Hurricane Ike from the beginning

Zach helping us keep it real as we prepared the house for Hurricane Ike. Zach LOVES anything that is Madison's. The night before the hurricane he found these sunglasses and kept trying to put them on. Finally I put them on his and he just looked at me and smiled. We all laughed--what a nut!

Everything tied down-ready for the Hurricane to head our way. Did I mention THANK YOU SHELL--like I would have known how to tie down a shed?!?!
Madison-trying to stay up as late as she can so she doesn't have to sleep alone. We ended up letting her sleep on our floor since her windows were going to be facing the direction of the wind.
The closet was ready-Zach's pack n play, a pillow for each of us

blankets

flashlight, headlamps, battery operated fan & a cell phone--we were ready

Our tree


The shed survived in one piece--plus you can see the tree that fell over our fence from our next door neighbors yard

Looking out the gameroom window--the tree is leaning up against the window

After we knew that the bad stuff had left Bobby & I decided to head outside to check on the damage to the rest of the neighborhood. I went and grabed the umbrella since it was still raining and Bobby grabed is old rain suit from when he worked in the gulf. Needless to say-he stayed dry and I was wet. Although I think I looked cuter.
The next few pictures were taken around our neighborhood. There were several down trees--HUGE trees! Several of them are on houses-but a lot of them went the other way and were on fences and streets.

Zach helping with the clean-up
This is a HUGE tree that used to sit outside the front bedroom window at my grandma's house. Thankfully it fell away from the house. I don't think it did any foundation damage either.
We've gone over to Tara & Matt's house the last 2 nights for dinner--THANK YOU TARA & MATT for a hot meal, AC & letting me use your washer & dryer!! This is Cade playing with his tool bench--Safety first!
check out the background of this picture and all the other trees that could have fallen--all of these trees are as tall if not taller than our house

Bobby cutting down the tree in our yard
This picture shows the small windows that I was looking out during the hurricane-although these are the gameroom windows-these exact windows are in our bedroom.
Our displaced shingle

This is the "damage" that the tree did to our fence

This picture cracks me up! Zach was yelling for Bobby the whole time he & Matt were messing with the tree. I'm not sure if he was trying to tell them what to do or if he was begging to come outside and help

Matt (our next door neighbor) and Bobby (he's on the other side of the fence) trying to figure out what limb to cut to get the branch to fall without doing more damage to the fence. Thankfully they figured it out. The fence is still standing and there might be one board, if that, that needs to be replaced.

When you don't have power-it's amazing what the kids will do. Zach was checking out Madison's coloring book

This is my parents generator-Bobby was helping my dad get the wheels put on. Zach was checking it all out giving Bobby his approval.

This is what the line looked like at the Kroger gas station by my parents AFTER I had been waiting for about 30-45 minutes

***tonight I got home from Tara's to discover that WE HAVE POWER!!!! We weren't scheduled to get power until 9/29th!! But tonight I came home and my neighbors were out walking their dog--They walked up and said-did you see we got power. I thought they were referring to the fact that Rayford & 45 finally has power so you don't have to sit through the light for an hour. And she said no--look at your front porch. I was so shocked to see that our houses actually have power!! Thank you for all of those that offered your help. Now--for those of you who don't have power-I have an extra bedroom with its own bathroom anyone is welcome to stay. Just give me a call. The AC, lights, frig & washer & dryer, TV & internet.