We took a hike- Our hurricane Ike story

As many of you know our poor H-town suffered great damage due to Ike, we're recovering. Here's our rendition of this disaster. Preston was told to leave early from his office and we were prepared, we told ourselves that we would hunker down and we'd get by just fine, but for some reason we both felt inclined to think it over and after a prayer we felt the impression that we needed to leave and go to Dallas to my SIL place. We sure are glad we listened! We didn't have any damage to our house at all, but we were without power for over 2 weeks!!! We left on thurs. afternoon before the storm hit, it took 2 hrs. longer than the regular travel time but we made it without any mishaps, and the boys were awesome, they were patient and seldom asked for things, which was great b/c Preston's mom was riding with us and hopefully she had a good experience riding with us. We were in Dallas for 6 days and decided to come back b/c Preston's office was up and running and my sister had power so we could have stayed with her, but when we got to Houston grandma discovered she had power too, so we stayed with her instead, poor "Amma" she had to bear with us for a few more days. Luckily we had a trip to Disney World planned starting on 9/22 so we got out of her hair asap.
The thing I miss the most about my house was 1)my bed and 2)my kitchen, there's nowhere like home...with power. Also, I think Thomas suffered the most, he started saying "go home" soon after we tried to put him to sleep; he missed his crib and is not used to sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag. Tyler loved it, he was on vacation and got to play with new toys, mainly his cousins.
We keep hearing how hard it was to be there during the storm, listening to the strong wind and to have to live off food storage and survive the Houston heat with no AC; it was too much. Is it bad to say that I'm glad we weren't there for all that even tough most friends and family stayed in Houston?? We feel bad for family and friends that stayed and hopefully the groceries that we brought back to some of them helped.
One of the most eerie things for me was that on the way back to Houston, we planned to stop at a gas station a couple hours away from Houston to fill up again b/c we knew that it was scarce, we filled up in Centerville and the town after it had "no food/no gas" in one of those Amber alert signs, I got chills, we were still hours away from our destination!! Anyway we got home and everywhere you looked there was debris and eventually darkness, pitch black in some parts.
Things are pretty much back to normal and we've had many more things to do that kept us busy and distracted from all the crazy stuff that's happened.
Again, thank you very much Carrie and gang for your hospitality, you're our evacuation route. See you soon. :)
At the Dallas museum.



Sleeping on the floor, finally.








That's a lot of bricks!














So many lights out everywhere, ugh....