Abby's New Spectacles

Here are the pics:

Solo:

And with her sister:

Post Ike Pics - After the Cleanup

Here is the wall of debris after our cleanup:

(This is an older pic. Today, the wall is bigger.)

Post-Hurricane Ike Pics

As promised, here are some photos of the destruction around our house:

The following pics were taken the morning after.

View from the deck:

Front Yard:

Side Yard:

We're Done Camping!

OUR POWER IS BACK ON!!!!!
The power came back on about 2:00 pm today. It feels kind of weird having lights and TV and internet access and hot water. But it's a good feeling. Life can sort of get back to normal. Now we just need to get the girls back in school (high priority) and the brush and debris lining the streets as a five foot high wall on both sides of the street throughout the subdivision picked up (low priority). We're having pizza tonight to celebrate.

I will post the pics we have of the aftermath of the storm soon.

I also want to thank all of y'all out there concerned for us, thinking of us, praying for us, and offering help. Much appreciated. We are truly blessed.

Now, if you will excuse me, I am going to go take a long, hot shower.

Post-Ike Update

Just a few bullet points:
1. We still have no power.
2. We currently have use of a generator - giving us some relief.
3. Gasoline is increasing in availability and the lines have dropped significantly.
4. The weather is still holding out for us.
5. School will resume for the girls on Monday, the 22nd at the earliest.
6. God is merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.

Hurricane Ike Aftermath

We are still alive. Thanks be to God! This is the first chance I have had to get on the internet. The church office has power and internet. So for the time being, I will have to blog from here. My neighborhood currently has no power or telephone. But we did receive mail yesterday! We had a lot of limbs and branches down. One hit our chainlink fence and took out a section. We spent Saturday, Sunday afternoon, and Monday cleaning all that up and helping out our neighbors as well. If there is one bright spot out of all of this, it is how all our neighbors have come together to work together.
The hottest thing to have right now is a generator. There is the constant hum of generators throughout our subdivision. A number of subdivisions and a good part of the city core of Friendswood has power. We are hoping that we get power back again as well. Some grocery stores have opened. So we have been able to get some food. We were well stocked and we can go on for a number of more days, but it was good to get some more. Gas is very tough to get. But our cars are still well fueled from before the storm. Sheri's van still has almost a full tank and I have over half. We have been driving minimally. FEMA set up a a POD (point of distribution) this morning in a city park just past the church. And that was about two days too late. The cars are lined up almost as far as the eye can see. I think they are people from other areas. I am not counting on FEMA for anything right now. I hope they are doing a better job in the areas that were really hit hard by the surge and other flooding. Power company trucks are much more important than FEMA in my book.
The girls have been real troopers through this. They slept through the storm. They have been helping clean up. But they won't be back in school until the 22nd at the earliest.
Again, sorry for rambling. I will post as often as I can.

Hurricane Winds Here

As best as I can determine, the hurricane force winds are here. By my best guess (looking at various radar images) the eye wall is about 30 miles from us. The Gulf side of Galveston is going to be in the eye very soon. Granted, this eye is really wierd. There is sort of an "eyelash" north of the eye itself. Local weather guys are also saying that it's a weird formation brought on by dry air streaming in from the west along the coast. All the better for us. Maybe the dry air will help to disorganize the storm.