Finally Celebrating Kayla's Birthday

The skating party was canceled due to lack of power at the skating rink. They are expecting to get it sometime soon, but we decided to go ahead and celebrate Kayla's birthday. She invited a few kids from the block, her cousin Bella and friend Morgan. We went to Olive Garden to have dinner. That is Kayla's favorite resturant.

Emma, Kayla, Alexis, Morgan, Bella, Meredith, Collin and Cory

in our front yard

There was a bit of a wait at Olive Garden so we decided to let Kayla open her presents.

Then the kids played some hand slap game. They were having a ball...

We are seated....yeah!

Emma and Alexis
Happy Birthday dear Kayla, Happy Birthday to you!

We are done with Kayla's birthday for this year and she is offically nine years old. She didn't get the skate party that she wanted, but they had a fun time.

Update

Well today is Friday, better known in my house as my favorite day of the week. I have made it through the few days of work and it wasn't all that bad. Things at the house are slowly progressing. We have plastic up in the ceiling of the kitchen and a tarp on the roof. There are workers at our house today putting in a new fence. We will be working on getting estimates for our kitchen soon. Who knows when the insurance company will be getting in contact with us. They said it could be awhile before an adjuster calls us. We will be waiting along with the rest of the greater Houston/Galveston area. The kids do not have school until Monday the 29th, so hopefully I can talk my Mother into coming at watching them.

I think I have said "Thank you, God, Thank you, God" a hundred or more times. It is the small things, like the weather and our power coming back on that make us feel so lucky.

Ike

Well Ike has come and gone and he gave us a big punch. We got power on last night at about 8:00 pm. We have been making it just fine. We were up all night of the storm. Thankfully, our kids slept through everything. Round one went fine, except our shed broke. So we went out during the eye of the storm and picked everything up. Two of our boards on our windows had also fallen off so we put them back up. Our neighbors were there with us in the rain fixing it all. Then came the back side of the storm. It was on the opposite side of our house. We could hear the shingles flying off of our roof. Then the water started pouring into our kitchen. We poked holes in the ceiling and put buckets down. We woke up to fences down....



Our trampoline was crunched by IKE!

Tim and the neighbors put a tarp on our roof to cover the roof up at 8:00 am Saturday morning. Then my first round of cleaning began.

The ceiling in the kitchen didn't hold, it fell in. Unfortunately for me, it fell in on my head. I am ok, but that meant another round of cleaning in the kitchen. Then the rest of it caved in. I was knee deep in sheet rock and insulation. Once again we cleaned the kitchen.

Sunday was Kayla's Birthday and I was so busy with cleaning I forgot to tell her happy birthday. I made her some brownies on Sunday evening and we all sang to her.

All in all we have been fortunate. We do have damage to our house and that is going to be a tough road ahead. However, we have had a generator the whole time and we brought our camper home and have been sleeping with air conditioner each night. We have been running extension cords for the neighbors to plug in their refrigerators. We have been getting together with all of the neighbors in our cul-de-sac for the meals. As of now, we have eaten nine meals as a group. We are so thankful for everyones help. Our neighbors have been helping us through this the entire time.

Today Tim put plastic up inside the kitchen, so hopefully I will not have to sweep and wash down the counters again today. I just found out that I have to go to work tomorrow at noon. I had been thinking that I would have to all day today, but now that I know for sure I am sad. I am not ready to go back. I still have so much to do here at home, but I know it will all get done.

Talk to you all soon and I hope everyone is safe!

Take a hike IKE!

Hurricane Ike is on his way and we have decided to ride it out. We had a horrible evacuation during Rita as did the rest of the people that evacuated. Tim has gotten the house boarded up and we have plenty of food, water and a generator. It is now 3:45 and we are expecting to start getting the winds in a few hours. We are hoping for the best, so say a little prayer for us!

Tim putting up boards

waiting for Ike

We will update again if the power doesn't go out!

Roy and Haley

Congratulations Roy and Haley

My younger brother is getting married. It doesn't seem like he is even old enough, but the truth is that he is. Which in turn means that I am getting older. I am so proud of him and I wish for him a marriage just as successful as Tim and I have.



I look forward to the wedding!

TIGER CUB

Collin has joined Tiger Cubs this year. Tim is going to be a co-leader of his pack. They have had their first meeting and got their group patches to put on their uniforms. Tim took this picture with his cell phone, but I had to post it. Is this not the cutest thing you have ever seen?

I LOVE IT!

Labor Day Camping

Labor day weekend has come and gone. Why is it that when we are off work, time goes by so fast and the work week goes so slow? I guess time flies when you are having fun, and we had some fun. We went to Lake Texana this weekend. We enjoyed the outdoors (although it was very HOT), payed special attention to where Hurricane Gustav was going, hung out with friends, and had plenty of laughs.

Special thank you to all of the wonderful cooks we had the weekend. The food was great. Also, thank you to Jason and Lesa for the redneck slip and slide.

Here are the girls on the slip and slide

The girls waiting in line to be sprayed by Collin

Kayla, Morgan and Bella

Collin hanging out at the Leggio's Camper

Before the games began ---

Keri bringing in the goods

Enjoying a round of Kings!

The cards got beer spilled on them five different times. Sorry Julie, we owe you new cards!

Tim - strike a pose!

For all those who stayed up and sang your heart outs on Sunday night, I never knew we had such great singers in the group. For those of you that went to bed, you missed out on some good singing and sorry we probably kept you up.