Hurricane Ike

So, lots of friends and family have been curious about pictures from Hurricane Ike. I know this is old news, but they were something we were going to post but never got around to. The eye of the storm passed right over us, and spun off several tornadoes in our county, so we were without any electricity for 10 days, and local damage was impressive. There was lots of cleanup and many trees through many roofs.

We felt so blessed that we were safe and had everything in order to happily endure. And, the cleanup provided many wonderful opportunities to serve and lift others.

The boys behaved beautifully- tho our kitchen table will never recover from all the craft projects from that week and a half. There's only so much you can do to keep little ones entertained when you can't go anywhere or even put in a movie...

They were such good boys and did a great job helping with the cleanup of the back yard. They earned a penny for every broken tree branch they picked up- Harrison had over 200, and Asher almost as many.

The night of the storm was sort of surreal- to listen to the wind build and the rain pelt harder and harder; then to lose power and with it the hum of the air conditioning and appliances- made the sounds of the storm even more intense. The humidity and heat built so quickly in the house- tho it was 12:30am when we lost power. The boys woke up from the noise and the swampy heat, and we all huddled in a closet trying to go back to sleep. Then, amidst the pounding rain, relentless wind, and thousands of tree branch snaps, there was a big boom, and the ground shook. We wouldn't find out until the next morning that a huge pine tree- over 100 feet tall- had come down right next to the house.