spider update

so, i named the spider, lyle. he's kind of scary looking but ultimately good for something. i've been turning on the backyard light for a couple of hours to help him catch some bugs in his web. he currently has 2 wrapped up bugs. i saw him munching on one this morning when i woke up. he's been working on his web- its about twice this size it was thursday morning. when chris gets home this evening, i'll take some more pix and post them. (chris has the camera- that is why i have to wait for him to get home.)

ike update from mom

i got an email from my mom- as of 5pm today they have electricity.

ike update from mom

still no electricity.

spider

this is not a halloween decoration. this is on our bedroom door. i think i will be sleeping in the guest bedroom until chris gets home.

ike update from mom

they are still without electricity.

debate night at the alamo

debate night- live at the alamo drafthouse south lamar. i wonder if this will go on or not? i kind of want to go. i wish chris wasn't out of town. am i lame if i go by myself?

lego taj mahal

this reminds me that sometimes legos are more for adults than kids.

ike update from aunt

i got an email from my aunt yesterday with some pix of her house in galveston. looks like it will be okay! there is no damage on the outside. there was water in the basement area that might have affected her duct work. we thought there might have been some roof damage after looking at some aerial photography but there isn't any. she doesn't know if the water rose enough to get into the first floor. her house is built up a few feet so if there was water, maybe a foot or less or none at all. i know she was relieved to see pix.

on another note, i read on a friend's blog that hisd (houston school district) is suspended indefinitely. that sounds so weird!

ike update from mom

i talked to mom this morning for the morning ike update. i think my parents are doing ok. sounds like they are hanging out with the neighbors a little more. since they have a generator my mom has been washing clothes and hanging them out to dry. she is guessing they will have power by the beginning of next week. i can imagine it does get a little boring- especially at night. even though they had to wait about 30 minutes to get gas, they were able to fill up my dad's car and extra cans of gas for the generator. the grocery stores are open and so are most restaurants. things are slowly getting back to normal. i got a voicemail from my aunt. she sounded really tired and frustrated. we think her house in galveston sustained some wind damage to the roof but was spared from first floor flooding. she has not been able to see it for herself and i know that is wearing her down. fortunately the weather has been really nice since the storm so i think that is helping to keep people calm. our a/c has been off for the whole week! it has been nice sleeping with the windows open. i know this won't last forever though- i'm sure that next week we will have temps close to 100. i will enjoy it while we have it!

ike update

my brother emailed me an aerial photo of galveston that was taken either sattrday or sunday. looks like my aunt's house will be okay after some repairs are made. there appears to be some shingles that are blown off and i'm sure there was some flooding. the house still stands, even though the 2 houses catty-corner on the next block burned. across the street from those burned houses is where a house burned down during rita. i would stay away from that corner during all storms!! it is an evil corner ruled by the fires of satan himself.

video from helicopter in galveston

houston population

wow- i got kind of curious about the population of the houston metro area. if houston was a state, it would be the 23rd most populous state.

houston
states

ike update from dad #2

dad called this morning about 9am to say they made it through the night just fine. they had to wake up about 2:30am to fill up the generator. they didn't have to add too much gas this morning so he was feeling hopeful about the gas consumption. he also said that they had some thunderstorms roll through because of a cool front. he said the weather was cooler this morning and drier and that will make a big difference. my sister's family was able to go to a friend's house that already has power restored. still no word on my aunt's house in galveston. i saw a quick shot of st mary's church on the news. this church is a couple of blocks away from her house. the water appeared to be ankle deep at the street level. i have a feeling that maybe her house was spared from the water but we have no idea about any wind damage.

ike update from dad

just got off the phone with my dad. the connection wasn't very good- he dropped out 3 or 4 times. the local fire dept came by to clear the pine tree and street light of out of the road and also got their driveway mostly clear. he said my aunt is doing fine at the houston apartment but still doesn't know anything about her house in galveston.

Hurricane Ike Weatherman Blown Away

i kind of laughed a little when this happened.

Geraldo Rivera gets Ho slapped by Hurricane Ike

this never gets old, although, i can't get the image of geraldo taking a lickin' out of my head. gross!

The Weather Channel, Streaker in Background During Ike

omg! this cracks me up! i love bad storms and rednecks!

12 of 12

just posted my 12 of 12 pix for september. hmmm. . . i wonder what the top story is?

houston

yet another reason why i will never move back to houston.

ike

hey mom and dad, i just the path of ike. i'll go clean up the guest bedroom. . .

red vs blue

to me, this is the difference between republican and democrat this time around.

post vacation blues

this past week at work was long even though it was only a 4 day week. i had the post vacation blues. on wednesday we went to stubb's bbq to see the toadies play. i love that band. i had a great time and drank just 1 beer too many. i went into work 2 hours late on thursday. even though i didn't feel all that bad the day still felt long. even though it is still really hot here i am making the transition from summer to fall. we could still go swimming if we wanted to but football is starting up, i'm starting to think about halloween, what to do in the yard, how to finish up some home projects. i went geocaching on saturday. it was pretty hot but i'm ready to start finding some caches again. i logged 2 finds- not very impressive but i went to a park i had never been to before.

i'm looking forward to checking out the rockin' 354 democratic family picnic at our neighborhood park. i'm taking the camera so i will post some pix later. our local democratic representives will be on hand to field any questions we might have. there will be live music and food. i like the democrats because they know how to have a throwdown. in the end, that's all that really matters anyway. right?

vacation- the day after

all the laundry is clean. the house is clean. we are all unpacked. all the pics are uploaded. the blog caught up.

i guess it is time to go to the grocery store. :(

vacation day 9

today we woke up at 7am. we had just enough time to take a shower, get dressed, drink a cup of coffee and say goodbye. i was sad to leave but i am also ready to get back home. we dropped off the rental car, got into the airport, got our bags checked, went through security and then we were in the air. after a quick layover in phoenix, we landed in austin about 3:45pm (central time). we grabbed our bags and got to the car. it started up with no problem! last time we went somewhere and left the car at the airport, the battery died. it rained a little on the drive home. jessica and taylor brought daisy over so she was there when we got home. i was so happy to see her! i think she was happy to see us. chris always does a great job of getting us unpacked. we actually managed to get all the clothes washed and dried! we went through all of our junk mail and paid some bills.

this was a fun vacation. we got to do a little bit of everything. even though there were some stressful times (chris losing his ring, getting lost in salt lake city. . .) we had lots of time to relax and enjoy the scenery. we had a lot of fun hanging out with will and katie. (will is chris's cousin). i got to see a whole section of the country i had never seen before. chris got to visit some of his childhood. all in all, we had great time.

vacation day 8 pix

harry's little feet

vacation day 8

alright- this is the last full day of vacation.

we all slept in until about 9am. it was tough sharing one bathroom for 4 adults and a baby but we all managed to get showered and dressed and packed up by 11am. we checked out of the cottage and hit the road.

will and katie followed us to promontory, utah to the golden spike national park. this was where the final railroad spike was driven into the ground that connected the first railway from the eastern half of the u.s. to the western half. wow- it is out in the middle of nowhere!!! the only other thing around there was a top secret looking rocket test range. golden spike n.p. has a smallish vistor's center. outside of the building is the original track with 2 replica train engines. there are a handful of actors dressed in costume that re-enact all the speeches and the ceremony of driving in the last spike. i thought they did a pretty good job. i really did try to imagine what a big deal this was back in 1869. this railroad allowed people to cross the u.s. in 2 weeks. now it only take a few hours by air travel! or, nanoseconds by email! we were at the park for a couple of hours. i picked up a benchmark pin and smooshed a penny.

we got back on the road and stopped in ogden to eat. we made another stop in kaysville at katie's parent's house. we watched the rest of the utah/ michigan game and picked up the dog. another 30 minute drive and we were back at will and katie's house in salt lake city. we didn't do too much- we just hung out and chatted. chris and i knew we had to get up early to get to the airport so we really just wanted to relax.

vacation day 7 pix

view from our hotel room. i thought the screen effect looked pretty cool.

sometimes you really can't ever go home again.

jackson hole valley behind chris

view of the teton mountains from idaho

teton dam break museum

vacation day 7

we slept in this morning since we stayed up late doing laundry and watching tv and repacking. we had our last michael phelps breakfast. i think we piled the food on a little more this morning because we know we won't have it this good for a looooong time! we got checked out of the hotel, loaded up the car and got on the road.

we made a quick stop in wilson, wyoming. this is where chris lived in 6th and 7th grade. it looked the house he lived in has been recently demo'ed to make way for new construction. chris was shocked at the number of new houses he saw. the garage where he lived was still there. the elementary school that tony went to is in the process of being converted into a community center/ city building. the general store was still there but was no longer the general store.

after a quick pass through wilson, we wound our way up the mountain pass. we pulled over and stopped at the scenic overlook and took some pictures of the jackson hole valley. i never get tired of looking at it! from there we drove into idaho. we got to see the teton mountain range from the other side. still beautiful! we drove through several idaho towns and stopped in rexburg. i swear, napolean dynamite was filmed there. i looked it up when we got home and it wasn't but it looks just like the movie. anyhoo- we stopped in rexburg because that is where chris was born. we went through the rexburg museum. the main feature was the teton dam break in 1976. chris doesn't remember it but he had relatives that were affected and also helped with the cleanup. from rexburg we drove on to lava hot springs. well, we did make a stop in pocatello. hmmmm. .. i know there are a lot of trashy towns in texas but pocatello is about has bad as it gets. i will leave it at that.

we met up with will and katie at our little cottage in lava hot springs. we unloaded the car, changed into swim suits and hit the town. by hitting the town, that means we drove down the street to the tube rental place. chris, will and i tubed down the portneuf river. i was expecting a lazy river ride. this had rapids and waterfalls! we were having a great time until chris flipped over backwards, scraped his back and lost his wedding ring. his back was mostly okay but he was pretty mad and upset about losing his ring. we tried to find it but the current was too strong. that put a real damper on things. we got out of the river. will got the car and we drove the tubes back to the rental place and met up with katie at the pool. the pool was fun. chris and will had fun on the water slides and will jumped off one of the platform diving boards. we left around 7pm and went back to the cottage to change into clothes. we walked down the street and grabbed some burgers and some misc items at the grocery store. we went back to the cottage and hung out in courtyard next to the little fire pit. we made s'mores and talked and looked up at the milky way until we ran out of fire wood.

there really aren't any pix of lava hot springs because most of what we did was in or near water. also, chris was really, really bummed out after he lost his ring. he tried to have a good time but i know deep down he was feeling bad.