Hurricanes Can Be Scary

I was not worried about Hurricane Ike until it was actually here. We decided to stay at our house since we did not have a mandatory evacuation and the predicted path was northwest. Steve and I were up until the power went out about 11:30. We decided to go to bed then. At that time, the wind had picked up a little but there was no rain yet. Earlier on, we had stepped outside because it was nice and breezy. Tyler really enjoyed the wind blowing on him. He was giggling and having a good ol' time. We were next to a tree and Tyler would try and reach for the leaves. It is so cute. Anyway, winds started picking up more and more as the night went on. It got to a point where we would hear lots of noises and the windows would rattle a little. Since the power was out, we could not stay updated on where Ike was and if it had landed.

I decided to go and sleep in the closet with Tyler and Monty (we have a big closet so there was plenty of room). Steve was not as worried so he enjoyed the bed all to himself, but I was not going to take a chance of having to run around if something came. We had Tyler sleeping in our room for the night anyway, but I did not want to have to worry about it at all, so I stayed on the safe side. I did not think about it until about 3 in the morning, but my phone has internet. I was also texting and talking to my mom who kept me updated. When I was able to see from my phone that we were not in the path of the eye and the winds had calmed down, we went back into bed. I don't think I slept from 3 to 5 in the morning. Tyler slept like normal during the night. Steve and I commented on how funny it was that he had no idea that he experienced his first hurricane.

When we woke up, we assessed the damage. Fortunately, we were in the right place to be because the storm did not hit our area very much at all. Part of our fence was down, as were some others in our neighborhood, but that was about it. There were a couple houses whose roofs had some shingles missing but not much damage at all. Steve fixed the fence the same day (yesterday) and we were set. We went to look at his parent's house since they were out of town and houses we saw on the way were not so lucky. Trees were all over the place, stop lights had fallen in the street, and fences were down everywhere. As long as everyone was safe is all that matters.

Our power came back on about 3:30 pm yesterday so that was about 16 hours without power. It is amazing how much we depend on electricity. We were also very grateful in the fact that we had everything back and running unlike some others who are still without power and water.

What a crazy weekend!

Tyler enjoying the wind