We made it through! (this is a long one!)

Well, for those who are interested...we made it through Hurricane Ike. It wasn't fun or pretty but for my first Hurricane I must say that I did pretty well. I went to my BodyPump class at the YMCA and all everyone was talking about was how huge this storm was and that it was coming straight for Houston. Mind you, the previous day they were saying that Houston would probably dodge this one. Well, that's what I get for not watching the news every morning because overnight they predicted that it was headed straight to Houston so we needed to get prepared. Well, we were prepared, we had water, food, gas in our cars....all the necessities. After hearing everyone talking about it got me really nervous so I decided to take a trip to wal-mart for extra diapers and formula and water. I got to wal-mart, went inside and almost ran out! It was so packed! There were probably 6 people waiting in every line! I got formula and diapers but as for everything else wal-mart was pretty much empty! I have never seen so many empty shelves at wal-mart, gas stations were INSANE!! I never thought a whole city could run out of gas until I moved here. Anyway...Friday night we went to bed. I was nervous having my children in separate bedrooms as me but I figured they would sleep better...the winds started to pick up around mid-night and didn't stop! I have never heard wind so strong before in my life and I really don't ever want to again! I got out of bed around 2:30 and the eye of the storm had already passed Galveston, which meant we were still in for a long ride. I basically did not sleep Friday night. (luckily my kids slept through the whole thing) The wind got so strong our house actually shook. We kept hearing trees breaking and falling and I was just praying that our house wouldn't be crushed by a huge pine tree. Well, my nerves got the better of me so Carly ended up in our closet and Sam in his bouncy chair next to our bed. The power went out around 3:00 a.m. We got out of bed the next morning and the wind was still howling and it was pouring rain! The winds didn't die down till afternoon. We saw that our neighbors across the street had two huge pine trees fall in the yard barely missing their house. We were one of the few homes that didn't have trees fall (which I am still amazed) Our subdivision looks like it was in a war. It looked like a movie to me. We couldn't leave our house because there were numerous trees blocking all the roads out. Today (Sunday) church was cancelled (you can't have church in the dark with no AC in Houston weather) it stormed all night last night which flooded a lot of the roads. It is now 4:30, the sky is clear, there is a light breeze and a cool front is actually coming through. Which is definitely nice for the millions of people without power still (yes, we are one of those millions) They say on the news that it could be 4 weeks or more before power is restored to certain areas! 4 WEEKS!! I would take a vacation but there is a gas shortage and the airport is closed...what can you do! I'll post some pictures as soon as we get back to normal, which hopefully is no 4 weeks away!