The Return of High School Football

Life continues to return to normal for us after Ike, and one sign that the process is almost complete is the return of high school football. Tonight we played the 2nd game of the season against Langham Creek. It was a really good game. Towards the end it looked like Cy Creek was going to blow it, but they managed to pull it together and won 39 -28. Maybe this team will be different from last years (where we didn't win a district game all season)!

The real reason we go to the games is to watch the marching band perform. Tonight they marched the first two movements of their show. We enjoyed the show and thought they looked great, but the girls tell us they sucked. I'm glad I don't know what they are supposed to be doing, because I quite enjoy watching their shows and am happy to think they do them perfect!

Greg's Hurricane Cleanup

Greg spent Friday and Saturday down on Galveston Island helping folks cleanup. Here is a description of what he did:

On Friday I went down with Ryan Bardo to help a friend of the Anthon’s. He is in his last year of medical school down at UTMB and was actually out of town taking a test or something when the storm hit. He called a neighbor to grab a few things like his wedding photo album, but didn’t really get anything out before the storm. His house had three feet of seawater in it and had been closed up for almost two weeks while the Island was closed. Pretty much everything in the house had to be hauled to the curb for the city to haul off. Things that didn’t actually get wet were starting to be affected by the mold that was growing in the house. Some things that may have survived a regular flood were being eaten up by the salt water. We hauled out furniture and furnishings (living room, bedroom, closets, . . . ) and appliances (washer/dryer, fridge, stove, dishwasher, everything) out and then started ripping out the sheetrock on the walls. We pull off the sheetrock up to about four feet. The mold was growing inside the walls so they had to be opened up so they could dry out. They was also a layer of mud under the wood floors that seem to be common in those homes.

Anything that had filled up with seawater was especially putrid. I don’t know if you remember how things that get wet down at the beach smell if you don’t get them cleaned up but it is really bad. I was wearing a mask to keep from breathing the mold and stuff which helped a bit with the smell, but there were still things that had been holding the seawater for two weeks--letting it get really rank. Dishwashers were particularly bad because they are designed to keep water in them. Also plastic storage containers that were under people beds or other locations where they couldn’t float up had filled with water and were very bad to move.

Saturday was a repeat of Friday’s experience except that we were working with a larger crew. We met down at the Galveston chapel to get a work assignment and then went out. We were paired up with a team from League City. A large group from the Dallas had spent the night at the Alvin chapel and were working near us also.

Of course the upside is the chance we had to go down and do service for these people. It is quite a sight to see this big group of people in yellow “Mormon Helping Hands” shirts singing “Come, come, ye saints” and then disperse through the city. I saw several other groups of yellow shirts while driving to our work location or while driving home. Lots of missionaries from the Texas South Mission. They would show us how to get to our job and then join in with the last group they guided. The church is very visible down there right now between the work crews and the cleaning kits and hygiene kits that we are leaving with people. We spent several hours on Saturday in a non-member house working and at the end they asked about giving us a donation or something. Told them no thanks but to please be nice to the missionaries next time they came by. Even if they initially don’t want to hear a gospel message you never know where the conversation will go even if they are only there a few minutes.

We expect to get more work assignments over the coming weeks. Don’t know exactly what they will be but we’re expecting to be busy.

Boston in the Fall

Melissa and I flew to Boston Thursday night so she could attend an informational session about the graduate program she is interested in at Harvard. We got in around 4 pm that night and were able to take the subway downtown and walk around Boston Commons a bit. It is a beautiful city. Lots of old buildings--it kind of has the feel of a European city.
We then asked someone in the park where we could find some good food and were sent down Charles Street. Melissa really wanted clam chowder, but the place we picked to eat was out of it. In spite of this set back, we did enjoyed a good meal and then headed back to our hotel.

The next morning it was raining, just like the weatherman had predicted. It wasn't too bad at first. We headed to Harvard and I walked around a bit while Melissa was in her meeting. Cambridge is a beautiful little city.By the time Melissa was finished, the rain had picked up.We went over to the main part of the campus and walked around the "yard" and the rain started getting heavier and wind started to pick up. We ducked into a building to try to figure out what we wanted to do. Originally we had planned to walk the entire Freedom trail and hit all the historical spots in Boston, but it was pretty clear that the rain was going to ruin that. So we decided to try to hit only our top sites instead.

I really wanted to see the old North Church and Melissa wanted to see where the Boston Massacre took place. So we looked took the subway over to the old city hall, which is right by the massacre site. By the time we got there it was pouring and so windy it kept turning my umbrella inside out. There is a station right next to the old city hall as well as a visitors information center. So we walked around and saw the outside of the city hall, and then ducked into the visitors center. There we dried off a little, Melissa posed these some cute photos, and we decided that we were just going to have to come back another time to see the sites.

One thing we were not going to miss out on was some Boston clam chowder. So we walked down the street to the Union Oyster House, a place that Jan Gamache had recommended when she heard we were going to Boston. It is the oldest restaurant in America and is really cool. And the food was outstanding! We enjoyed salad, clam chowder and Boston Creme Pie. Delicious!

When we were done eating, we walked back tot he train station and caught the train back to our hotel. We had checked out before we left for Harvard, so we retrieved our luggage from the desk clerk and changed out of our sopping wet clothes. Even our purses were drenched (mine took two days to dry out).

After changing, we hung out in the hotel lobby until it was time to go to the airport. We tried to catch an earlier flight than we had originally planned on, but apparently everyone wanted to leave early because the extra seats disappeared and we weren't able to get on. In addition to this set back, our original flight was delayed. So we had horrible weather and more time in Boston to see the inside of our hotel and the airport as we sat around waiting to go home. But were we going to let this get us down? No way! Instead we had another round of clam chowder at the airport. But I would rather have traded that extra bowl for some clear skies and being able to see some of the sites in Boston!

Oh well, if Melissa ends up going to Harvard we'll have an excuse to go back. She really liked what she heard in her meeting and plans to apply. Hopefully we'll be back in Boston later this fall--and we'll be able to pick up where we left off before the rains began.

Happy Birthday Rachel!

Today is Rachel's 18th birthday. I really can't believe it.

Seems like only yesterday she looked like this:

or this:

or this:

or even this: But no. My baby is turning 18 and now looks like this:

And if that wasn't enough, check out all my girls:

Where did the years go?

A birthday celebration

It's been a week since Ike, and even though we have had power back since last Sunday, things still aren't back to normal. This was emphasized this weekend when we had Rachel's birthday party.

Because she is turning 18, Rae had a big blow out party. Many of her friends are still without power and are looking forward to hanging out for a few hours. Although none of them would ever admit to missing school, I am sure they really miss the chance it brings to see each other every day. Anyway, as we prepared for the celebration, we had some difficulty finding food for the party. All Rachel wanted was queso, bagel bites, ice cream and cake. Should be simple enough, but it wasn't. We had to go to three different grocery stores before we could find any frozen pizza bites or ice cream. Since these stores all had power back fairly quickly after the storm, I was surprised that their freezers were still mostly empty. Apparently just because the stores have electricity doesn't mean their food supplies are back to normal.

The party turned out great (although somehow I managed to not take pictures of the crowd). There were at least 35 people who came. All the kids had fun playing rock band, eating and just hanging out. Rachel's church friends chipped and gave her money to buy a new Ipod Nano, which was pretty cool. But Ike even messed with that, since the Apple Store didn't re-open until after her birthday, and that was the only place that had the brand new Nanos. But eventually she got it, and she loves it. Birthdays are awesome!

Melissa's first hand look at Ike

When it became clear that Ike was going to hit Galveston, Melissa called me to say she was coming home. I made it very clear that this was not an option, and that she had to stay in Austin. "But Mom, I want to see it". I made sure she understood she was not allowed to drive towards the hurricane. She pouted, but obeyed. Good girl!

Now she has come home for Rachel's birthday and is getting to see some of the damage from Ike. A lot of it had been cleaned up before she got here--but there was still a lot to see. Here are the pictures of the damage still around in Prestonwood Forest and a couple of the surrounding neighborhoods when she came:

This tree snapped in half, and fell into this house:
I really hope no one was sleeping in that room!

The owner of these trees was spared--but his neighbor's house wasn't so lucky:
And neither was his truck:

This is the house across from the Aitkens, and the car that was in the garage when the tree landed on it. Lucky car owners!
The winds were tough on signal lights. This one was twisted:

This one was cracked:

We lost a couple of big, old trees at the elementary school.

They were pulled up at the roots and just laid down and died. So sad!

My tree climber couldn't resist...

Then there were the trees that couldn't quite lay down:This one did managed to pull up the sidewalk:
There were lots of fences down:

And some huge debris pile after people cleaned up.

This one is in front of our neighbors house:

Thankfuly ours wasn't anywhere near this size.

Time to clean up our yard

Because of all the power outages, school has been cancelled through this Friday, the 19th. The girls are loving that part of the storm. I hope they feel that way when they have to make up the missed weather days.

Because they are home all day, they both have been able to help with cleanup projects. They helped clean up at the Pierces' golf course, a few homes in the area, and also at the church. All of the youth in our ward are participating in these service projects, which is great! The youth have also gotten together quite a bit to just hang out and enjoy not being in school.

After spending most of our free time helping others with clean up and repairs, we finally got around to cleaning up the mess in our yard today. We have no idea when the debris will be picked up and hauled away, but it is now off the lawn and bagged and stacked on the curb. It is nice to finally have a clean yard again!

When we were out gathering up the branches, Dakota wanted to help too! Unfortunately her idea of helping was to pull the branches off the pile we were making and drag them across the lawn. It was cute, but got to be annoying!

The tree that lost it's top...

and broke our gate...

and made this mess in our side yard.

The side yard was quite a project because we had to pull it out into the front yard in order to deal with it. But we conquered the mess and are now able to walk to the back yard again. Can't wait until Ike is just a memory!

A change in the weather

Today a small storm front came through that brought more rain and cooler air. This was both good and bad. The good was that we were able to turn off the AC and open our windows. This was kind of ironic, since we were so excited the night before about being able to run the AC and cool off the house. But free cool air is always better than the kind you have to pay for. It is also great for those who still are without power--and there are a lot in that position right now. We have loaned out our generator to Dave Peterson, one of Greg's co-workers, so he can try to save the food in his fridge and freezer. We also sent several jugs of ice over to them. Once they return the generator, we will take it to the Aitkens who are also still without power. I am so thankful we are able to loan out the generator instead of using it!

The bad part of this new storm front is that it has caused some additional damage to people in our area. A family in our ward, Dan and Jimma Shearer, had a weakened roof due to the hurricane and when this second round of storms came through they had it colapse in one of their bedrooms. Luckily it was their daughter's room who is off to college, so no one was hurt. But they now have to deal with clean up and repairs that they had thought they had been spared. How discouraging that must be!

I've talked about before the storm and what it was like as we went through it. But I wanted to include more information about Ike when it hit.

Ike was a huge storm!

Ike was a category 4 hurricane as it approached the Texas coast. This was really scary as Cat 4 hurricanes have wind speeds that can hit over 150 MPH. Luckily Ike lost some of his speed as he approached land, and was a Cat 2 storm when it made landfall at Galveston. This, however, is a little misleading because of the size of Ike. It was a huge storm that blasted a 500-mile stretch of coastline in Louisiana and Texas. It breached levees, flooded roads and led more than 1 million people to evacuate and seek shelter inland. Here are pictures of some of the damage Ike did:

Floodwaters from Hurricane Ike were reportedly as high as eight feet in some areas causing widespread damage across the coast of Texas.

Winnie, TX

Gilchrist, TX

Many shoreline communities of Galveston, Texas were wiped from the map by the winds, storm surge and the walls of debris pushed along by Ike . Even though Galveston was spared the level of disaster it suffered in 1900, the damage to the area was incredible.

Before and After shots of Crystal Beach. As you can see, it was pretty much destroyed.

And what was left standing was surrounded by rubble...

...or surrounded by noting at all
Houston's damage came from the winds...Windows were blown out of the JP Morgan Chase Towers in downtown Houston

And debris was tossed over a wide area.

We really were blessed during this storm and are praying for those who weren't as lucky as us.