Before and After aka "I've Reached New Levels of Boring"

Before I bore you with baby pictures next week (next week!!), I thought I would do a few "before and after" pictures of our house since Hurricane Ike and the Giant Tree smashed into it 6 months ago.

Here is our master bathroom September 14, 2008:

Here is our master bathroom now:

The cabinets, countertops, carpet, and of course, shower have been replaced. Hot Brandon finished the shower last night, and it is awesome. It's 9 feet long, and 4 feet wide with an open walk-in doorway to the left of the above picture. (And that towel hanging there is more of a mossy green, not the weird lime color it appears here.) We're going to put some hooks in that back wall to hang towels on.

Here is the inside of the shower, taken from the back corner near the doorway. The floor is the small-tile slate. I'm so proud of my handy hubby and how hard he worked to finish this giant project. It took a lot more time than I think either of us anticipated. He has been working on it every spare minute for the last 3 weeks.

By the way, I feel like the lamest person on the planet for posting random pictures of the interior of our house. So boring. But it's so nice to be back in our house. And some of these pictures are weird angles so that I wouldn't have to clean too much before I took the pictures. :)

In addition to a major bathroom remodel, our kitchen also got a pretty good facelift. New cabinets, countertops, sink, and table. This is a random shot of our kitchen countertops after the storm. You can kind of see the cabinets there in the corner:

Here's our new cabinets (LOVE them) and countertops now. The wall color is the same as it was before, as is most of the paint color in our house. I didn't want to have to make a lot of paint decisions, and I was pretty happy with a lot of the colors that were on the wall before.

No "before" pictures exist of the nasty living room carpet we used to have. Let me paint you a mental image: Picture a tire-and-lube garage. Now, imagine that they had white carpet inside of the work area that had been there for several years, and several hundred cars had their oil changed over this carpet. Then someone decided to rip this carpet out of the garage and put it in someone's house. This is what was in our living room and downstairs office area.

Now, we have this pretty fake-wood floor, and I absolutely love it. The boys have learned not to run in their socks, and have bitten the dust more than a few times. Again, sorry about the weird angle of this picture. Please note Aidan's new toothbrush there on the red rug.

I don't have a "before" picture of the baby's room, either. Picture walls that were supposed to be tan, but were in reality more of an olive-green color (I should never be allowed to select paint color). Picture a college intern living in the room for the summer, and lots of computer equipment, music stuff, and a guitar.

I don't have a picture of the entire room, I've still got some organizing to do. My mother-in-law made the crib bedding (bumper coming soon), and I absolutely love it. The walls are post-it yellow, and there's a lot of green accents in the room, like this super-fuzzy rug on the floor by the crib. The crib sheet is brown with tiny little polka-dots, and the curtain is the same as the dust ruffle.

Here's the diaper hanger, which shows the prints a bit better:

Most of our other rooms that were repaired look pretty much the same as before. And some other things have not changed in our house at all.

Like this:

Quite possibly my favorite picture of my house.

Valentine's Day 2009

Best.  Valentine's.  Day.  Ever.

So good, that I'm just now getting around to blogging about it, several days later.

I spent Saturday with my Sweetie, and a bunch of other Sweeties as well.  Thank you, dozen or so ladies from church, for loaning us the Man Muscles from your house for a few short hours on Valentine's Day.  This grateful pregnant lady didn't have to lift a SINGLE BOX.  

Yes, Saturday was moving day.  We are officially BACK IN our house!  Saturday morning too many people for me to count showed up at 8:30 am to help us out.  They moved everything from storage, into our house, and even assembled furniture, and were done for the most part by about 11:30.  It could not have gone more smoothly.  Several of our good friends and family stayed at the house all day long, helping with unpacking, installing fixtures, and basically keeping Brandon and me motivated to KEEP UNPACKING.  We got the vast majority of the house unpacked on Saturday, and we could not be more thankful for our friends and family who helped.  (Have I mentioned before how much I love my church?  If you don't have a church, you should totally come to mine.)

The boys were ecstatic to be back in their "really real house" and play with all of the toys they haven't seen in 5 months.  I've also been motivated in the last few days to go through a bunch of our belongings and really weed out things we don't actually need and use on a fairly regular basis.  Like a bunch of clothes in my closet and the boys' toys.  For example, I realized I have an entire dresser full of scrubs that I don't wear (mainly because my department recently went to "all black" uniforms).  

Several boxes remain unpacked throughout our house, and the garage is still a basic nightmare to even look at, but slowly but surely life is returning to normal here.  Just in time for a "new normal" to start in about a month with Baby Girl's arrival...

Brandon started tiling the shower in our bathroom last night, and hopefully the project will be finished next weekend.  We have a bunch of family coming to town tomorrow and Sunday for my baby shower.  I have the baby's room as unpacked as I can get it at the moment.  The walls are primed but not yet painted, and my mother in law is making her crib bedding!  I am so excited to see it.  Of all things, Brandon and I could not agree on any girl crib bedding that we saw ANYWHERE.  I never would have guessed it of him, but Brandon was pretty insistent that her room look "pink and girly".  Who did I marry?  

I also realized today that Baby Girl does not own any socks, and for some reason this really disturbed me and served to highlight all of the ways we are "unprepared" for this baby.  We also have gotten rid of most of our baby gear, including the high chair, swing, bouncy seat, and bathtub.  And I'm not sure if the car seat survived the hurricane or not, as it resides in a box somewhere buried in our garage.  I am going to have to make a big trip to Babies R Us soon, but I'm putting it off as long as possible, as this will only create more boxes for me to unpack and stuff to put away.  

And do baby girls have to wear hair bows so that people know she is a girl?  I have no idea.  I only know boys.  Can she wear boy socks?  Is there a difference between boy socks and girl socks?

Speaking of the difference between "boy socks and girl socks", our children just learned the difference between boys and girls, like, last week.  Apparently, Aidan, who is three and a half, has thought that boys and girls all have "tenders" like he does.  So we felt the need before his baby sister arrived sans tenders to explain that she's not supposed to have them.  Hmmm.  We've taught our kids about Jesus, and the alphabet, and how to add and spell their names.  We just never got around to "girls don't have tenders like boys do".  Not sure how that one got missed.  But we've cleared it up now, and hopefully we will avoid a very panicked Aidan the first time he witnesses his sister's diaper being changed.

So this post started off as "Valentine's Day" and ended up as something of a brain dump.  Sorry about that.  Have a great weekend! 

Things I Will Miss

Let me apologize up front if all I seem to be blogging about are home repairs and getting back into our house. Now that we can see "the end" of all of this, it is very difficult to escape the tunnel vision I seem to have right now. I can't seem to focus on anything other than the 800 things that I think need to get done in the next week that will help get our life back to normal.

Because for the last several months, "normal" has looked very different. We have been living with my aunt, uncle, and cousin since September. When we first moved in, I honestly thought we would be back in our house by Christmas. At that time, if I thought it would be almost 2 months longer than that, we would have explored other options for their sake. Asking someone (even family) to put you and your family of four up for an indefinite amount of time just seems inconsiderate. Yet in our desperate and homeless state immediately after the hurricane, we did it anyway. To put it mildly, they have been the most gracious hosts you could imagine.  These last several months have been infinitely easier than they had the potential to be because of our wonderful family.

In no particular order, here are some of the things we will miss most about these last 5 months:

1. The drawer of McDonald's toys. My aunt Carol has an entire drawer in the kitchen dedicated to little McDonald's Happy Meal toys and other little trinkets. I think it took Dane and Aidan about 3.7 seconds to discover the drawer, and it has served as a wonderful "find something to do while I finish making your dinner" diversion.

2. Chocolate milk and Cinnamon Toast Crunch. And Little Debbie snacks. And other goodies that I love but don't buy when I go shopping. The boys are going to have a rude awakening when they do back to drinking straight white milk without the splash of chocolate they have become used to. Yummy!

3. My cousin Jonathan ("Jonpin" to Aidan) and the look on his face when he watched Dane and Aidan run around the living room jumping and falling on the ottoman one night. It was a great look.

4. NCIS. My uncle Tom is an enabler to my addiction to this show. It's on 3+ times a day in syndication here, and the first episode starts during the kids' nap time. I'm sure there are more productive things I could be doing during nap time, but Gibbs and the team manage to lure me in more often than not.

5. No one decorates a house for Christmas like my aunt Carol. No one. It was so pretty and festive, I missed "being home" a lot less than I thought I would this past Christmas. Because my house is never that pretty or festive for Christmas. I'm lucky to get the tree up and decorated. The boys are at this perfect age where they were enthralled by All Things Christmas, and managed to break only a couple of things. Also, I wrapped all of my gifts and most of the gifts for my aunt, which I love doing, and I got to set up a "gift wrapping room", complete with a table for wrapping and a Christmassy movie playing. I wish I had a permanent gift wrapping room.

6. The boys playing the "newspaper game" with my uncle Tom. This is an ingenious game where the boys run around the room and my uncle, from the safety of his chair, hits them with newspaper rolled into a ball. Dane and Aidan LOVE this game, and could play if for hours. There's lots of squealing and attempts at evasive maneuvers, and shouts of "betcha can't hit me again".

7. Carol the cleaning lady (not Carol the Aunt). She came every other week. I will miss her.

8. The walking trails. In my aunt and uncle's neighborhood, miles of walking trails circle around in the "woods" for joggers, dog walkers, and little adventure seekers. It's a safe place for them to walk, run, ride scooters, and collect sticks and rocks. Dane and Aidan will miss their walking adventures.

9. My wise aunt. My aunt Carol is very very smart and the best part of our displacement has been getting the opportunity to actually get to know my family a lot better. We have lived 20 minutes away for 8 years now, and before this we saw each other perhaps a couple of evenings a year. My uncle Tom is very smart, too, he's just usually working during the day when I am at the house and craving adult conversation.

10.  The image of Aidan in my Uncle Tom's Chair.  My uncle has a Chair.  Many mornings I would wake up and find Aidan rocking back and forth in the Chair with his blankie after Tom has gone to work early.  Because he wouldn't dare occupy the Chair in Tom's presence.  But out of a dozen options of where he could choose to sit, Aidan loves to sit here.

We are moving back into our house this weekend, and it will be a transition.  One of many transitions that have taken place for our family over the last several months, between pregnancy and hurricanes.  As over-the-moon excited we are about moving back into our home, in many ways we will miss living here.

(And if anyone wants to help us move, please holla.  Because though I will be a useful unpacker, a little thing called Braxton Hicks means I won't be hauling boxes and arranging furniture this weekend.)  

Thanksgiving in February

Back in November, our senior pastor at church, David, asked the congregation to submit "Thanksgiving stories". This is what I submitted, and what was read in church the Sunday before Thanksgiving (that's why it addresses our church family). I have gone back and read this several times over the last few months, to remind myself of just how fortunate we really are. It is very easy to throw myself a giant pity party, when the reality is that our family is very blessed indeed:

This year our family has much, much to be thankful for. It has been an eventful year, to say the least. A year in which we are thankful for the way God has provided for us. Last July and August, I remember money being tight for our family. I work as a registered nurse, and the nature of my position is one where I "fill in" when the emergency room is short staffed. I remember not working as many shifts as I thought I needed to work to help pay the bills. I remember praying to God that He would continue to provide for our family as He always had in the past, expecting that surely the shifts would come. Early in the morning of September 13, as Hurricane Ike was ripping through the Houston area, a 60 foot tall water oak tree was ripping straight through the roof of my house. Ike's subsequent rainfall fell directly into our house, leaving significant water damage to about 75% of our home. Our van was also totaled as it sat in our driveway, in direct path of a large branch from this tree. At last estimate, our house sustained $130,000 worth of damage. Miraculously, our family was completely unharmed, as we slept, along with my sister-in-law and her family, on the opposite side of the house. We are thankful that we were home, as we were able to move many of our belongings to safety and prevent further losses.

God has been unfailing in the way He has taken care of our family through this. This year, we are so thankful for our church family at Northside. You have come to our home in the middle of a raging hurricane to help. You have housed us. You have fed us meals. You have clothed us. You have watched our children for us while we met with contractors and insurance adjusters. You have loaned us a vehicle to use until we were able to replace our ruined van. And you have prayed for us. For our home, for our sanity, and for the health of our long-awaited unborn child (a whole 'nother Thanksgiving story of itself). And God has been faithful. With a few "pregnant-hormonal-woman meltdowns" aside, our family has felt the overwhelming "peace that passes understanding" that only comes from God. We know that our family is safe and taken care of, and that our house will someday be ready for us to live in again.

We are also eternally thankful for my aunt and uncle's endless hospitality and patience. It is my prayer that someday I can say to a family, "Welcome to our home. Stay forever if you need to. If you need food, just put it on the grocery list, we'll take care of it. And the cleaning lady will be here Friday."

As of now, our house remains unlivable while repairs slowly continue. But we have learned patience. And we know that God will always provide for us. And those extra shifts at work? They never did come. But these days we don't have much of an electric bill to pay. Or a gas bill, or grocery bills for that matter. And who am I to tell God how to answer my prayers? I would have never in a million years thought that God would work through a hurricane and an oak tree to take care of our family.

By the way, this time next week we should be back into our "really real house" as Dane calls it. Yay!!

Open Letter to my Contractor Who Shall Remain Nameless

(if this makes no sense to you, please read the postings in the "Ike" category on my sidebar.)

Dear Sir:

Thank you for picking up your telephone on the Sunday morning following Hurricane Ike this past year. That is the only reason I hired you to fix my house after the damage it incurred. I was a hormonal, homeless, desperate woman with very limited cell phone service at the time, and I was very grateful to make contact with someone who knew how to build things.

But most days I wake up and wish you had not picked up that phone. You know, that day almost five months ago. Yes, five months ago, when you took on the job. The job that still isn't finished. Most days I wake up and wish I had not been so frantic and impulsive and had the clarity of mind to wait a few more days post-hurricane for businesses and other contractors to open up shop again, so that I could have hired a competent person instead. I'm not trying to be ugly, I just do not enjoy being lied to. Over and over again. You seem like a very nice person, and your family seems lovely. We would probably all get along just fine and dandy as long as we never have to do business together again.

A couple of other things I would like to mention:

--I wish you would have read the paperwork I gave you outlining exactly what insurance was going to cover, instead of just sticking it in my file. Then perhaps we would not have wasted 2 months because you didn't realize they didn't want to replace the roof (the roof has been replaced).

--Please explain to me why it is surprising to you that more than one coat of paint is required when you are painting walls. Especially when you are painting dark colors. The insurance paperwork outlined that they were paying for two coats of paint to be applied, so please act surprised. Please do not tell me "The job won't be done when we said it would be done because NOW WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO PUT ANOTHER COAT OF PAINT ON". Um, have you ever painted before? Of course red walls and green walls and blue walls are going to need two coats of paint. And while we're on the subject of painting, is it possible to have more than just the one guy painting the entire interior of the house? The job may get done a bit quicker if he had couple more sets of hands.

--Please tell your workers to please not throw away things like shower recesses and light fixtures when we buy them and leave them at the house for your workers to install.

--Thank you for fixing our crown molding. It looks much better now.

--When you tell us to pick from a small selection of carpet that is both in our price range and "in-stock", please make sure said carpet is actually in-stock. And please make sure that the second carpet that we pick out because you tell us is "in-stock" is actually in-stock. Because now we are having our third choice installed because the first two carpets will not be "in-stock" until the end of the month.

--See those apartments going up on the street outside of my neighborhood? Know why they are being built so fast? BECAUSE MORE THAN TWO PEOPLE ARE WORKING AT A TIME. Should it bother me that an entire apartment complex is being built from the ground up faster than my house is being made livable?

Thank you for letting me vent, Mr. Contractor-Who-Shall-Remain-Nameless. Please keep in mind that though I am extremely frustrated with you, I pray for you on an inconsistent basis. I pray that your weeks are slow and relaxing, so that there is ample time for you to finish this stinkin' job already.

Sincerely,

Homeless and Pregnant

Ramblings

It's been a bit since I last posted, and since I have nothing insightful to say, I thought a basic list of ramblings would be appropriate.

--Aidan was sick over the weekend, and I had to keep him home from church Sunday.  That child cried and fussed for almost 2 hours Sunday because he wanted to go to church and "see all his friends".  He will be the one I am tempted to ground from youth group when he is a teenager.  (As the wife of a high school youth minister, DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED on this practice.)

--Dane has been really sweet lately to his baby sister.  He will hug me, then hug my tummy, and talk to the baby.  He felt the baby kick the other day and the child was beside himself with excitement.  He asked me if God had made her feet yet.  Yesterday he put his ear to my tummy and said, "I heard my baby sister say Dane!  Dane!"

--Speaking of the big brothers, Aidan is convinced that he, too, has a baby in his tummy.  When he wasn't feeling well this past weekend, he was convinced it was because the baby in his tummy was angry.  He also prays for his mythical baby when he prays at night.

--I got Mac back from the Mac screen people and he is as good as new!  Yay!  I am typing this from a chair in the living room, not connected to a giant monitor screen.

--My house has walls inside now.  Not painted walls, but walls nonetheless.  Have I mentioned Brandon's shower remodel?  Allow me to explain.  Our master bathroom was built with a ridiculously small shower, next to a nice big bathtub, all along the back wall of our bathroom.  When the giant tree from our backyard decided to become an indoor house plant last September, we decided to not replace the bathtub and to make the shower much bigger.  The plan is for the shower to run the entire 8 feet or so of the back wall, be about 4 feet wide, with a 6 foot high "wall" in front of it, with an open doorway type thing on the opposite end from the shower head.  Are you picturing it?  It should be really nice if it comes together.  And Brandon will tile it himself after we move in.  All of this has proved to be a bit tricky to communicate to the various people working on various parts of our bathroom over the last couple of weeks.  For example, last week, Brandon went up to the house and a closet had basically been built where our shower was supposed to be.  Completely walled off, with a doorway.  And no light.  Interesting concept, no?  But it's coming together now.  Watch for "before and after" pictures of our new shower coming Summer 2009.

  

--Have you heard?  Apparently there is an inauguration scheduled.  I have a feeling I will hear the phrase "History in the Making" once or twice from the news media today.

--I guess I haven't mentioned it lately, but I am feeling fine, and the pregnancy is trucking along relatively incident-free.  Brandon even has mentioned that I am slightly less whiney (whiny?  I whine less) than I have been with previous pregnancies.  I passed my glucose test with flying colors, my blood pressure is perfect, and yesterday at my doctor's appointment she mentioned to me that I have lost 3 pounds in the last 2 weeks.  How ON EARTH that happened is beyond my comprehension.  But the woman with no willpower really didn't need to hear it.  And she didn't need to stop at the grocery store on the way home and purchase pizza, Stouffer's macaroni, and not one, but two different types of chocolate chip cookies.  Apparently the woman with no willpower interpreted this as "I have some ground to make up."  She's going to regret this in a few months.

Happy Inauguration Day, and I hope you celebrated MLK Day with gusto, as everyone in the tile-store industry apparently did!

Brief Break and an Update

I finally sent my broken Mac in to have the screen repaired, and I should have it back by this time next week, so my computer access is a bit limited until then. Perhaps I'll take up a hobby in the meantime. Like sewing or basketweaving. I'll let you know how that works out.

Also, I was just looking at the picture I have at the top of my blog and thinking how that family looks nothing like us now. Gone is the wicked tan I got for a wedding I went to in July. The 2 and 4 year olds in the picture are now 3 and 5, and I have an almost-7-month baby belly now. (Okay, some of the belly is cheeseburgers. But a lot of it is baby.) And the tree behind me in the picture doesn't stand there anymore, because it crashed through our house a few months ago. And the backyard? Our family hasn't seen it since September.

We expect to be back in our house "within a month", as our contractor has been telling us for the last 2 weeks. We'll see. Brandon has been picking out tile for our new remodeled master shower, and they tell us insulation and drywall will go in this week sometime. Over the next few weeks we will be deciding on things like what refrigerator to buy (any suggestions? We are not going with stainless steel.) and picking out a new mattress and furniture for our bedroom. This should be more fun than it is, but frankly, we weren't wanting to redecorate. The majority of our worldly possessions still live in a storage facility, and TiVo, we miss you most of all.

So that's a bit of what's going on. The kids are back in school and loving it, and Brandon went back to work this week after an almost 2 week break. I'm off to work on my basketweaving now, I'll catch you on my "new" Mac!

Frequently Asked Questions

These days, I get asked quite a few questions.  Well, here are some answers for inquiring minds:

Q:  How's everything going with your house?

A: If you recall, our house became Hotel Ike on September 13 when a giant tree decided it would rather be an indoor plant.  We have hired who we believe to be very capable and honest contractors (ask me again in a couple of months).  Unfortunately, I am less impressed with my insurance company by the day.  My contractor cannot start the actual work and repairs until the insurance has approved the estimate (and it's a big estimate).  And who can blame him?  I don't work unless I know I'm getting paid, either.  So I sit.  Waiting sometimes-patiently to hear from my insurance adjuster to call and say that we are a go for launch.  And we remain homeless now, going on 6 weeks, for repairs to begin.  My contractors have been wonderful.  His staff (and by staff I mean every female related to him), has inventoried, boxed up, and moved to storage EVERY ITEM IN MY HOUSE that was not ruined.  And the ruined items?  They inventoried those, also, and disposed of them.  That brought me such peace that I cannot describe.  I was spared the overwhelming chore of going through all of my destroyed belongings and inventorying them.  Thank you, kind elves.

So if anyone out there is wondering what they can do for us, please pray that we hear from our insurance company soon that they have approved the estimate so work can begin.  We are expecting this to be done in a matter of days, but there have been delays at every turn, and people, my sanity is hangin on by a thread some days.

Q: Didn't the tree hit your van, also?

A: Yes, the tree hit my van also.  It crashed into the top of it, breaking out the 3 back windows, and flooding the interior with 14 hours worth of hurricane rain.  Needless to say, it was totaled.  

(Quick story, one day when I called State Farm to check on the status of the claim for my van, the lady pulled up my information and said, "And you had the van that was completely submerged in salt water, right?"  Um, no.  But then I got to thinking, is rain from a hurricane that's been over the ocean for several weeks salt-water rain?  And then the phone girl and I shared a moment of blond-silence while we thought about that one.  Fortunately my husband was sitting right there to bring us back to 7th grade science class and remind us that no, it wasn't salt water rain.

For the past couple of weeks (several weeks), we have been borrowing an "extra vehicle" from a family at church.  This family is not one of our close friends (no particular reason why, we just have not taken the time to get to know them as much as we would like), but they heard that we were without one of our two cars, and called Brandon's office offering up their truck.  And when I say truck, I mean TRUCK.  3/4 ton, extended cab, full bed, hiked up thing that doesn't fit in some parking garages.  I felt testosterone-deficient just climbing up into the drivers' seat.  We returned the borrowed truck to the generous family this past week, and continue to be amazed at the generosity and kindness of our church family.

This past Friday we went into Houston (by House of Pies) to look at a van Brandon found a great deal on from ebay.  I was skeptical, to say the least.  When we pulled up to a warehouse across the street from a couple of abandoned houses behind an apartment complex I was a bit more skeptical.  When we stepped out of our car and saw a BMW outside the warehouse with a sign in the windshield reading "No Title Available", I was about to run for the hills.  Or maybe the House of Pies.  And I probably would not have run.  (come on, now.)  But we found a great van in this chop shop.  One year newer than our old one, 12,000 fewer miles, and much more affordable.  There were no floor mats in the van, so we just decided since the van had probably been used to transport dead bodies (Stow 'n Go seats are very handy for just such a thing), the floor mats must have had too many blood stains on them for resale.

All kidding aside, I think these van people bought vehicles on auction and then resold them.  And if you're ever in the market for a fire truck, I know just where to find one.

Q:  So where are y'all living?

A:  Since September 14, we have been living with my aunt and uncle, who are perhaps the most gracious people on earth.  Brandon and I talked about it, because our insurance will pay for us to stay in a hotel.  We thought that me in a hotel room for days with Dane and Aidan might just drive me to insanity, so we thought this was a better solution for our family for the time being.  And from our perspective, it is working out as good as it could possibly work out, considering we are living with other people.  The house has enough room that for the most part, we are not stepping on each other's toes.  

If at some point between now and house completion, it starts to not work out for our aunt, uncle, and cousin, we would move into a hotel for the duration.  After all, we are all family so technically we all have to love each other, we would still prefer that we all still like each other after this is all said and done.  Because we will still have to pass the cranberry sauce to one another at some point.

They live about 20 minutes from Hotel Ike, and it's closer for us to my work and the boys soccer, and a little farther from church and Brandon's office.  Did I mention that it's the best it could possibly be, living with other people?  We will be eternally grateful for the hospitality of my aunt and uncle, and I pray that someday we have the opportunity to answer someone's prayer when they really need a lot of help the way this has really answered ours.

I just realized that I am rambling far more than I thought I would be, so I will wrap this up and continue with part 2 FAQ tomorrow.

I'm Sorry, Miss Tiffany

The kids went back to school this past week after a week long Ike-induced hurrication.  When I picked Dane up on Tuesday, here is the conversation we had in the car:

Me:  Dane, did you tell Miss Tiffany what happened to our house?

Dane:  Yeah, I did.

Me:  What did you tell her?

Dane:  I told her that a big tree came into our house and water was all over our kitchen floor and consummation was EVERYWHERE.

Me:  What was everywhere? (I almost drove off the road at this point).

Dane:  You know, all that pink stuff that is above the ceiling.  It's EVERYWHERE.

Me:  You mean insulation?

Dane:  Oh, yeah.  Insulation.

So I guess the parent-teacher conference will probably be next week.  And Dane's classmates will go home and tell their parents that they all want to go to Dane's house because there's just consummation EVERYWHERE.

Hey, we don't call it Hotel Ike for nothin'.

Survived Ike

We are alive and well after Hurricane Ike, I just wish I can say the same for my house and van (yes, "and van").  A big giant tree uprooted in our backyard and crashed through our house very early on Saturday morning.  Fortunately, we (and Val, Izzy, and baby Joel), were having a big slumber party downstairs when the tree came crashing through our bathroom, closet, and bedroom.  Part of the tree broke off and hit our van, which was parked in the driveway.  

But God is good.  And we are safe.  We have moved out of the house temporarily and are living with my very gracious aunt and uncle about 20 minutes away.  There is extensive roof and water damage in about half of the house, and pieces of ceiling keep caving in.

The van is already at the dealership waiting on the insurance adjuster (which could take up to two weeks, apparently.)  In the van, a large branch went through the back half, breaking the rear window and 2 back windows and flooding the interior with the several inches of rain we received Saturday.  The windshield is cracked, and something is making a very bad noise under the hood when you drive it now.  It's just not looking good for my little blue van.

But we are safe and sound, with wonderfully generous family and friends.  It's been a rough week, one without electricity from Friday night through Tuesday afternoon, unpredictability, filled with family and friends eager to help out in any way they can.  Gas earlier this week was very hard to come by, and most grocery stores are still not fully stocked.  Schools are out at least for the rest of this week, and we have not heard when most of the schools will resume.  (Dane and Aidan go back to their little school on Tuesday.  I told you God is good.)  Some districts in other parts of town are closed indefinitely.  

Dane and Aidan are doing very well with all of this-- it is the "Big Adventure".  Every now and then when Aidan gets frustrated, he will cry "I want to go home".  I just want to hug him and say, "So do I.".  We brought their scooters with us, and every day so far Brandon has taken them on adventures in the walking trails in my uncle's neighborhood.  They come home with stories of acorns and sticks and Ninja Turtles, of course.  There is an abundance of new-to-them toys to play with here, and we have seen quite a bit of our friends in town, since many of us have not had work or school this week.

At this point we really have no idea how long we will be "displaced" by this hurricane.  The tree is finally being removed from the house today, 7 days after it fell.  It will take a crane to remove, and cranes are apparently very expensive and in very high demand at the moment.  As soon as we have power on at the house (I turned it off out of concern for exposed wires, water, etc.), and feel safe that enough of the water damage has been taken care of, hopefully we can move into our guest room while they finish the repairs.  

Thank you to everyone who has been praying for our little family during all of this.  It has been greatly appreciated!  We'll keep you posted. 

Hotel Ike

Welcome to Hotel Ike!  Located in sunny (sometimes) north Houston area, Hotel Ike was established September 13, 2008.  Come!  Be one of the first guests.  Many hospitable amenities await you.

Just watch for falling brick!  Hardhats are available for back porch excursions.

The Master Suite boasts a brand new skylight (and it's getting bigger every day!) directly above a lovely queen size bed.  Enjoy the rustic sounds of birds chirping and squirrels scurrying in the rafters above you.  Truly a once in a lifetime experience.

Adjacent to the Master Suite is the spacious Master Bath.  Watch your head in the shower!  Those planks and tree branches can really smart!  Enjoy showering by moonlight here at Hotel Ike. 

Or, soak in our relaxing garden tub (located on the left side of the picture).  Also boasting a lovely new sky light, please watch your head as you are getting in and out of the tub.

Need a place to hang your coat?  Just put it in the Master Closet.  Two brand new skylights were just put in for your coat-hanging enjoyment.  Just make sure it's a rain coat you're hanging, because it is very wet here at Hotel Ike.

Before you turn in, please enjoy a unique dining experience in our Dining Area.  Located directly beneath the Master Bathroom, our Dining Area boasts tree-side views, ceilings that just look like they're caving in, and a lovely wet tile flooring.

Outdoors (don't forget your hard hat!), enjoy a lovely view of the neighboring property before taking a dip in the pool.

Did someone say pool??

So, grab the kiddos and come on over to Hotel Ike!  We will have rain boots and liability release forms ready for you upon your arrival.

This advertisement brought to you by State Farm Insurance.