Oh, Ike...

Although our experience with Ike was nothing compared to other people in Houston, it was still more than we expected. We are so far away from the coast, that we didn't think it would be much of anything. We were wrong. Here's a video of the night before anything happened, and you can see how strong the winds already were. This was about seven hours before Ike even made landfall.

We got Adilyn all set up in her "hurricane bed" - the pack and play in our master bath closet. We boarded up our back windows (just in case of falling debris), and we were all set to go.

The winds really picked up throughout the night. Finally around 3am, Cory and I both got up to look outside. It was crazy! Our pine trees were bending back so far, they looked ready to snap. The smaller trees were almost touching the ground. Branches were flying everywhere. It was a scary sight. We dozed off and on all night, but it was definitely not a good night's sleep. Adilyn woke up around 6am, and that's when we all kind of got up for the day. It was still really windy, and the eye hadn't come through yet as far as we knew. We surveyed the damage - there were fences down all over, many trees down, but no major damage, thank goodness. Our neighbors' backyard and the bayou behind our house - usually it's only about two feet wide and down about fiften feet lower.

Adilyn's "hurricane hair"...she was dirty for two days straight!

Our power had gone out around 10pm that night, and it was still out. We were listening to the radio and it was saying that it might be up to 3 weeks before people got their power turned on. It wasn't too bad in the morning because it was still really windy. As the winds died down and the humidity rose, it got pretty miserable. It was sticky and gross! Adilyn would not go to sleep, so her and I "evacuated" to my friend's house who had power.

We came home the next day. A Texas "cold" front had come in, so it was actually a beautiful day to sit outside and get to know all your neighbors, who you haven't spoken to in the 8 years you've all lived there. Inside, unfortunately was still sticky. Lo and behold, around 4pm we saw our first "light at the end of the tunnel" in the form of a Centerpoint Energy truck. Some transformers had blown earlier, so we thought for sure we were screwed! Anyway, after a truck coming and going, then another truck coming and going, we finally got power! It had almost been out for 48 hours, and boy, were we glad it came on when it did! =)

So, now as we survey our own personal damage - it's pretty minimal...an empty fridge, a couple boards off our chimney, a couple sleepless nights, a couple days off school (when I didn't want them), and some scary moments. All in all, we pulled through very nicely. We are extremely lucky and blessed once again.

Dirty and tired, but safe and sound...she's eating chips. :)