Hurricane Ike

Well I finally have some time to post about our wonderful hurricane that graced us with its presence. So on Jayce's 7 month birthday we got to celebrate it with preparing to get hit by a hurricane. I didn't get to take a picture, but I'm sure I will post one late. I have to admit staying in our house during the hurricane was scary. The wind howling and the rain hitting the windows hard! WOW--I don't know if I want to experience that again. I think the most scary part was when the sun went down and we lost power.....you couldn't see a thing. I would look outside and see all the trees being flung around like they were nothing. Poor trees to have to endure those strong winds. Layne and I lost power at about 2:30am or so. Once we lost power I couldn't sleep. Layne and I were up pretty much the rest of the night. To make things worse, Jayce woke up freaked out because his room was so dark. I'm sure he was terrified from all the noises. He was up most of the night with us. Poor baby. He just didn't get it.

I have to admit, we were lucky though. We didn't have any damage to our house. We only lost a tree. Our willow tree though. I loved that tree. It was so pretty. It was a great landmark for when people came to our house. Layne and my dad already cut it down, we just have to get the stump out of the ground. It up rooted about half way so it was pretty hard to get out. Layne couldn't pull it out with his truck or my dad's truck. We are going to have to figure out another way. Here are some pictures of our poor willow tree beat to death.

I am also adding some pictures of Rayford Road and my parents house on Saturday afternoon. My parents lost their fence on all three sides of their house. They also had a neighbor's tree split and fall into their driveway. My mom was standing at the kitchen window when it fell and she thought it was going to fall through the window. The neighbor's have another tree in their backyard that is holding the other tree up. It was pretty crazy. The wind just split the tree in half.

Our street--not too bad
Rayford Road---got quite a bit of water in the ditches and in some parking lots.

This car place on Rayford--the roof fell on top of some cars that were there

Mom and Dad's yard pictures--they lost their fence

Here's their tree that split in two.

On Saturday (late afternoon), we decided to go and stay with my parents. They parked their travel trailer in their drive-way and my dad had a generator so that we could have air conditioning. What a wonderful commodity. I don't believe I could ever live without air conditioning, especially in Texas. My parents actually got power back on Saturday night, but lost it again and then got it again later that night. We camped in the trailer that night to make sure we had A/C, but then we moved into the house on Sunday. I can't believe they got power back so quick!! We are STILL out of power!!! Hopefully soon though---I am ready to sleep in my own bed and I think that Jayce is ready too. He has not been sleeping well at night in all these different places.