Ike pics

Click the link for some more pretty cool Ike pics.

Ike pics

Pray for Galveston and its residents tomorrow as the Island opens back up. I am sure there will be many devastated families.

Dirty Jobs and IKE pics

It was a dirty job, but somebody had to do it: Cleaning the refrigerator.

Power washing fun:

Street full of soggy basment stuff

Newly power-washed, bleached, consolidated and organized basement!!

Our street was full of tree stuff and garbage. Our sidewalk had someone's gate on it.

Cleaned and power-washed...I think the fence is whiter than when we painted it!!

Mosquito Cafe'

Broadway had quite a bit of damaged buildings and century old oaks fallen. Most of the palms are still standing. The remaining oaks didn't like the salt water too much and are turning brown.

Star Furniture still had "50% off everything" signs in the window. I bet you could get this pile of "new" furniture much cheaper now.

The Strand businesses had about 10 feet of water in them. There was tons of garbage in the streets and lots of clean-up crews working hard.

The Seawall definitely took on the most damage:

The Flagship in the distance, is the only standing pier on the East end.

Hooters (formerly Ocean Grill)

Murdoch's and the Mermaid Pier souvenir shops...destroyed.

The Balanise Room

One of the most amazing things to see driving on the Island were the 100's of boats...everywhere!!

This boat is not a decoration in front of Willie G's

These boats are on the I-45 access road by Teichman road.

I had to drive around this boat that was docked on the road.

I think this boat owner hit the throttle a little too hard.

Blessings

Thanks a ton for the prayers.

There are too many blessings to mention. We went to Galveston on Friday and Saturday and cleaned out the basement/garage, power washed (hooray for power washers!!) and bleached the whole thing and took the soggy stuff to the curb (blessing that we did not have to decide what to throw away, IKE decided for us!!). I found five garbage cans in front of our house and right as Meghan was filling the last one to the top, the trash truck came around the corner. He emptied all five in less than a minute (HUGE blessing that the trash trucks are running). I think from now on, we will be as excited as Katelin gets when the trash truck comes. Meghan's dad was kind enough to come down for the day and put in some hard work...thanks Randy!! Our basement is cleaner than before IKE. Now I feel like we have to take our shoes off before walking across the clean floors. I guess it took a storm to make us clean out all of that junk!

There was no damage in the main house other than the stinky fridge. We have running water and actually got power last night (blessing of all blessings!!) and got to sleep in our own bed!! The AC units were under water, so I don't think we will be living there permanently until the AC is fixed, but sleeping there last night at least gave us hope.

You can actually pray for most all of our closest friends that were not as lucky. Most all of our friends lost everything to the water damage. Salt water does horrible things in just hours (I was amazed at the corrosion and rust on some of my new tools.) Most of our friends have not been on the Island to see the damage yet and it has been over a week. They are all going to come home to a stinky mess. Two of our closest friends, John and Erika Anderson, are both students renting a house and without renter's insurance. We went by their house yesterday and most all of their stuff is ruined, their dresser and TV stand were already covered in mold. If that was not enough, they have nowhere to live. It is almost impossible to find a place to live around here now with all of the damage and evacuees. They are going to stay with us until they find a place. I'm sure all of our friends that had any water damage will have difficulty finding a place to live as they go back to work, so you can pray for that. Also pray for the students and residents at UTMB that don't have a hospital to study at for at least another month...maybe even as long as 4-6 months. There are tons of families that are going to be separated and displaced because of this (including ours).

I am humbled by all of the help that is on the Island and I can only see it increasing as more Islanders come home. I was driving down Broadway yesterday and saw a man in the middle of the road holding a sign "Free Ice and Water at CVS"...so I turned into CVS and without getting out of my truck, two ladies came up and said "how many bags?" I told her two and before I could say "thanks," one of the ladies said "tell your neighbors to come by" and were on to the next customer. That simple act of service strangely made my throat swell up and brought tears to my eyes. There are thousands of workers waiting in long lines on the highway to get onto Galveston Island to help those in need. Sounds a little mushy, but it is times like these that make me proud to pay taxes and proud to be an American.

Thanks again for the prayers!!

--Kevin

"vacation"

Unplanned vacations are some of the best we have ever had. This one has been great so far even though it is due to crazy circimstances. We decided to visit friends and family to keep our minds off of the disaster in Galveston. I got tired of watching CNN and Fox News, so we packed up the little we had and headed to West Texas. We stopped in Hamlin and visited our sweet friends Chad and Jennifer White and their precious 5 kiddos and I think they convinced Meg to go for the mini-van!! We then headed to Mema and Pa's in Seagraves. Tye got to meet them for the first time. Yesterday we drove up to Lubbock. My cousin Brian is back from his Iraq tour and we got to see him briefly along with my cousin Branden and uncle Herb and Aunt Renee. We also go to see my cousin Julie and Dell and their sweet kids. They had a little boy Ethan Wyatt a week before Tye was born and got to meet him for the first time...too cute!! Right now we are at Meghan's Granddaddy's letting Tye meet him for the first time. I am on his dial-up computer typing this post. We are planning on heading back to G on Thursday or Friday to see what the house holds for us.

As I write this post, it makes me reflect on things I am thankful for:
Meg
Katelin
Tye
Grandparents
Great-grandparents
Extended family
Sweet friends
West Texas weather (it has been awesome...no humidity and cool nights)
Home grown black-eyed peas, cantaloupe, and watermelon (thanks Mema and Pa!)
DSL.

I will post pics once I get to the connection to my camera and a computer that is accessible.

This whole ordeal reminds me of Jesus calming the storm. With all of the disciples all worried and anxious during the storm, Jesus was sleeping. We all know that Jesus calmed the storm, but he reassured them even before they even left in the boat. Jesus told them that they were going to go to the other side before the boat ever left. I know that Jesus has told us that we will make it to the other side of this storm...it may just take a little faith and time on our part.

Love y'all!!

--Kevin

IKE

Y'all are too sweet. Thanks a ton for the numerous calls and emails. Life has been a little crazy. Meg actually had an interview sest up in San Antonio on Thursday, so she took the kids with her on Thursday and left them with my parents in La Grange Wed night. I had to stay in Galveston and help evacuate the UTMB patients. We got them all out by midnight and I headed to La Grange to be with the fam. We sat all day yesterday and watched Ike bash the seawall just a few blocks from our house. Not sure of the damage at our house, but it makes us remember how material things are so temporary. I am pretty sure I can live without anything in our worldly house, but just curious what is left and how bad the damage is. I am pretty sure our kitchen is going to stink with all of the stuff that was in the fridge (I remember a time in college when my roommate and I left all of our stuff in the dorm fridge over the Christmas break and how hoorible it stank when we cam back for the next semester!!)

Anyways...we were actually thinking about going to West Texas to visit family on an unexpected "vacation" if Galveston was not going to let people back for a few days. We'll let you know if we head your way.

We will post more info and pics as we travel on this new adventure.

Thanks a ton for the prayers of wisdom. We have not experienced homelessness in quite a while.

16 down...10.2 to go!

Meg and I ran 16 miles in Round Rock this past weekend. That is a LONG way, by the way. We got a nice tour of RR, saw the bats returning under the bridge (did not appreciate the smell of bat guano at 7am), saw numerous people preparing for garage sales, and made it back...all before 9:30am!! Much different than Saturday mornings in my not so distant past (waking at the crack of noon, etc.).

We just have two more long runs left 18 and 20 milers!! Our short runs are not so short anymore. This week we had a 4, 8, and 5 miler. Crazy how 16 miles puts things in a different perspective. This weekend we only have to run 12 miles!

Just 6 weeks and 10.2 miles to go!! Keep praying that our knees and motivation keep up with the mileage...

Tye's First...

Tye has had a few firsts over the last month.

He got his first two teeth on the same day a couple of weeks ago. Sorry, no pics (It's hard to get them to come out from that chubby liitle face!!)

Tye also started rolling over...finally! He has not yet mastered rolling back over, so when he wakes up on his tummy and doesn't know what to do, he definitely lets us know about it. Here are some cut pics I caught of him waking up after a nap. It is so strange walking in and seeing him peeking through the slats of the crib. Kind of like a prisoner saying "let me out of here!!", but sounded more like "waaaaaahhh....scream....waaaaahhh!!!" And then we walk in and see this face : ) ...how does such a hoorible noise come out of something so cute??

Tye also ate his first real meal yesterday. He had cereal for the first time and loved it!!! He did much better than Katelin. I tried to get some pics of funny faces, but he wouldn't make any.

Meg actually got a "thumbs up" for her cooking!!