HURRICANE IKE

Bear with me--these are all out of order.

What did we do the night of the Hurricane? Play football. It was fun. Karen can throw really well.

Maggie and Maya on a felled tree.

Big tree fall down.

Girls on big tree with friends.

Savannah had an impromptu birthday party after the hurricane. This is a funny story.: We had no clue that just four houses down the street lived a girl that was Savannah's age (only two days younger) until the hurricane brought all of us out of our houses (no power = no AC). Well, since their birthdays were supposed to be that weekend, several of our nieghbors decided to throw a block birthday party for both girls. It was cool. They even searched the nearest open grocery stores for a cake.

Here's Maya whacking a pinata.

The two birthday girls, Emma and Savannah, opening presents.

Cute picture.

Birthday came complete with bounce house (run by generator!).

This story is funny, too: I once lost Savannah in the house while Karen was working. I put her to bed, then checked on the kids to give them kisses good night and Savannah was gone. I searched everywhere in the house. I triple searched everywhere, turned on all the lights, opened all closets, looked under every bed, and was calling to Savannah loudy. Still, no Savannah. The house was deadbolted, so it's not like she went outside, because she couldn't lock the deadbolt without a key. Then, there it was--the only explaination--she must have used a key to rebolt the locks as she snuck out! Okay, okay--not likely, but it's all I could think of left to do. So I called Karen and panicked her, then called my neighbor to come help search the neighborhood. As soon as he showed up he asked, "Have you looked everywhere?" Then without saying a word, I realized I didn't check one place--inside the dryer!

Well, she wasn't inside the dryer, but I did find her in the laundry room, under a blanket, behind all the dirty clothes. She never had done anything like that before and since then, but there she was, sleeping like a rock--even through all my yelling her name. I finally found her.

So, haw about the above picture? Actually, during the hurricane aftermath, Maggie did the same thing. We couldn't find her anywhere--inside the house. Since we had no power, we couldn't see in our closet--not to mention behind all those clothes (they were not opened like that when she crawled back there to fall asleep).

So now we're even. I've lost one kid and Karen's lost one.

If you look just above the truck, you can see these people had a horrible night. The tree fell right through their second story and into their garage.

This was cool to see the night of the hurricane. All the low clouds were hauling fast from north-to-south (right-to-left). Really cool weather before the storm. You could see the outer cloud bands come in.

Here's one of the outer bands of the hurricane.

Karen catching a football.