Archive for September, 2008

Well, here we are one week after Mr. Take-A-Hike-Ike visited the surrounding Houston area.  We have been allowed back up to our neighborhood to start clean up.  We still have no power in the area, businesses are closed, street lights are out, grocery stores and gas stations are limited in supplies if open at all…it is a strange and surreal experience compared to our usual fast paced life.  We still only get local newscasts on the TV, broadcasting only storm recovery news.  It is amazing what we take for granted on a daily basis…water, lights, grocery stores with cold food, restaurants with hot food, sewers, all those little creature comforts that we don’t even think twice about.  Spending a week without them is a reminder that we probably all needed.

We have been SOOOOOOO lucky through this whole experience!  We had a safe place to weather the storm, we have had family to stay with while we were not allowed back into our home, and even now we are being fed and cared for while waiting for our power to come back on.   All of us are safe and sound, and our dear little house is also safe and whole.  We cannot say the same for most of our neighbors, even just one street over…

Here is the tree debris left in our yard.  You can see that some of our fences are down and needed repair.

This is our view from the front door, where our neighbors had a very close call when their giant tree fell.  Thank goodness it went the opposite direction from their house.

This is the view looking down our street after a couple days of clean up where we dragged everything to the curb… Our house is directly to right.

You can see that most of our stuff was tree debris.  Easy clean up.  Thank goodness it didn’t go through our roof, which was the case for many houses in the neighborhood.  Sadly, just one street over, the debris piles were much worst and it is clear that these houses suffered water damage.  There were some houses that had the whole bottom half just ripped apart, gone… I wanted to take some pictures to share, but when the stricken home owners were outside working to salvage what they could it just didn’t feel right to be snapping pictures of their misfortune.  However, you can see even the houses that were left structurally intact suffered greatly.

Our neighborhood pool had some debris too…two boats that got misplaced somehow.

And a little further down the main street, closer to the water…boats were really misplaced. 

Again, we are feeling so, so, so incredibly grateful that our family is safe and sound and our home is intact.  Our hearts go out to our friends and neighbors who are going to need great amounts of strength, time, and resources to get back on their feet.  After listening to the forecasts while the storm was coming into shore, we prepared ourselves to be on the other side of this with nothing left.  To see such damage right next to us makes you feel incredibly grateful and strangely guilty for coming away with such minimal loss.  It is humbling, and a reminder that there by the grace of God go us all.

When we lived in Ohio, the winters were llllllooooooonnnnngggg and gray and depressing. After the holidays were over, you might as well pull the blinds, stuff your face, and take a long nap because you weren’t going back outside for months (the short trek from your car to whatever indoor facility you are visiting does not count as being outside). In the south, the opposite is true. The oppressive heat of the summer takes your breath away and when it is 95 degrees by 11 am, even walks to the park become about as much fun as doing jumping jacks in a sauna. You find yourself spending most of the deep summer indoors, where the hundred percent humidity doesn’t swamp you in sweat the second you walk out the door. So, today when I opened the door to get the morning paper and felt just a tiny hint of fresh, cool air…I really did sing a chorus of Hallelujah. We took full advantage of this little gift. Ate lunch at the park, washed the car in the driveway…come on fall!

Well, I have been a little absent on the posting lately.  And here’s the main reason why (never mind the three year old and almost-one-year old who run me ragged most days).  We are adding to our family in the spring.  This was a HUGE SUPRISE.  We were packing our bags for Belgium (long story…save that one for another post), giving away all our baby and maternity things, excited that our littlest one was mobile…when suddenly it dawned on me that the “virus” I had been fighting for over a month felt awfully like my previous two pregnancies.   Now, I’m sure you are thinking, please woman…you’d been pregnant twice and you weren’t thinking of the long legged stork when you were overtaken by absolute exhaustion, nausea at the mere smell of anything cooking, and random crying at the poignant commercials on television.  No, I really didn’t think of it at all.  We had taken some permanent steps on the birth control front…so, it was the last thing on my mind.  However, after a month of worsening symptoms, my tiny little brain registered a sign of familiarity and when the pregnancy test lit up like a Christmas tree I felt a little like a moron that I hadn’t recognized it earlier.  However, here we are.  We are no longer going to Beligum…couldn’t quite imagine going back to work full time with three children under the age of four in a foreign country, which pains me because I have ALWAYS wanted to live in Europe (Brett, get your blog started so I can follow along on your adventures).  Our new plan is to plant our fall garden, finish some home improvement projects, continue in our current jobs, and have baby number THREE in March.  I am 12 weeks now, feeling a little bit more human these past couple days, and getting my head wrapped around our game plan.  I have big expectations for this little one, because CLEARLY they are on direct orders from the universe to shake things up. President? Rock star? Author? Nobel prize winner? I guess I will settle for healthy, well-adjusted, happy, productive, and independent member of society.  A family of five! Holy cow, batman.