Impromptu Vacation

This picture has nothing to do with our impromptu hurricane vacation, but I find it hilarious!

"Can you believe what Eli got to do?!"

The lake was extremely smooth while we were there, so we took advantage and spent time in the water. Eli does not mind wearing his life jacket while on the boat and is pleasantly surprised by everything he can see and hear while on the water.

After some time spent admiring the lake from the boat, it was time to get in! A while ago we found a cute life jacket/wet suit at Goodwill for only 50 cents, he can still fit in it and it doesn't crowd his head like a regular life jacket.

Jason and I took turns riding with him in the tube while Grandad pulled us at speeds much below Eli's excitement threshold, but just right for his mama!

While Eli's tubing prowess spread rapidly around the lake, some of Grandad's friends invited us to use their jet skis. He's two, so why not!

Eli does a great job respecting the rules while tubing and jet skiing. While he is thrilled to do it all, his excitement manifests itself it utter disbelief and holding himself very still. Except for his head, which whips around taking everything in! He actually rode the jet ski with Grandad.

Poop Cake

This is what we ate last night in celebration of Eli's successful visit to the toilet. We are still in the training process, and I just love the way he enuciates the word toilet, it is almost like he is British, even though I think they say loo. It took a story read on the potty to make it all happen, but we are one giant step closer!

Disclaimer: Poop cake is just a box cake mix with chocolate icing. Yummy!

What happened at our house...

Here are some pictures Jason took when he got back home.

A huge tree at one of our neighbor's houses snapped in half, luckily falling away from the houses.

Our fence didn't used to have such big gapping holes in it, and we left those two tree standing upright.

Our neighborhood was fortunate to get power back pretty soon, and so did the corner gas station.

Sleeping Beauty

just like her mamma used to...

More Hurricane Ike

Jason headed home and found out we had power. He's not sure about work this week, but he is headed to the hospital anyway. We were very fortunate that our damage was minimal. The fence took the brunt of the wind and lost, our newly planted trees didn't stand a chance, and some shingles flew off. Some pictures to come whenever Jason gets back, power but no internet. In this day and age no internet is almost as bad as no power, but we are by no means complaining.

Here at the lake we were enjoying the comfortable and still gusty breeze. Eli helped pick up the fallen leaves in the yard and then relaxed in the hammock swing.

Hurricane Ike continued

We got a report on the status of our house. Fortunately we were spared any major damage. Our fence took a beating and we might have lost some shingles, but not major damage to the house. We don't know if any water came in or not, but it seems like we were spared.

Thanks everyone for your prayers.

Hurricane Ike

Hello friends and family.

We decided to hightail it out of the city yesterday afternoon and made it up to Dad's by dinner time. We didn't have any traffic or problems making it up here (except Eli stood in a fire ant hill when we stopped to feed Leah, he's ok now). One of the few slow parts was as we were approaching the huge Sam Houston statue on I-45, people were rubber-necking. It was weird, not to mention frustrating with two small children not loving their car seats in the back!

We are just starting to get wind and rain from Ike this morning, Saturday. Not expecting anything close to what our friends and house went through in Houston.

I was able to get through to some of our friends. The worst part of the storm came over the area between 2 and 7 am. Everybody is reporting minimal damage and frustration at the loss of power and the cooler weather outside they can't go enjoy.

We don't the know the state of our house, but someone volunteered to try and drive by, just to give us an idea what Jason will drive back to. The plan is for me and the kids to avoid the power outage and hang out up here with family and Jason to go back and deal with the house. We don't know if we can get back in the city, or how long Jason will stay there without power. Hospitals and our church have generators and he could stay at either one I guess.

Keep checking the blog for updates. Know that we are safe and sound, emotionally exhausted, and still a little worried about our house. All the important things are together and safe though. Praise the Lord!

Eli didn't want to sit still, but he really is happy to be at the lake!

Cutes

Our two adorable children!

We're back home now, getting back into the daily grind. Hurricane Ike is spicing things up a bit. We have not been ordered to evacuate, but have been told to batten down the hatches. My house will have boarded up windows. That's weird. Is there a place in the United States where weather disasters don't pack seriously high winds and the ability to move the ocean onshore? I want to live there.

Two neat (if you ignore the scariness of them) facts about Hurricane Ike:

1) It is one of only five storms (3 of which were this year) that can fill the Gulf with its wind and cloud cover
2) Hurricanes are conglomerations of hundreds of tiny thunderstorms. Just like fish swim in schools and cows travel in herds, thunderstorms travel in Hurricanes.