Hurricane Ike

In a nut shell, Hurricane Ike left us, and everyone we know, amazed at the damage a hurricane can do so far inland. Our house is about 100 miles from the coast but the damage and destruction was far reaching. The number of trees that were down was unbelievable. I'm sure where we are located had something to do with that, since we are completely surrounded by trees, but it was amazing none the less. But despite all of that we were very fortunate. Nobody was hurt and we still have our house.

Since the possibility of being without power for 2-4 weeks didn't interest me; after the storm, I took the girls and headed to our friends house in Plano (near Dallas). Scott and Amy, we can't thank you enough for your hospitality and friendship.

Yes, this is our living room. We decided to all "sleep" downstairs due to Hurricane Ike. Madison and Marlee were in pack-n-plays and we pulled the mattress off our guest bed for Anthony and I. It was a good plan, however not much sleeping was going on. Sticks and pine cones hitting the windows at 60-80 mph does not sound like sticks and pine cones . . .

After the wind died down enough to go outside, we were all surprised to see this tree on our house. As bad as it may look, we were fortunate. We saw several houses with trees through them.

The Clean-Up Crew. After the storm had blown through the next task was to clean up. Madison stayed interested for a few minutes, and I'm sure you can imagine it took much longer than that to finish.