Hurricane Ike

I suppose I would be remiss to not include a post about Ike. Ah, Ike, Ike, Ike....

Emerson was off of school and Scott was off of work the Friday that Ike was to hit. We spent most of the day securing the outside of the house, replacing batteries, monitoring the weather...and eating the "hurricane food" stash. And before Scott can jump in with an objection...FINE!...I was the one eating all the Oreos!

We settled the girls in for the evening, made cups of coffee, and had just settled on the couch to watch the weather reports around 8:00 p.m. when our power went off. 8:00 p.m.!? We were a tad ticked off to say the least. Around 10:00, we hunkered down in our "shelter" (the dining room) and listened to the radio play-by-play of the storm coming in.

The girls did great...slept right through it. Scott snored off and on. Trapper was a tad nervous and glued to my side the entire night. Me...I didn't sleep a wink...AT ALL. For me, that night was the scariest, noisiest night I have ever endured. The sound of the wind whipping around the house, hitting the glass, and the swaying of the trees was incredible. I don't think I'll ever forget it, and I certainly do not need to ever go through it again.

Thankfully, we made it through just fine. We had large limbs and debris in our yard, but no real damage. I figure we lost two trees with Rita...we had our turn! Several neighbors lost large trees and fences. The damage and destruction in Kingwood was substantial. To this day, there are still debris piles, hanging branches, fallen down trees, left over tree trunks, downed fences, and blue tarps on roofs. Still, we feel very blessed that our good friends and loved ones made it through just fine.