Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Ike, 2, and life...

Well here we are a week and a half since Ike came through and left a little bit of destruction in his wake. If you aren't in the Houston area you probably have regular programinging and haven't seen the new news and more news we are getting so here are some good photos of the hurricane and aftermath. http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/09/the_short_but_eventful_life_of.html I can actually recognize a few of those places in Galveston which is kinda weird.
For our Ike story it is thankfully uneventful and lacking in excitement, just like I want it to be. We left on Thursday when they announced our zip code was part of the mandatory evacuation. We packed up Joy, clothing for everyone toys for a couple of days, the scrapbooks and the computers and headed to my Mom's house in Houston. The news was saying if you are in a mandatory evacuation zone to go further away, but we felt paying for somewhere to stay further away was not something we wanted to do, nor were we interested in leaving for long (at least until we knew more about the storm and/or our home). So we spent Thursday night and all day Friday waiting for the storm to come. Joy wanted to go home and asked a few times during the day Friday, but we just told her a big storm was coming and it was safer at GrandLady's. On Friday night before the storm was really here we lost power around 9:30pm and went to bed early. The actual storm hit at night, so Joy never had any fear through it, she slept like a baby! I slept most of the night, but woke up a few times to noises and howling winds. I believe the same is true of Rob. We woke up Saturday and spent all day Saturday at my Mom's with one short trip out to see my grandmother and her home. Everyone was well, and my sister and her home were also safe. Sunday we deicded to go ahead and try going home since we were anxious to hear/see anything about our home. Rob left first and then gave an all clear and Joy and I followed. At home we found 5 shingles or less off the roof, all 6 trees standing with many missing branches, but standing and our backyard fences down on 2.5 sides. Clean up began and we spent the next 2 days outside cleaning up the debris, playing with Joy and chatting with the neighbors. We got our power back on Tuesday, and have been trying to regain normalicy since then.
Joy turned 2 on Friday after the storm and her party was planned for Saturday. She was very excited about the party and since we had power we went ahead with the plan. I was thankful for my pre-planning and only had a couple of things to finish to execute the party. The party went well and this week Rob is back at work and Joy is back at school. I will post pictures as soon as Rob puts the Mac back up and running, maybe he can make it my computer so I will have access all the time, and just maybe blog a little more!

2 comments:

G said...

Two years old. That is just amazing. I looked at the hurricane photos - wow. Did Susan's parents' beachhouse make it? Please post the pictures of the b-day party when you get a chance. Love ya!

Anonymous said...

Happy Birthday Joy!!!
Ah.. can't imagine Joy going through the "terrible twos" since she is so cute!
Love,
Bev