Ike Arrives

After a Friday evening at the Lanza home for dinner and play time with the kids we finally got them into bed. Knowing the pending rainy weather would wake them. Lester put in the Nicolas Cage movie Gone In 60 Seconds and I fell off to sleep around 12:30 PM. So I guess I would say my morning started sometime after midnight as the wind was kicking up pretty good around the Lanza home. The rain was hitting the windows as if someone was spraying them with a hose and fan. The wind was more of a disturbance, a constant howl combined with the rain made a kind of white noise that either made it impossible to sleep or it would put you right out, (especially if you were as exhausted as the adults in household were). I got a call from my dad (who stayed at our house) around 2:58 AM and he told me the power had just gone out. He said the winds seemed to be blowing around 100 miles per hour or so. About 10 minute later the power was out in Katy, too.

Then it seemed like that was the time when Akorren, Zhivanna , and Merlova took turns waking up all night long. One was fear of the storm, one was upset is was too dark in the room, the other needed a bathroom break and bug medicine, or wanted to sleep with mommy. Between all this I was able to get about 45 minutes of sleep until 4:30AM and then before I knew it, it was 6:00 AM and Merlova was ready to get up for the day, YAY! It was a bit rainy in the morning and the temperature had cooled down some. Which was nice since we needed to keep the windows open for lack of AC. Once all of the family started to get up we fed kids, let them play and got ourselves ready for a quite day around the house with out electricity. I checked in with my dad and Lois and they were fine minus power and said that there was minimal damage to the house. A few trees down and a fence part or two. 10 minutes late or so it seemed like making any calls out to Houston was a hit and a miss. Service was sparse.

We eventually made our way to Orlando and Dorris Lanza's home going slowly through all the powerless stop lights, seeing the fallen fences, bits of roof tile, and lots of tree branches around. They still had power, yay! that way we could charge all of our electronic devices and let the kids relax with a movie and playtime with Daniel (Lester's younger brother). Everyone in house was recovering from being up listening to the hurricane pass through, tired adults. The noise of the storm kept them awake most of the night too. (I can't image how loud it must have been at our house. )

Glenn of course, being the handyman that he is got right to work with the chainsaw and his tools to help the Lanza family and their neighbors get fallen trees removed. Orlando and Dorris had their entire back fence fell down. It will be a while before that can be fixed as the large Home Depot stores are closed. Zhivanna,the animal lover, found a lost, wet, baby gray squirrel on the side of the road by the house. It was a male, so of course we named him "Ike". We are warming him up and will see what to feed him later on once he gets stronger. I must mention in here how kind and generous Dorris & Orlando Lanza have been to us these past few days. They have been feeding us home cooked meals and welcoming us into ther home as family. Muchas gracias! Having use of their electricity to charge up our stuff has been a blessing as well.

We arrived back to Vanessa & Lester's place around 7:45 PM and the guys decided it would be a good idea to go make a store run. They had no luck getting any supplies as the mandatory curfew was now put in place and many stores did not have power. We did have enough milk and ice for the next day. The kids got to watch a movie on the portable DVD player in the dark. It was kind of fun for them like camping in the house with the lights all out, the windows open and snacks to munch on. I ended up falling asleep with the kids when I went to put them to bed after 9:30 PM. Glenn took the dogs out to walk and ended up playing a few card games with Vanessa before heading off to bed. Here is Merlova with Daniel Lestser's young brother, he was spinner her in the chair for fun.