Take a hike IKE! Part I

We made it! We survived IKE. What a whirlwind it's been. I never even imagined how inconvenient life would be without electricity, phone and fuel. So much to tell!

First of all, I'd like to express my sincere gratitude to our brave and wise prophets who continue to hound us about emergency preparedness and food storage. We were the lucky ones around town to have only suffered a short 24 hr period of no power, but we were ready with food, water and gas. I am also so full of love and gratitude for our ward family. So many have pulled together to labor and serve. I was unable to get a hold of much of my family at times and it was nice to have the ward members to keep me going. And last but not least, I'm thankful that we have our Heavenly Father available via prayer. He was here to comfort us during our time of worry, fear and anxiety. We are very grateful that we are safe and sound and especially grateful that we always have that power of His love.

Where do I begin???

Friday afternoon we were completing the finishing touches of boarding the house and pulling things in from the yard. The winds started to pick up but no rain so we were loving the weather and spent most of the evening hangin' outside, visiting with neighbors, waiting anxiously. The kids were taking advantage of their Healies in the wind gusts and we were just marveling at the idea that a hurricane was just hours away.
When it was getting dark we came on inside, flashlights ready.
Hurricane Ike hit us sometime in the wee hours between Friday the 12th and Saturday the 13th of September. I doped a couple of my kids with Benadryl (thanks Tammy for the idea) in hopes that it would help them sleep a little. (Hey, they did have a cough!) It worked! 2 out of 3 of our kids slept through the whole darn thing. Thank goodness because it was eery. Because Pearland was not under manditory evacuation, I eventually had full faith in Mike and his decision to stay. He held his ground all the while family and friends urged us to leave. In fact, Pearland asked us to stay off the highways and in the house. I'm grateful that he made that decision. We watched tv until about 11:45pm when we finally lost power. At that point we decided to try to sleep. I woke up at about 2am when Graham plopped himself down on the bed to tell me that Dad was upstair fixing the leak. WHAT? I found Mike pulling a tarp up the attic stairs to direct the trickling water into a bucket. We could only assume that we had already lost some roof shingles. The whole house was moaning and groaning. The winds were howling. We were afraid to open the door to our garage as the pressure was so heavy. Water started to seep through the front door and a couple of windows had water coming in. The poor little tree in our front yard got it's share of wind. It was incredible to watch. I almost wish it had been daylight as it was difficult to see in the dark of the night. For hours we sat in the living room, listening to the crank radio and going in and out of sleep. Finally at daybreak, the winds and rain settled. The kids stirred awake. It was a quiet morning. Of course with no power it was a breakfast of champions... Poptarts. The kids were working their usual am activities. What they do best.
Our Maddie reading. Always.
Our Zack sleeping off the drugs.
Our Graham. Texting his people.

The rest of the morning was very quiet as we continued to listen to the destruction of all the surrounding areas. Finally we were able to come out of our caves and again we found ourselves marveling.

Pearland was hit hard. I will share more in another post. But our hearts and prayers go out to those of Galveston Island, Crystal Beach and Bolivar Peninsula.

We are grateful for our many blessings!