Hurray for Power after Ike.

We got power back on at our home on Tuesday and really suffered very minimal damage from Hurricane Ike and feel very fortunate. If being without power was our greatest problem I am grateful to my Heavenly Father for watching over us. It was crazy to be here and in a Hurricane. The actual night of the hurricane you could hear the rain pounding and the house was shaking from the wind. We woke up at about 4 am when the worst part of the storm hit our area, at this point our power was out and it had been for some time. After that we just laid in bed listening and waiting. Surprisingly, Carter slept like a rock the entire night. We had to wake him up at 9am. For the past four years we've had Hurricane scares, but never one of this magnitude. We live on the west side of Houston and made out a lot better than the rest of the city. Mostly here people suffered from roof damage, some flooding and down fences, trees and power lines. We live in a newer subdivision so we didn't have nearly as many problems because out trees are small and new.

We're so grateful to have the power back on and so grateful to the Knies and Ramage families who offered their homes to us while we were without power. We hunkered down at the house after the storm for about a day and then decided is was just too miserable to be here, so we packed everything up and headed to the other side of town. Such a blessing, it was just way to hot and humid for me being so pregnant and poor Carter was in a constant sweat in his diaper, which we let him run around in all day. We were without water for about 24 hours and without power for three days. Half of the city is still without power. Yes, it sucked to be without power, but we were very blessed to have such great friends who were willing to take us in, and it's not very often you get to have an adult sleepover.

Since returning home we've been picking up the pieces. Mike has fixed our fence, we had to pull up a section of our carpet and air it dry, we still have some shingles on the roof to replace but are in need of a ladder tall enough to get to the roof, we also cleaned out the fridge since we lost pretty much everything that was in it. I am waiting for things in the city to calm down before I even attempt to go to the grocery store. Makes me rethink the whole food storage and preparedness council and I've decided after this experience I am going to be better and smarter at it.
Fence right after the storm.













Fence after Mike fixed it, good as new.



Carter staying cool in his diaper playing outside.














We grilled dinner and spent the evening in the front yard with the rest of our neighbors. Mike even made us smores.

Here's our empty fridge after Ike.

This is the small section of our carpet that was damaged, now good as new.

Down powerlines by our house. The pole was snapped in half.