Hurricane Ike

Hurricane Ike made his way to Brazoria County last week and left behind quite the disaster. After much hemming and hawing, we decided to pack up the fam (cats, dogs and horses) late Thusday night and evacuate to San Antonio. Jared's work had set up a place for us to stay and a place for us to keep the horses. We are both extremely appreciative of Karen and her husband for letting us stay at her house (despite our screaming childand rambunctious dogs) and of Patrick for providing our horses with a wonderful 20 acre pasture for the weekend. We came home on Sunday and on our way back were surprised to see how far and wide the disastrous effects of the hurricane reached. Our house and yard had minimal damage-- most of the skirting was torn off and blown around the yard, some trees were knocked down, our a.c. unit was blown over and our yard was pretty flooded. We were lucky-- the front half of our street had a tornado go through it, and the trees in that area are completely twisted and torn up. It could've been a lot worse at our house, so we feel blessed. It was projected that we'd be out of power and water (our well is hooked up to our electric) for a few weeks. We took showers at and moved our valuable freezer items to a friends' house, and Jared's work again played the savior and brought us a generator, fuel, diapers, etc. The weather has been oddly fall-like and pleasant, making the lack of electricity much more bearable for all. Much to our surprise, the power came back on today and we are back in business. All that remains for us to do is pick up the branches and sticks along the ground and cut down a few of the broken trees. So we survived our first major hurricane. Now let's just hope we don't have to go through this every year.

The Preparations...
Jared was such a trooper this day because he had dropped plywood on his toe earlier in the day boarding up windows at work, and he pushed on through to put up the plywood at our house as well, despite a bunked up toe.

The Damage...

Our yard was a wee bit flooded.

Some of the knocked down trees in our backyard.

This poor little tree just couldn't stand up straight against those strong winds.

Some of the damage to our house. Easily fixed!

Leah and me (she's in the sling) cleaning up the yard. I'd say Heidi was helping, but she was just rolling around in the grass the whole time.