Chaos Pretending to be Order: September 2008

Thursday, September 25, 2008

What Is Up With Us?

I can sum up what is going on here in a simple sentence.

Debris clean-up.

Other news, I started back to work today and my students and Kenny start on Monday. We went to the zoo on Wednesday with my sister-in-laws sisters (the family is from Galveston and they are currently living at my parent's house.) I have some adorable pictures to post as soon as I find the cord to get them from my camera phone to the computer. Our insurance adjuster has come by and things are looking good on that front. Hopefully it stays that way. The baby is doing fine. And we are NOT naming him IKE! On baby news, Cassie and Jonny had their baby girl yesterday- about 4 weeks early. We are super excited for them.

That sums it up. Very exciting 'round here.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

A Cause For Celebration!

With all the insane-ness going on this week, Ken reached a huge milestone. After returning home on Tuesday I barely saw him as he took to the air to take two check rides on Friday (instrument and commercial). The big news...

He is now a certified commercial helicopter pilot!!

I cannot begin to explain how happy and proud I am of him. Ya'll have no idea how hard he has worked and the sacrifices he has made to get his ratings. He has consistently scored perfect or near perfect scores on all his written exams. He is described as a very safe and capable pilot. And all this time he has been attending collage to earn his degree. He has has worked during his training and often gets very little sleep trying to work full time, be a full time flight student, and a full time collage student, as well as the best husband and father ever! This isn't the end of the road, but this is a HUGE step.

Congratulations!

We Love You!!!!

Friday, September 19, 2008

Wow...That's About All I Can Say

I made notes during our little "hurrication" and I will post them according to dates. So go back a few posts to read the story in chronological order.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Clean-up

We spent Monday in Austin preparing to go home. We were still out of power and though water was running, it had not been cleared in our city to drink. We bought a few perishable supplies: extra water, charcoal, diapers, etc. Thanks to inspired church leaders we had plenty of food at home. We wouldn't be eating great, but I knew I could feed my family three meals a day. That was a great comfort to me. That evening we picked up my parents at the airport. Tuesday morning, we headed home.

We put the kids to work. You should have seen how hard Nathan worked. He is only three and he never gave up even when it was hard, unlike another who whined the whole time.

Collecting singles. Our as the boys call them "damages".

So cute! My little men!!

On Wednesday a crew from church (the yellow shirt Mormon Helping Hands) came and tarped our roof. On Thursday another crew came in in less than an hour had cleared all our downed trees and chopped out the banana trees. One of the things I love about our church is the humanitarian efforts. My dad said with a day of the hurricane the church had a truck here filled with cleaning supplies, tarps, etc. And there was a segment on the news of church crews out helping the community. Very cool!

Our current debris piles. This pile is only the trees. We still have about a third of a tree up that we are waiting on the power company. Believe it our not, but Ken's car is behind that pile and it runs the entire length of our house.

The blue roof on our blue house.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Damage

I spent the day at Marrissa and Kevin's house, still anxious over what was happening and even more so knowing Ken was in the middle of it and I couldn't reach him. Power was out and water for a time and you could not get any cell phone signals. Ken said it was like a war zone.

Here is the front of the house from across the street. We lost some gutters in the front and a little in the back.

The backyard gate.

The side yard fence attached to the gate. Notice our neighbor in the background with missing siding.

Part of the backyard fence and our orange tree. It had fallen into our neighbors yard so he pushed it back over and cut it up a bit.

Bye-bye banana trees. Don't worry. Nothing actually kills these trees. They'll be back within 2 months.

The far back corner. These were the tree that survived.

We are so blessed that this tree fell away from the house and the bit that remained was the part tangled up in the power lines. We are going to have to wait to take down the whole tree until the power company comes to untangle the branches. It is very lopsided now and dead so I hope it won't take too long. The cedar tree in the background uprooted.

A Week Before Ike.

After Ike.
Notice how all the branches and needles are permanently bent one direction. We have seen this all over the place.

Back to the front, opposite side as the gate. Ken really likes the lone standing fence. It is a bit artistic.

Close ups of roof damage from the street. The only leaks we have found was in the garage attic. The garage ceiling has little bits of the sheet rock falling. Very grateful it is not the main house.

We are going to need a new roof, but it did not leak as far as we can tell. We feel truly blessed and looked after. The damage could have been so much worse and we have friends who have experienced much worse. Our goal is to get ourselves cleaned up as soon as possible so we can be available to help others.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

The Wait

Anxious is the word for the next few days.

I woke up at 5:30 and immediately turned on the news. The storm was still over the city so there wasn't much in the way of news. This storm was so big it sat over the area for a long time. Usually hurricanes rain their disaster and move on. It took a long time for the front of Ike to hit and the back of to Ike hit, giving more opportunity for damage to occur.

We immediately wanted to return home and access the damage, but we knew that wasn't the rational thing to do. So we waited. I feel for those people from Galveston who still can't get in to see their homes. I understand that overwhelming desire to go and see. It is maddening.

We tried to distract ourselves for a few hours and took the kids to arcade/fun zone place.

Shooting Dinosaurs

They weren't kidding about this being a miniature train!

Daddy and Kenny squirting Nathan and I.

After returning to our hotel we made plans for Ken to drive back home with a few other guys in the ward and bring back my parents Tahoe. (By the way, they were in Germany during all this and were expected to fly into Houston on Monday. They ended up flying into Austin.)

Friday, September 12, 2008

That Red Tracking Line Goes Right Over My House!

I cannot even begin to explain the feelings when you watch a hurricane the size of Texas headed on a direct path for your home. We were holed up in a little hotel room in Austin with my family, a cat, and a dog. The place was packed and you could hear animals of every kind when you walked down the halls. The news coverage was our constant companion. It was like a drug. Every time we would turn it off to get our minds engaged elsewhere and try to relieve the depression setting in we would begin to have withdrawal. For some reason we simply had to watch and cope with the idea that we could lose everything that wasn't in our little room. The kids were a bit out of sorts but did not seem to understand what was going on.