Hurricane Ike

Ike came ashore on September 12th. That Friday the girls were out of school so we decided to go to the park since we would be stuck at the house for the following 24 hours due to Ike's arrival. We had a wonderful time. The weather was great... during the day.

Here are the girls feeding the ducks at Northshore park.

Harrison was helping feed them, but everytime the ducks got a little food from him he would take off running. And Cole was only interested in swinging. He did not want anything to do with the ducks. He asked for some bread and ate it himself.

It was pretty watching the outer bands make their way to us. As the sun was setting bans of clouds started rolling in. Brandon and I talked about Pop (Les) and how much he would have loved being there watching this storm roll in. He loved to watch "weather." All the of neighbors were out watching the clouds and socializing. And all the kids in the cul-du-sac had a blast running around playing flashlight tag. We all knew what was in store for us but the beginning was beautiful.
After the sun set the clouds came faster and faster. We came inside around 9:30 and gave the kids a good bath (they were sooooo dirty.) About 30 minutes after we put them to bed (in our room) the winds really started to pick up. Cole and Brandon slept through the night as if nothing were happening. Samantha and I on the other hand didn't get much sleep. The lights went out around 1:30am and the wind whipped and howled for 15 hours. The eye wall passed over around 7:00am. By that time Cole and Brandon were up and that is when Samantha and I finally got a little sleep.
We were very lucky.... no damage. After Brandon spent the day at the house he was going stir crazy so we went to check on Brad and Bethany around 6pm. We found them safe and sound in their house with no damage too.