hun·ker [huhng-ker] to hide, hide out, or take shelter (usually fol. by down)

We are alive! I left work about 3:30 Thursday to pick up the kids and when I got home, Matt had been fighting with the boards on the house for awhile. When my parents finished closing up their boat, they came over and my dad helped Matt finish boarding up the house.

We watched the news all evening and reports said they thought we'd start to get hurricane force winds starting 10:00am Friday morning. Friday morning came and went, with nothing. Part of the morning was even sunny and bright! We had brief spots of rain here and there, and lost power before we ever saw any signs of the rain or wind. Let me fast-forward to some good news....the breastmilk stayed frozen!!!! Many thanks for everyone's well wishes on that one. :)

Anyway, we went to bed pretty early Friday night and put Kaylen and Jenson in the livingroom. My parents slept in the study and we slept in our room until about 1am when things started to get loud. Kaylen woke up, but she wasn't scared. She said her ears hurt, but it could have been either the pressure or the loud noise. We made a little nest for her with blankets in our bedroom closet and she ended up going back to sleep after a short time. Jenson woke up, but he went back down as well.

We sat around the battery-operated radio and a candle at our kitchen table while the wind howled around us. Since we lost power earlier that day, we knew the most important thing to do was to finish the chocolate ice cream in the freezer, so we made big bowls and ate ice cream while Ike thrashed our neighborhood.

We could see out a little bit over the tops of the boards in our kitchen windows, and we could see transformers blowing all over the place. They looked like bursts of blue lightening that lit up the sky. We saw trees blowing, of course, and Matt was able to tell that our storage shed had lost its doors. At one point Matt was shining his flashlight across the yard and saw someone flash theirs back.

We finally fell asleep, i'm not sure what time. The next morning when we went outside, it was still raining, but it was just a fine mist. We walked around the neighborhood and it looked like something out of Dawn of the Dead. It was like a ghost town, trees fallen everywhere, fences all over the place, and a few people here and there wandering around in shocked silence. The water in the streets was high and covered the sidewalks in parts, but nothing was close to the homes.

I know we were so lucky to have escaped with the minor damage we had. So many people lost so much more. We lost all 3 sides of our back fence and our storage shed was obliterated. The junk inside it was untouched, though. We had small tree limbs, brush, and leaves in our yard, but that was about it for us. Some of our neighbors had water damage from water leaking in their houses.

The next few days we roughed it with no power, but our neighbor had a generator and he shared an outlet with us and his other neighbor. We put our deep freezer on an extension cord and he rotated us out so we could both keep stuff cool. He turned it off at night, so it was tough for the freezer to keep up and we grilled everything as it softened. The breastmilk was safely nestled between 100 lbs of ice.

One of the fun ways we entertained ourselves for an evening was to drink every time we heard someone say "hunker down". It is funny how it was everyone's favorite phrase this weekend. Dictionary.com has another phrase, "on one's hunkers - suffering a period of poverty, bad luck, or the like." and I think i'll start using that. People may look at me funny, but i'm tired of "hunker down".

Lines for gasoline are over 2 hours long, there are a few grocery stores open, and many are still without power. We got our power back last night (Monday evening) after dinner.

I came in to work today and brought Jenson with me. Kaylen stayed home with Matt. Our office building lost its roof and had severe rain damage to the 3rd and 2nd floors. On the first floor, several suites flooded, but of course ours is untouched because we are an inner suite with no outer walls. Of course. So here we are. "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night..." We're like the USPS.

My parents boat is fine, and seems untouched. There is some incredible damage to a lot of property, but we haven't heard reports on loss of life. We drove out to Seabrook and took pictures on the way of boats in the streets, flooding, power lines down, etc. I will post all of our pictures as soon as we get internet back at home.

Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together...mass hysteria!

The kids are at their babysitter Susan's house right now, and Matt is going in to work for a couple hours. My parents are boarding up their boat and heading out. Obviously they are in a mandatory evac zone. They are waiting for us to decide if we're staying or going because we are their first evacuation destination.

Matt is going to board up when he leaves work around lunchtime. People are in serious mass hysteria. I got gas last night, and as early as 6am this morning gas stations were out of unleaded and lines were 4 cars deep. I haven't purchased water or anything like that because we don't know what we're doing. I'm sure I'll regret putting that off.

It looks like we're going to get some serious rain and wind, regardless of where Ike makes landfall. Our biggest worry is losing power. I have 30 bottles of frozen breastmilk in the deep freezer, and I will be beyond devastated if we lose power and have to throw it all out. That was not easy to stock up on.

Do I care about my house? Our things? Our cars? No. My worry....breastmilk.

UPDATE: 10:46AM We have decided to stay and ride it out. Mom and Dad are coming over.

Hurricane Ike

We're pretty undecided on what we're going to do in the next 24 hours. We live in Brazoria county, and our zip code is in Evacuation Zone C.

All of the schools around us are closed tomorrow and Friday. We will probably take Kaylen to her babysitter's so that we can both still go to work, but Matt thinks that NASA will let them off at noon tomorrow. If that's the case, he's probably going to come home and take care of boarding up the house.

The question is, do we stay and ride it out, or do we drive to either Dallas or to Lubbock to stay with in-laws? We can't decide what to do, but we'll probably be able to make a decision tomorrow. As for now, we've filled up with gas, but that's about it! No provisions.

We are both a bit skeptical that Ike will come to Houston. Everything we read says it could strengthen....or weaken. And it could hit Houston....or South....or North. So basically we know nothing.