We're in San Antonio

Well, we survived hurricane Ike! Our neighborhood was a big mess, lots of trees down, a couple of them hit houses, but all in all we did okay. I took a bunch of photos of our area, but forgot to bring the cord to hook the camera up to download them onto the computer. Many of the areas southeast of us were not so lucky. I'm sure you all have seen pictures online or on the news. A big Chase building downtown lost half of it's windows so they're saying there's paper and computer equipment all over downtown. They estimated abut 40% of the residence in Galveston (the city on the coast where the hurricane hit) decided not to evacuate, which is VERY scary! And most of the areas of Houston and the surrounding are without power.

The power went out early in the a.m. Saturday morning and is still out. It was already so hot in our house without AC that we decided to leave yesterday afternoon. The utililty company is saying it may take upwards of two weeks to get all the power back on. My step-dad's brother and his wife recently bought a big house in San Antonio, which is about 2.5 hours from Houston, and they offered to let us all come and stay. Even doggie Manolo! So we figured rather than suffer in the heat, eating peanut butter and banana sandwiches and canned tuna, it would be better to take the drive and stay here where there's AC and internet!

As we were driving west out of Houston we passed convoy after convoy of vehicles going into Houston to help. There were tons of military vehicles, semis with food and supplies, and other vehicles with generators and equipment to help return the power. We also passed at least 50 empty tour-style buses. I imagine they were going to take people who lost their homes or who wouldn't get power back, to other cities. We had to throw away everything that was in our refrigerator and freezer so it wouldn't rot, and so will everyone else who is still without power.

Once we get our power back and we get back home I'll upload the photos I took. Until then Roman's going to try to do some work and Lila and I will relax. San Antonio has a lot of great things to do as well so hopefully we can have some fun while we are here. Here's a link to some photos from the Houston Chronicle. Thanks to all of you who were thinking about and praying for all of us here!

http://www.chron.com/news/photogallery/Ike_blasts_Houston_Galveston.html