I REALLY, REALLY DON'T LIKE IKE NOW

FINALLY, it's Thursday morning and I can sit down at the computer. Our power came on last night and as I was reading blogs and emails, the smoke alarms went off. It really interrupted my reading and I'll post about it tomorrow....the firetruck came and that's all I'm saying now.

As I posted Friday, we fled Houston and hung out with our friends in Dallas. These are the same friends I mentioned when posting about Melody. They have three daughters, two are away at college. Thank goodness for that or we would've been sleeping on the floor. We had fun despite knowing a city we've fallen in love with, Galveston, was being destroyed. It's only a little over an hour away and we go there quite a bit to eat, shop and enjoy the sounds of the ocean. It's not a pretty beach, but it's a beach and we usually take visiting friends there too. I don't know when they'll have it put back together. Many of the landmarks are gone (note to Allison, the ice cream shop is under water). Our friend's brother and family were there too. I graduated from high school with him so we had fun catching up. Their dad was there for a visit. I've known him forever too. We played wii (I beat D. at bowling), cooked out, went shopping and watched the Sooners win. Jordan had one of his friends go past our house after the storm and he told us everything looked fine....just a couple of shingles missing. OH MY GOSH, if only he could've gone into Jordan's room he would've seen what those couple of missing shingles actually created:





The ceiling fan is the only thing holding the rest of the ceiling up. We ripped up the carpet





And vacuumed up the water with the shop vac. It was buried in the garage behind all the furniture we'd just put in there (poor planning on our part) from the room.


We also ripped up about half of the carpet in Clint's room. As bad as this is, it could've been so much worse! This is in the cul-de-sac three houses down from us.



This is very typical of what our neighborhood looks like now. This is our neighbor's house behind us. Their tree got their house and the limbs punched holes in their neighbor's house.



Here's the mess on the front lawn now. I don't know when it will be picked up. Again, this is what many of the lawns look like so you can imagine the smell and the mess.





We also lost part of our fence. Jordan is supposed to go out and try to fix it today. Bailey loved running into the neighbor's yard to check it out. And the pool? Well, it's a lovely shade of green today and you can't even see the bottom.









Here's a pic of the "few shingles" missing and Jordan repairing it for us. Hubby is afraid of heights and stood at the top of ladder supervising Jordan fixing it for us.

Jordan will get a new bedroom out of the deal and lots of new clothes. I had just finished laundry Thursday morning before we "fled" and instead of putting his clothes away, I put them on his bed for him to pack from. Needless to say, most of those clothes are ruined from the insulation. The clothes in the bottom three drawers of his chest were dry, but the top drawer was wet. I'm washing them today to see if they are going to be okay.

We have much to be thankful for. Our neighbors told us that being home during the hurricane in the middle of the night was terrifying. They could hear trees falling and debris hitting their house. We were in the cellar during the May 3rd tornado and that only lasted a short time. I can't imagine what listening to it for hours would've been like. We were able to buy a generator before we left Dallas, so we had limited power. God blessed us with mild temperatures and I even got chilly sleeping in the chair by the window the first night home. It hasn't rained anymore so that too is a blessing. So many people lost their homes and we're looking at just one bedroom being damaged. Please pray we'll be able to find a reputable roofer soon. The insurance adjuster won't be here until next Thursday. Pray he'll bless us with his estimate to repair the roof. We're thinking of doing the walls ourselves (plenty of blogging material there).

Remember Jordan's laundry? Well, it ain't getting done with me typing so I'd better get busy. Pool chores await us too.

Thank you for praying for us during the whole ordeal.

I'll post about the firetruck tomorrow.