Hurricane IKE Pictures

In case any of you are still wondering......no we do not have power back. And the latest report from Centerpoint was that it will be back on by Sunday. This is the third date we have been given and they just keep getting pushed back further and further. Yesterday I had a meltdown. The generator got low on oil and went out the night before around midnight. So we slept in a house that was 83 degrees. Needless to say, it made for a long hot humid night. And since we had to open the windows, we also invited tons of mosquitoes in the house. Poor Olivia woke up the next morning covered in bites. With all the rain we have had, they are really bad and just lurk at your door waiting to come in as soon as you open it. Anyways, with all this spare time on my hands, I thought I would post some pictures to document our "adventure" with IKE. Since this blog serves to mainly capture our memories as a family, I want to include them. Olivia won't remember all this and Jacob might remember a little, but hopefully these pictures will capture an idea of what we've been through...the good and the bad!

the calm before the storm

Craig camped out watching the live reports as Ike makes landfall. Power was out already and we are using a battery operated TV/weather radio.This is the view from our front porch early the next morning..LOTS of wind and sideways rain.
Another view from our porch..
Some of the tall trees behind our house swaying in the wind and rain...scary!
Late morning on Saturday, still raining, trees are blown sideways in our yard.

The rain lightened up and we were able to get out and survey the damage in our neighborhood. It didn't take long before we came across this tree in the road. We soon realized just how lucky we were! Trees were uprooted everywhere and even through some roofs. Thank goodness we were spared! (These were taken on my phone so the quality isn't that great)

This poor family had trees go through their roof in two different places.

I was astonished to see this huge pine tree completely uprooted!
Other than our trees pushed over, we had some damage to the fence. Several boards gone and it is leaning in the back.

So, after realizing that power would not be on anytime soon and the house was getting hot very quickly, we headed to MeMe's house! Little did we know 12 days after the storm, we would still be without power! Here are Craig and Jacob heading to the lake to go fishing. Meanwhile, Olivia and I hung out on the pier to watch them.
After 5 days of hanging out in the hill country, we headed home in hopes that power would be on within a day or two. After all, that is what we were being told! But again, that wasn't the case so we headed out once more. But this time, we stayed a little closer to home and camped out with some family in Magnolia. We were about 30 minutes from home so we could easily check on the house and monitor how things were going. Jacob had a blast playing with his cousin Taylor. I think they spent just about every waking minute playing outside. Here is Olivia at the door, waiting for them to come back inside to play with her!

After another 5 days of being gone, we got some wonderful news! Some friends of ours had a generator and window unit that we could borrow! We could go home! We were so excited to get to be back home in comfortable surroundings and so grateful to our friends for helping us out!! We have now been home living on generator power for 3 days. Here is what life looks like now that we are back and coping with our situation.

The fridge all cleaned out...

We have blankets hung in the arches to keep the cool air in the living room. It is totally ghetto, but works! At this point, we will be ghetto as long as it keeps the house cool! And speaking of ghetto, check out my new method for drying clothes! Notice, the ones hanging from the light fixture? You're jealous, I know! And the trusty generator..oh how we could not live without you!
We have cords all across the house. Olivia sleeps in a pack-n-play in the master bath and Jacob sleeps on a pallet on the floor of our bedroom. We are making it work. Thankfully, the kids have handled the whole thing remarkably well, better than us adults! Jacob finally goes back to school tomorrow so hopefully we can start feeling like we are back in our old routine very soon! Not sure how much more of this I can take!!!!