We survived Hurricane Ike!

Thursday morning (9/11) around 8:00 a.m., we made the decision that we would leave town around 3:00 p.m. and go stay with my parents who live close to College Station to escape the storm. Then, around noon that same day, we decided to stay put and stay off the highways and not relive what we went through when we tried to evacuate for Hurricane Rita. We just couldn't imagine getting stuck in traffic for 4+ hours to only get us 30 miles up the road. Plus, all the public officials were urging everyone to stay off the streets and to allow all the people who were under mandatory evacuation to have the ability to do so. So, we spent most of the day Thursday getting ready for Ike. I went to the store to stock up on some non-perishables where I proceeded to wait almost 2 hours in a grocery line. And once Brad got home from work, we started clearing out our entire frontyard and backyard of things that could become missiles in 75+mph winds. Friday was spent mostly trying to make our own 'ice' by emptying out our ice maker every 2 hours (since there was no ice to be found anywhere), coming up with our 'gameplan' as to where we would sleep that night, gathering up all of our candles, packing bags in case we needed to leave at a moments notice, and gathering up a couple of important documents, electronics, and photo albums that we would want to take with us if we had to leave suddenly. We also spent some time outside that evening with a couple of our neighbors and their families just playing and enjoying the nice breeze that Ike was slowly bringing ashore. It was also a great opportunity to burn some energy knowing we would all be locked up in the house for at least the next 24 hours. Once the winds started to blow hard Friday night, Brad and I looked at each other nervously and wondered if we made the right decision to stay put and weather the storm. We decided to 'hunker' down in our master bedroom. We put the girls to sleep in their pop up tent on the floor of our bedroom and we put Peyton in her pack n play. Brad looked at me as if I was crazy when I told him that I was going to be sleeping on the floor with the girls when there was a perfectly comfortable bed just feet away from where I decided to sleep. I told him that I had to be as close as possible to the girls because if something happened to them, I wanted the same to happen to me. If they were going to go, I was going with them!! I forgot how uncomfortable sleeping on the floor can be. We slept okay from 11:00 a.m. until 2:00a.m. when the winds started picking up. And, of course, the girls slept great throughout the storm. They woke up a couple of times because we were up talking, but they did so great and were never scared. We lost power around 3:00 a.m. and were amazed at how long it lasted. It seemed like every 5 minutes, a small piece of debris would hit our roof and would make us question whether or not we should move our entire crew into our interior bathroom. Both Brad and I were scared out of our minds at times and spent alot of time praying that God would protect our family. The winds outside finally started to slow down around 7:00 a.m. Brad made his way outside around 10:00 a.m. to survey the damage. By our amazement, we had no damage just a bunch of small limbs and leaves all over our yard. And, amazingly, the pine trees that we worried about and prayed God would protect us from were still standing in our neighbor's yard. Luckily, most of our neighbors had no damage either. So Saturday, we spent the day walking and driving around the neighborhood to survey the damage, playing in the rain, talking to neighbors and putting all of our refrigerated food on ice. Our neighborhood weathered the storm pretty well. There were several trees down and a couple of houses had trees fall on them, but we were very lucky compared to other areas. Then, on Sunday, once the sun started to come out again and the heat and humidity returned, we made the decision to leave town and visit Brad's mom in Dallas where she had air conditioning. We left around noon on Sunday and got to Dallas around 4:00 and heard that our power was restored around 6:00 that evening. We had a great visit with Brad's mom and we even got to visit some family in Dallas, which was alot of fun. It was a short trip, but we are now back in town trying to put everything back together. We went grocery shopping in Dallas to avoid the long food lines here and we managed to get home and still have 3/4 of a tank of gas after filling up at the last gas station on I-45 that did not have long gas lines. The girls do not have school for the rest of the week and Brad will not go back to work until next week possibly, so we will spend tomorrow and the rest of week just hanging out and enjoying spending time together and thanking God for protecting us through this storm.