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!