Ladybugs & Stinkbugs

How long has it been since I've lived in a city without a 24-hour Walmart?  Evidently too long - I've gotten spoiled.  Since the hurricane, this sign has been on the door at our Walmart:

The cashier I spoke with told me that they don't have enough people to run 24-hour, and they don't have enough stock.  I went the other day and there were NO bananas!!  I know - I was shocked, too.

 

Even though it's only been 2 weeks since the storm blew through, when I am sitting in my house it's easy to forget what is going on in the community outside my door.  It makes me think about how easy it is to get totally wrapped up in my own world.  Schooling, cleaning, working, and sleeping...I can get completely immersed in the things I am doing and forget to look around me.  What about the neighbor down the house with four pine trees through his roof?  The city 30 miles away where only 16 - yes, sixteen - houses escaped flooding?  Raymond preached on Sunday: "Now What?" 

 

That's the question I'm asking myself.

Please take a moment to watch the following video.  This is our pastor; he is speaking about the effects of Hurricane Ike on our community.  If you feel led to help in any way, you may contact me for more information.  Even if you can't help at this time, we would all appreciate your prayers!

 

Here are some videos of Jacob playing.  (I know, other than a mommy, who would want to watch 10 minutes of my child just sitting there playing...? Just humor me. ;))

This is Andrew playing with Jacob. He LOVES his baby brother. Unfortunately, Andrew is not all that gentle, and I think he overwhelms Jacob quite a bit. But Jake is very entertained by Andrew at times, as well. It is fun watching them grow up together.

I haven't blogged much lately...since we got back from our "Evacucation," I have been extremely busy trying to put our house back in order.  I think that tomorrow we will be back to school (finally)!  The kids have played enough Wii to last eight lifetimes, and I will be glad to get back into a normal routine.  

Jeremy & I went to the mall one night in Colorado Springs and saw a pet store...yes, we had to go in.  They had the cutest puppies!  

We are back.  I am so glad to be home!  I missed this place.  We had an eventful trip on the way back...I'll post more later, but right now I have to get my house cleaned up!!  (ew)

Evacucation: n. The good times that are had by families when they are forced to leave their homes due to catastrophic circumstances and but are blessed by God to have wonderful friends and family!

I figure: if you have to go through something like this, do it with as much flair (and fun) as possible! We can't be at our home, but that doesn't mean we have to be miserable, so we thought we would just go visiting around the country. We're in Amarillo right now, enjoying catching up with some friends and family we haven't seen in way too long!

Jeremy Uncle's Ronnie and his wife Bessie have been so sweet to take us in. They've made us feel right at home, and the kids have had a blast getting to know them. Bessie even spent all day cooking a delicious meal and inviting all of their local family over to share it with us tonight. We had a wonderful time, and I loved watching the kids get to know cousins they didn't even know they had!

I'll start with a video of Jakey being a ham (as usual):


Being cute



Peekaboo



Begging for food




They LOVE their Uncle Ronnie!!



Kids are kids - wherever they are. And mine are the sweetest!







No, Jake - you may not touch the computer.


Lydia & Jakey


And, of course, football:

10. Decorating the house (boarding up windows).


9. Dragging out boxes that haven't been used since last season (Camping gear, flashlights).


8. Last minute shopping in crowded stores.


7. Regular TV shows pre-empted for 'specials'.


6. Family coming to stay with you.


5. Family and friends from out-of-state calling.


4. Buying food you don't normally buy ... and in large quantities.


3. Days off from work.


2. Candles.






1 And the number one reason Hurricane Season is like Christmas...




At some point you know you're going to have a tree in your house!

Here are Matthew's thoughts on our evacuation:

Here are a couple of pictures from our news channel of around our area:

Here they come!!! These are the real heroes of the day:



And how would you like to see THIS in your backyard?? (NotMY backyard, thank you...)

Well, we have finally gotten to a place where we are going to stay for more than 1 1/2 minutes, so I thought I'd finally post about our damage. We were blessed in that we did not have any structural damage. There are some spots on our roof that we will need to evaluate once we get home, but it is nothing that caused leaks or inconvenience while we were still in the house, so that is good news. The outside (yard fence trees etc) is that is ugly.

We are glad that we are out of the area right now. There is a lot of cleanup going on right now, but that also means that there are a lot of people there who need resources (water, ice, gas), and that makes long lines and short supplies. It's best for us to just get out of the way until things get back to normal.

Our first night without power wasn't that bad. For one thing, we didn't lose power until 2am or so, and the kids (except Matthew) were all asleep. We were also full of adrenaline and had other things (namely, 80-mph wind gusts) to worry about. The next day was alright because it was raining and we could go outside and get wet, and that was cooling. That night however, once we ended up all back in the house, was miserable! We gave the kids cold - COLD - baths. Jacob was the worst off. He was throwing up almost the whole night, and could not get cooled off. I made the kids sleep in their underwear (they were very confused), and none of us slept very well.

That made our decision. We didn't even need to spend ONE MORE NIGHT like that. We are having a LOT better time visiting family...even though the kids didn't get to swim. =(

Well, we are in Wichita Falls...again! At the same hotel, same room, everything. We're just staying one day, though. Tomorrow we're going to Amarillo to see family. We will probably stay there for 1 or 2 days and then we'll head up to Colorado Springs!! (Yeah!)

I'll post pics and stuff of our house once we get up there. We fared pretty well in the storm...our fence didn't make it and we lost a fence, but no house damage. Our church, however, is a different story. Evidently we sustained some pretty bad damage...Beaumont is bad...Lumberton is starting to get power back, but we are still going to stay gone for an extra week or so just to give everyone time to adjust and the stores to get re-stocked, etc. It will still be "recovery mode" when we get back, but it won't be quite so bad.

Anyway, prayers are appreciated!

(Can you hear the "da-da-da da da da-da-da da" sounds of the news report beginning?)

This can't be a good omen. The gate to our fence has just been blown over by the wind. hmmm...

Well, so far the weather hasn't gotten bad here, yet. The wind is picking up, and we've had some scattered rain, but nothing worrisome. Water EVERYWHERE in Beaumont, though - already. And the storm still hasn't hit.

Here's the track it's taking right now:


And the weather report:

Continuing the theme of goofy or just plan strange things written about the hurricane, I came across the following comment early this morning:

His home saw several feet of storm surge damage during Hurricane Rita and he has dumped dozens of dollars into the improvements.

DOZENS of dollars? Seriously? I dumped dozens of dollars into hair products during my last trip to the store. Does that qualify as a national emergency?

Here we are now:



Expected landfall will be right over Galveston, as of now. They are talking a storm surge of 20 feet possibly. It shouldn't affect us where we are, but it may seriously affect our friends in Beaumont...we'll see.

On a side note, have you ever noticed the melodrama that totally invades the media-mindset during times like these? Check out the following headline from Foxnews:

Texans Told: Flee or 'Face Certain Death' as Ike Nears

I mean, come on - "face certain death?" This is gonna be a category TWO by the time all is said and done. I remember waiting out storms that were cat. 4's when I was a kid. When did a cat. 2 become cause for an evacuation, not to mention cause for panic and thoughts of "certain death"?

Oh, wait a minute - I know.

It was after Katrina.

Don't get me started.

As I post this, I want everyone to know that this is NOT a sarcastic post!! (I know...sarcasm from Lindsay? That's just crazy talk!!) Anyway, my husband is such an impressive guy, as you will soon see...=)

Jeremy went with some of his friends to the shooting range last week. It was actually his first experience shooting a gun...ever. He was shooting a deer rifle, and as he shot, he leaned in a little too close to the scope...this was the result:




There was evidently a lot of blood, and it was followed by a quick trip to the emergency room. Our friend drove him, and snapped this picture:



(I was glad it was THIS friend who volunteered to drive him, and not the one who said, "Can he wait until we're finished shooting?")

The result was 5 stitches. And a story that Jeremy had to repeat about 573 times over the past week:





He had an appointment scheduled to remove the stitches TOMORROW...but since our friend Ike is on his way, and all of Jefferson County is evacuated, no one is there! So, I'm researching the ramifications of leaving stitches in too long. It turns out it probably wouldn't be that big of a deal, if we were sure he could get them out Monday. But with not knowing, we didn't really want to wait that long. We had a couple of options. One involved a trip to the emergency room...in Beaumont. However, (as you can see here), traffic is SO BAD because of the evacuation that it would take about 2 days to get there and back. That left finding someone local. However, all the doctor's offices were closed. So we started thinking...how hard could this be? Jeremy was trying to talk me into taking them out at home. I could have/would have if I had needed to, but thankfully I was saved having to do that:







By the way, he is absolutely THRILLED with me telling this whole story! =) I seriously think he's a very brave guy. He impresses me.

They have called for an evacuation of the county adjacent to ours. We intend to stay, at this point, unless the storm makes a more north-ward turn. Here's the latest:

Can I come stay at your house? I can't believe we are seriously stocking up bottled water and baby food - again! We're going to try to stay (at this point they're saying probably tropical storm conditions), but we have to prepare for "no power". If the storm turns any more North (before it goes West), we will probably have to leave.

If it was just Jeremy & me, we'd probably tough it out. I mean, we have charcoal, and we know how to build a fire (lol). BUT I don't want to put Jake through that for who knows how long, so with the babies it's just safer to spend the $$ and get outta here for a little while.

Still, it may not be an issue at all - that's what's so hard with these storms! But...don't worry...I'll keep you posted. =)

P.S. - Can you believe "evacuation" and "hurricane" have been promoted to actual "tags" categories?

Hurricane Ike might be heading this way...here's the latest forecast.

I have some absolutely hilarious shots of Jacob, some nice video of Annie dancing (ballet started yesterday), and the other boys being...well, boys!

Check back soon, and in the meantime, you can check out my July Photobucket Album, and August Photobucket Album!

http://stufffchristianslike.blogspot.com/2008/09/395-christian-version-of-guitar-hero.html

We had a looong trip home from Wichita Falls. Normally 7 hours, it took 9+ with traffic. Still, we did really well, especially considering some others made the trip from Houston (normally 1 1/2 hours) in the same 9 hours that it took us from Wichita Falls. Yuck!

Let me tell you something, though - if you're ever going to be in an evacuation situation, Jeremy is the guy that you want to have with you! His normally irritating OCD definitely comes in handy in an emergency situation. His also (normally irritating) GPS Navigation lady was a lifesaver!!! It kept us from an extra 5 hours on the road.

We were all so glad to be home, though. We're getting back into the normal routine of life. Thanks for all of your prayers and thoughts.

No more hurricanes!!

Today we took the kids on an adventure! We went to the mall (yeah!) and looked at all the stuff that the kids wanted that they couldn't have. Then we went out and hiked to the actual "Wichita Falls". First, we went on the wrong trail. It led through a bunch of woods, and there was a ton of stagnant water, which you probably know breeds mosquitos. This huge SWARM of mosquitos chased us down the trail. A couple of us got bit, but the bugs left Jeremy alone totally. Matthew was the worst off - 10 bites or so all on his neck.

Anyway, we finally turned around (and had to run through Mosquito Alley again - Jeremy had Drew on his shoulders and the rest of us were running for all we were worth, and flapping our arms and legs about as much as we could to keep them away) and went back to the van. But, on our way out of the park, we saw the big blue sign that said "Falls - That Way". So, we got out and went .43 miles down to the falls...and then .43 miles back to the van. The kids had a lot of fun on the way there and while exploring the falls, but they complained the WHOLE WAY back to the van.

I've decided kids should do something that they don't want to do at least once a week - and the harder, the better. These kids would never have made it as pioneer kids! lol Still, we had a ton of fun, and now I'm ready for a nap!

Well, yesterday was our "Evacucation Party"! (Read that again - it isn't misspelled.) The hotel we are staying at has a grill out by the pool, so we cooked all of the meat that we had cleaned out of our refrigerators, and the kids swam, and we ate and talked and played for a while. It was a lot of fun, and the kids slept sooo good after it was over!

Jake is doing great - because Daddy is here. When I went to Illinois, Jake & I didn't sleep the whole...mostly because I wouldn't nurse him 24/7. If I'm holding him, that's what he thinks he should be doing. But when Daddy holds him, he drifts off to sleep peacefully (and quickly). =) Let's just say I'm keeping Jeremy around!