Update on our hurricane story....

Well, after much debating and going back and forth, i chickened out on riding out the storm, and the kids and I headed to Arkansas on Thursday around noon. We just didn't know what to expect and for this to be our first hurricane experience, needless to say, we were kinda freaking out. ("we" being me...) Thursday morning, our preschool canceled school so that families could prepare for the storm. So as I sat at home watching the news, they were making predictions about where the worst of the storm was to hit they were predicting 95-100 mph winds here in Katy and the "eye of the storm" was suppose to go over Katy. (Now that ended up not happening...as the storm shifted more east than they first expected.) But we got out... I just thought, the kids would have a blast with their cousins anyways... and my neices b-day is next week so we could "celebrate" it while we were there crashing at their place.

So we made it to Texarkana with only a few minor delays when we would catch up with other evacuees on 59 North. So we rode out the storm in Texarkana and the kids got to see their cousins and Brian's parents on Saturday. I woke up this morning at 6:00am and we left Texarkana this morning by 6:45 and made it back home to Katy by 11:45am. The traffic wasn't bad at all and it only rained a little when I hit north Houston. Power was out in every town I went through on 59 coming back from Arkansas because the track Ike made on landfall came right up the way of 59 to hit Arkansas. So we experienced the "wrath" of Ike at my sister-in-laws last night. Only a few gas stations here and there had power, so I kept my gas tank full and pressed on....The damage as I drove through these towns were so sad... especially in the north houston area because that is where eye hit pretty hard. During the night another storm blew threw that added a LOT more rain to the already soggy ground so there is a lot of flooding throughout the Houston/Katy area. Our church campus even suffered some minor flooding and roof damage. Our house was fine... not any damage at all except Brian lost power for about 24 hours. Here are some pictures he took from the storm.

Please pray for the people in the Houston area as they are trying to re-build and that power would come back on soon for those who are still without, because after all it is Houston and although it's mid-September, it's still humid and hot here.