Pictures!

Here are some Ike-related pictures. I know it's probably old news to most of you, but we're still living with it. The clean up is on-going and seems to be never-ending. Galveston will never be the same. Along the Sea Wall, there is no beach. The gulf waters come right up to the wall.

Last year, the first part of September, Chris and I celebrated our 20th down in Galveston. We stayed at an old Victorian house that had been turned into a bed-and-breakfast. http://www.coppersmithinn.com It was built in the late 1800s and survived the Great Storm of 1900. The next day, we chartered a fishing boat out of Crystal Beach and spent the day tanning and catching sand trout. We had the boat to ourselves except for our pilot/guide. Our guide baited the hooks for us and even cast them out. There's nothing left of Crystal Beach. There's not even a ferry to get you to the peninsula now.

The night of the storm we all slept (or tried to) in the family room. We watched the news until the signal went out and then Shrek and then Napoleon Dynamite until the power went out.

This picture is taken right around the corner from our house. One house lost 6 trees and the one next door lost 3. It looked like pick-up-sticks. A mini-tornado (there were lots of those all around that night) touched down here. Their front yard now looks like a war zone--holes and mud.

The kids wanted to try walking across this. What kid wouldn't?

Big trees = big mess. Lots of trees actually got tangled up in live wires which is one reason why it took so long for the electric to come back on.

Torn right out of the ground. You still see lots of this around the neighborhood. People are trying to get the stumps taken care of so they can put their yards back together.

Our messy front yard (and neighborhood).

Our debris pile out at the street. It was picked up a week before our power was on. Notice the pines are still standing, which is good because the one on the left is about 5 stories tall (the one on the right is actually an oak).

Chicken Foot game #427. Don't ask me why, but we didn't get tired of this particular game for over a week. We set up a table outside and ate and played out there a lot. The mosquitoes didn't move in until about day 10 after the storm.

Puzzle #1 of 3. Stef is protective of them--she did most of the work on all 3.

What the kids do when they get stir crazy.

One of the houses that Mormon Helping Hands helped clean up.

Chris said that in Galveston, boats were everywhere.

I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends

I'm back. :) Ike came and went 2 weeks ago today. We are fine, the house is fine, we didn't lose any trees--only some big limbs and the bird feeder. The power came back on last night about 6 pm. That's the focus of this blog. Living without power is nothing. Easy. So, why was I crying when I pulled into the parking lot of the laundromat and couldn't find a parking place? Why did I cry again when friends took my laundry for me? We were prepared. Always have been. We have a grill outside, a Coleman stove, lots of propane, flashlights, batteries, a galvanized steel tub for open fires outside, a turkey fryer that runs off of propane, water. We have clean water! The water wasn't interrupted at all but we were under boiling advisement for about 3 days while it was checked. We also have 4 55-gallon barrels of water in the garage and we had 7 cases of bottled water. Also, all of our cars tanks were full and we didn't have a generator that we needed to buy gas for. We have food storage! I've been working on our 3-month supply of easy to cook food, mostly canned. We really were prepared. The only line we ever had to stand in was for ice. After a couple of days we couldn't keep our fridge cold enough any longer and had to throw out a lot of food and transfer the rest to coolers. Every day we went in search of ice. 5 bags a day. Our new HEB was open soon after the storm and usually got 2 trucks of ice in a day. The arrival times varied so sometimes we had to wait on the shipment before we could buy our treasured 5 bags. We kept 3 coolers cold and put the rest in the outside freezer. After about a week, the freezer was ready for a clean out. Everything was thawed and after eating a lot out of it, we couldn't buy enough ice every day to keep it full. So, one cooler went to the freezer items and the freezer was cleaned out. We gave one turkey away and fried the other. We had to throw out a roast, some chicken, a couple pounds of hamburger, some ribs, and stewmeat. The day before the storm, I cooked about 5 lbs. of chicken and shredded it and stuck it in the freezer so we could easily add it to meals to eat after the storm. We had plenty of bread in the freezer, which was a blessing, because the stores could not keep bread stocked. The area is mostly back to normal now. We were the last block in our neighborhood to get power. The kids went back to school on Wednesday, I went back to work last Monday. Chris went back to work the Monday before. Life is getting back to where it was before but my emotions are not where they were before. After living on the edge of civilization for 2 weeks with only a newspaper and radio for news (the radio got old really fast--too much negativity), I feel like life will never exactly be the same again. On Wednesday morning before school started, the elementary school had a prayer for the families in the neighborhood and for the kids starting back to school. We all met at the flag pole and participated in a non-denominational prayer. Tears came to my eyes as I stood with my friends and neighbors and prayed with them. Only in Houston does the PTO think of praying with its students and actually does it. And no one will be suing. During the first week after the storm, we had the kind of experience that has made lasting positive memories. The weather turned cool (very rare for this time of year here) and people went outside. Neighbors helped each other clean up yards, cut up trees, rake and bag debris. And then after dinner the kids played. Freeze tag, toilet tag, flashlight tag, missionary tag, and lots of games and running. One night Chris and I sat on the porch and watched 16 kids in our yard and spilling out into the other yards, playing some kind of tag. We enjoyed watching their antics and strategies. We're surprised no one ran into any of the trees because it gets dark without any street lights or lights of any kind. We roasted marshmallows together and made banana boats and s'mores. After the cleanup in the neighborhood was under control, the kids would head down to the elementary school every day to play kickball, touch football, and swing. It was an amazing week of good old-fashioned play. As more people around us got their power back on (some as soon as the day after the storm), we had so many friends reach out to us and others who did not have power. We were offered help with laundry, dinner, and a place to cool off when the cool weather left us. These friends will always, always be dear to my heart. It really wasn't catastrophic to not have power for 2 weeks. We had all that we needed, thanks to our friends. Pictures coming soon--Chris has the camera down in Galveston today where he's helping clean up. Mormon Helping Hands sure stays busy around here. (I'm going to go vacuum now.)

Stef's Alarm Clock

Stef is not a morning person. She never has been. She's not really a night person either. She's always been a little bit sleepy. I've had her blood sugar and iron tested and they're fine. It's just that when she's not busy with anything in particular she prefers to spend her free time sleeping. :) She's not lazy. She actually loves to be active. She loves to ride her bike, play vollyball, and go do things with friends. She keeps up with homework, facebook, school activities, church activities. She just really enjoys sleeping, too. And when she's asleep, she's out.

So, now to the alarm clock. Stef recently got her own room for the first time ever. And I went and picked out a very cute and cheap alarm clock for her. She started seminary this year and needs to get up by about 5:15 a.m. She quickly learned about the snooze button and set her alarm for 5:05 a.m. So, at exactly 5:05 a.m. the alarm goes off and makes this horrible grating/shrieking/annoying noise. I get up and go into Stef's room and wake her up. Stef wakes up and pushes snooze. We repeat this 9 minutes later. The noise, I get up, stumble into Stef's room, wake her up and then she turns it off and this time, gets up. This morning I decided to be grateful that I have a new alarm clock that is so cute and that I have Stef to snooze it and then turn it off for me. And I'm very grateful that she mostly always gets up the second time.

Baptismal Covenants

I promise to serve the Lord, keep His commandments, and to always remember Him.
The Lord promises to forgive my sins when I repent, to bless me with the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost, and to give me eternal life.

Dixon Ticonderoga

It's school supply time, again. Do I sound less than enthusiastic? Don't get me wrong, I love school supplies. New pencils, highlighters in every color, the smell of Crayolas, fine-tipped ball point pens in black ink and maybe purple, too. Spirals without bent corners, doodles and messy leftover strips from tearing out pages. Graph paper, sketch paper, copy paper, construction paper, college-ruled, wide-ruled. When I was younger, I remember telling my mom that when I grew up I wanted to open a paper store (this was before scrapbooking). She was like, "Paper? What for? You can buy paper at Fred Meyer." Jace and Benj were going through their pre-packaged school supplies (purchased from the school to support the PTO). They both had a box of 24 pencils. Benj's were Dixon Ticonderoga and Jace's were an off-brand. Jace eyed Benj's pencils and turned a little green. Then his lightbulb went on: "Benj, how about if I give you 12 of my pencils and you give me 12 of yours and then we can both have the same kind of pencils?" Benj didn't see anything wrong with this deal and agreed. Jace got 12 precious Dixon Ticonderoga's and Benj got to match his big brother. I do have a problem with teachers that request certain items that are almost impossible to find. I have no idea where they're coming from. A few years ago, Cait had an English teacher that requested an orange pocket folder with brads. Each of the classes had a different color and Cait's class got stuck with orange. I drove all over Houston looking for that orange folder. I found many without brads. I found many without pockets. They would not do and I was getting desperate. If it wasn't in hand, in class by Friday her GRADE would be affected. Can you believe it? "I'm grading you on how well your mother can drive all over the city to find the elusive orange-colored folder. You have until Friday then I start taking off points." What? I bought a red hoping that we could paint it. Then dumb luck stepped in. There was a girl in another class who couldn't find red but happened to stumble across the last orange in the state. We arranged a swap and the grade was saved. This year our elusive supplies include a Composition Book with 3 binder-holes, 5 x 7 index cards that are on rings with a plastic cover, and ABC dividers. I have until Friday.

Erin left for Provo today and so did all of our money. We miss them both. :)

8 IS GR8

When you turn 8 in our family, you get to do some "grown-up" things. Such as learn how to light matches and use a sharp knife. You also get a big plate at the dinner table and a big fork and knife to eat with. When we were setting the table for the birthday dinner, Benj had a great idea: "Let's throw away all of the little [salad] forks! We don't need them any more." Silly Benj!
p.s. Baptism coming up on Sept. 6--mark your calendar :)