Well, we all survived Hurricane Ike. My parents were a tremendous help. My dad helped Ryan board up the house, get needed batteries, food, water, and other supplies. (I think my parents have decided it might be best to avoid Houston in September :>). We weathered the storm well. Our power went out around 11:45pm Friday night. Right after Ryan and I watched one of our TV shows. Fortunately, Lucas was already in bed sound asleep. As the night wore on we could hear the gusts of wind outside and the rain coming down. It is an interesting sensation to be inside, widows boarded up not being able to see anything going on outside, but hearing these loud gusts of wind. We have three large trees around our house (two in the backyard and one in the front) and I was waiting all night to hear something crash on our roof (we had just recently scheduled for a tree service to come out and trim the trees...great timing right!). Fortunately, we had no damage to our house and the trees did great. As you can see from the pictures just a lot of limbs fell and a portion of our fence fell. We fill VERY fortunate to have not had any damage to our house.
However...two weeks later and we are still without power and the latest is that we are not expected to get it until Sunday (hopefully!) Our neighbor thinks that we it will probably be sometime next week. In our zip code 99% of the people are without power. Fortunately, the week after the hurricane we had beautiful weather and enjoyed being outside doing various house projects and having some "unplugged" time (no internet, TV,etc.). When it started to warm up again last week we decided that it might be time to invest in a generator....hence being able to post this on my blog. The generator is an interesting machine. You put gasoline in it and then it generates electricity. Ryan and his father "wired" the house up with extension cords and plugs so that we could keep the refrigerator running, plug in some lights and have some fans circulate some air. Again I feel very fortunate that we have the generator as so many in Houston are still without power.
Needless-to-say the last few weeks have been an adventure and definitely "Days We Will Remember!" Lucas has done great through it all!! Yesterday we were collecting the trash in the house for "trash day" and I started to walk back to his room when he reminded me, mama you need some light (meaning flashlight). So he walked over to the table where we keep them and down the hall he went with me collecting the trash bins and holding the flashlight. When Ryan asked him last night if it was strange that we did have any lights, he replied... "no." Guess he is all set for camping and backpacking Abuelo and Tia Deborah!
Again... we feel very blessed that we have only had to deal with no electricity. There are many in Houston that are still out of work and trying to figure out how to repair homes and places of business. If you feel like you would like to help in some way please go to the Christ the King's web page:
http://www.christtheking.com/ If you live outside Houston and would like to help monetarily please give these organizations a call. I know they would REALLY appreciate any help and support at this time:
Houston is finally starting to look like itself again. Our local shopping center is up and running and many street lights are functioning as well. Unfortunately, I think there are still many places dealing with the internal damage from the hurricane. (Ryan will be out of his offices for several more weeks as with many I know.) We just continue to pray for all those that were more seriously affected by the storm. 
Just thought I would post a few fun pictures of Isa and Lucas hanging out this weekend. Like I said Lucas did really well through this whole adventure!!
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