Back to Normal?

I needed to take a break from posting all the details of the hurricane for a bit. And during that week I spent time finding out who needed help or had needs in our church and organized work parties to help them. I was able to give a few good days of physical help to one our church members who really needed it.
It was surreal to see what storm surge could do in terms of damage to a house. (Imagine 2 to 6 feet of water coming into your home.) I feel truly grateful that we were sparred. One home had not been opened for about 1 week past Ike's arrival. And there was so much mud, muck, and mold it was amazing. "Toto we are not in California anymore... that's for sure!" Texas and it's warm moisture can just about kill a house, throw in the rising water from a hurricane and, yuck! One foot of water through a house will force a home owner to pull carpet down to the slab, take up to 4 feet of drywall off the walls and pull out the insulation that fills the walls, now take a moment and look around the room that you are in; what things are on the floor? what stuff touches your walls? have you seen how black mold grows and stains? Do you know that in most homes, everyone has a cockroach or two, three, four... or more? What do you think your home would look like after sitting in 1 -4 ft of water for a few days?
Yes, in the areas we were in, you could drive down the road and see peoples lives dumped in piles outside of their now gutted homes. Making the familiar residential areas look more post war then an act of nature. (I was going to take some photos but then decided not to exploit others pain.)
Yes, the area is getting back to normal. More gas stations are opening, more areas have power, and traffic lights again. You can get fresh produce and eggs are not rare or hard to find items. Galveston, where Ike hit is still like a ghost town, traffic in mildly traffic like areas is now crazy/heavy/packed. And blue tarps look like a fashion statement in some areas of town. The children are now back in school as of today and some have "new" (aka displaced) students in class now, the school district was kind to offer FREE LUNCHES to all the children in the district for the next two weeks to help families who were affected by Ike or have/had no power. Yes, were are getting back to normal... many of us, who are fortunate to have suffered no real damages are feeling tired/exhausted and not able to focus on all that has to get done from the lost week or two. Will things be "normal"?, maybe but this natural event has changed us all in some way or another. I was given the gift of gratitude, and the gift of being able give to someone else, how lucky am I? I understand for real, what damage a hurricane can do and how truly evil mold is. I don't know if I ever want to be normal again, but were are working on it.
Merlova in her normal silly little girl state.

Normal things

Today being a Saturday, it felt more like a back to normal kind of day. It has taken a while for the lines to disappear from the gas stations, the grocery stores to not be so packed and some of the minor hurricane damage to be cleaned up. Glenn did a few church related helping tasks and then was able to mow the lawn and do the regular stuff about the house. The older two spent time with Papa Herman, Merlova was with me most of the day and then we got treated to a great Mexican food dinner. It was thanks for all the work that Glenn and other church men did to help one of the families in need. It was nice not to have to cook dinner. I felt spoiled. It will be nice to try an get back into the grove of activities for the children even though Akorren will not start school until the 29th of Sept. The school district needs to allow the new displaced children to get into a school program in our district and they will be doing registrations this week along with repairs to some of the damaged schools. I look forward to seeing our church members tomorrow at service and will get a better handle on who needs help by the end of the day. The photos are from damage done at the Kemah boardwalk area and a nice picture of Akorren with his soon-to-be grandma, Lois.

Squirrel thoughts

Here are some pictures of the little squirrel "Ike" that we tried to care for. He looked pretty good in these pictures. The children were very excited about him. It is funny, when we got home the other day from evacuating, I was looking at the library books we picked up before the hurricane, and we had one called Scaredy Squirrel by Melanie Watt it is an adorable story about a little squirrel who is afraid of life. It made me think of little Ike. Ike in the shoe box, Glenn looking in on Ike, Glenn & happy Zhivanna, Ike in Glenn's hands above box.

Getting back to Normal

Glenn went out fairly early to help some of our friends who had damage to their house. Today it was the Hibbetts who lived in Nassau Bay, they had about 4 feet of water come in through their home. It moved the pool table across the downstairs room. They lived right by the bay and, have an elevated house, so that means the water or storm surge was at 8 feet high when did the damage to their home. Wow! They are with other church friends to live with for a while until they can do more work on their home.
The kids and I woke to a lazy day at the house. The girls were very glad to be at home and just play with big brother in the morning. Lois went back to work today and Papa helped wrangle the crew in the AM so I could rest a bit. I then got up and got into phone call mode. I somehow got myself to be the contact for our church, in charge of setting up volunteers and work crew people to help other members who need to have fallen trees cut up and removed, pull out wet carpet or drywall damaged from storm surge water and in general see who needs what, and who can do what, to help who. So it basically means being in contact with our minster Rev. Matt Tittle and a few important super helpers at our church like Butch Cockrel. I wish I could be the one doing the work but since I have to care for the kids I am kind of stuck doing the phone call thing. I was able to make some lists send out email information and make about a dozen needed calls. The kids were getting wrestles around 11 AM and I was able to set up a play date and visit time with our friends the Dippels (Bailey, Zach and mommy Jennifer). We took over our scooters and Akorren's bike and played from 1:30 to about 4 PM, the mommies talked about all that had happened with the hurricane. Then it was back home and getting dinner ready for the family, daddy coming home from a full day of physical labor and work helping others, watching and older Star Trek movie then getting kids in bed for the night. By the time Glenn and I went to bed we were exhausted. It felt a little like life was getting back to normal other then the fact that Akorren had no school today. The girls in neighbors pink mustang car, Merlova ridding with neighbor boy in red mustang, playing in the cul-de-sac. Akoren was with Zach at the other end of the street on his bike, that is why he is missing from the photos.

Time to go HOME

We woke up early, I did the dishes and some laundry and then worked on getting things packed up to head back down South. We gave good-bye hugs to cousin Lester at about 8:30AM as is he was off to work. The kids just played and played together, now they were acting like they did not want to go home. We put together the linens that Doris & Orlando let us use, and I pulled a few photos of the kids, out of my collection to give to Daniel and the family. After a light lunch/snacks I finally said good-bye to Vanessa and drove by the Lanza home to say another thank you and good-bye. Vanessa by the way did not want us to leave. It was after 12:40 PM by the time I head out to go home.
It took forever to get on the 10 FWY from Fry Road. I decided to take the regular FWY's since things seemed like normal traffic. 10 East to the 610 South then I thought I would skip the 45 FWY, hearing that it was a mess with the Galveston traffic of people trying to get down there. So I took 610 most of the way down to right before the 45 and exited at the 35 South heading to Alvin. We were able to see some of the damage done by Ike on our drive; fallen street lights, sign posts, temporary buildings turned on their sides, the mess from all the fallen trees, billboard signs blown to bits and a few places where walls and homes looked destroyed. My dad called and around 2 PM and was wondering where we were at, he said the 45 FWY was clear so we got back on the FWY and made it home in about 2o minutes. Papa, Lois, and Akorren were happy to greet us and the girls went into get hugs and attention. I spent the rest of the day, checking in with friends and putting our things away, started laundry and such. It was nice to be home. I cooked beef soft tacos for us that night (I ate none) and gave my hard working hubby Glenn a big hug and kiss. He was doing so much these past few days to help other people clean up from the hurricane mess and I missed him. The kids all went to bed snug in their own beds, happy to be home with the whole family. The fence between our house and the neighbors that fell down (see sandbox puddle, yuck), the tree (that I could not stand) in our backyard that fell down, see poor little tree in front of fence that was Akorren's apple tree oops!

Heading Home

Glenn and my dad called me last night and said that the power was on in League City. YAY! So the girls and I are going to head home in a few hours. Vanessa is sad that we are leaving but was glad to have the company and the kids all know more about their primos (cousins) and seem to have a formed a good friendship. They are buddies now, and it means we will have to continue on doing things together MORE OFTEN. We are so grateful to Lester, Vanessa, Christina, Joshua, Doris, Orlando, and Daniel Lanza for all that they have done for us. It was so kind of them to take us in, feed us, and show concern and care for us during this time of evacuation from hurricane Ike. We could not have had such a successful plan if it was not for their support. Muchas Gracias por todos! Now we will look at cleaning up around the house when I get home and looking to set up work / lean up crews with Glenn in the lead and seeing which friends need what. I will be asking for some monetary help from you for a few people in the coming weeks. So please be ready to help with what you can. Thank you.

Time in Katy

Today Lester had to work so Vanessa and I took some time to let the kids play around the house. She did laundry (yes, POWER) and I was able to sneak out for a good 3 mile run. We cleaned up the house, and made plans to go to their local YMCA to take the kids swimming. We thought that would be a good diversion for them. We finally got our things together a little after 1:30 PM and made our way to the Y.
As I was pulling into the parking I saw an ambulance and a sign out front that said "POOL CLOSED". I went to park the car and Vanessa went inside to check out what was going on, she had called earlier to make sure they would be open. I looked in my rear view mirror and noticed that 3 of our 4 little passengers were asleep. By the time Vanessa returned, Joshua too had fallen fast asleep.
What she found out was that a teenager was running around the pool and had slipped (like he told he would) and hit his head badly on the walkway. So that meant no swimming for us this day. We then decided to head over the Lester's parents place to get the food that they were storing for Vanessa and Lester since their power was out. The kids of course woke up as soon as we arrived all wanting to play with Daniel. He had a good fan club.
We stayed for about 1 hour and then went back to Vanessa's place so she could make dinner for the whole family. She was glad to be able to cook. The children ate and tonight was the 1st night in several days that they could stick to our household routine. They ate dinner, had a bath, brushed teeth, then went to bed after a story. It was so nice. The adults ate late and I stayed up way to late that night writing in my journal and checking out what was on the TV. My dad, and then Glenn called around 10:30 PM to let me know that the POWER was on at home. YAY! So I guess I will get things ready in the morning to head on back down to home in League City.
Daniel showing off his set of Bionicles, Merlova with a Bionicle (Lego toy) on her shoulder.