A Big Sigh of Relief!

Well, last night was definitely one of the scariest nights of my life! We lost power around midnight and it was just soooo dark accept for the flashes of green lightning and blue flashes from transformers blowing. It got REALLY scary around 3 a.m. I have to be honest, I just sat on the couch in the dark and hugged my pillow and cried. The wind was unbelievable! It sounded like there were people outside screaming, but it was just the wind. It was like a high pitched screaming deep rumbing sound...kind of hard to describe. The worst part was when it picked up our trampoline and threw it into the fence! SLAM! I was so scared that the wind was going to blow it into our neighbors house and it would hurt someone. I pleaded with Heavenly Father to not let it blow away and cause any damage and of course apologized for being too dumb to not take it apart and bring it in the garage in the first place. Then it got lodged between the side of our house and the fence and every time the wind would blow it would slam into the side of our house. Michael was so brave and went out in the middle of the hurricane and tied it down. He was absolutely drenched when he came back in and made the comment that it wasn't like standing under the shower, it was like standing under the faucet! It was hard to breath because the wind was so strong and almost impossible to see from the rain bands. He's my hero, that's for sure. We took hour long shifts staying awake to make sure one of us would hear my cell phone go off for alerts since we were on tornado watch. The kids woke up crying around 4:30 a.m. so I went and stayed with them to try to calm them down and ended up falling asleep. Michael stayed up the rest of the time and let me sleep. Bless his heart!

Here's a picture of our smashed up trampoline and the nice little hole in the fence. The green rope is where Michael tied it down.

When the sun came up and I could see outside I saw that the damage really wasn't as bad as I was imagining in my head while I was listening to the wind howl and scream. There are tons of trees down everywhere, fences that have been blown away, and lots of roof damage. Our Bishop and his family had their roof collapse on their house last night, but it sounds like they are okay. That's the worst of the damage from our neighborhoods that I've heard of. I haven't heard much from Galveston and the coastal areas yet because they haven't been able to really get out there yet. It's still underwater.
This is a house across the street with some roof damage...I saved some of the shingles that were on the ground for mementos.

A billboard down the street...I'm actually quite happy this billboard is gone. It was a half naked blond bimbo drinking a martini.

All in all, I must say I am pretty pleased with the way things went. I'm so glad we had the generator!It really made all the difference. We had the window unit air conditioner going so we were very comfortable inside. We had food from a nice cold fridge and freezer, water and the kids watched movies on the TV....really, it wasn't too bad at all. Our generator and air conditioner

We consider ourselves very, very blessed because I know so many people are still without power, people with 6 feet of water in their homes, people who have lost loved ones, people without food or water and people who have lost everything they have.

Oh, on a good note, the people from the barge that I told you about in my last post all made it through the storm okay! I keep hearing these amazing stories of rescues by the coast guard. There was a 16 year old boy who was swept out to sea yesterday evening. He spent all night out at sea and was found and rescued this morning. I love hearing about miracles like this! I hope to hear many more stories like this.

Well, I am absolutely exhausted. I think I'll go to bed now. We have a busy day tomorrow. After we have a little sacrament meeting our ward is all going out to help people who have been affected by the storm. I think it will be a really neat experience! Thanks again to all of you for your prayers, and to those who offered to take us in!!!