and I drove the kids to school and walked them to their class the first day and I picked them up. Jared gave both of the boys a blessing that morning. I think it helped because Brandt seemed to be feeling a little better before we left. I am so happy to know we have our Father in Heaven watching over us. Well they both made it through their first week of school and is happy to have a three day weekend. Christian actually remembered that from last year because he told Brandt that was the cool thing about the first week you go 5 days and get 3 days off but only the first week.

Christian in his class (kinda blurry)
Brandt in his class
Brandt getting off the bus on his second day. He couldn't wait to ride the bus