Zoo Boo!

We spent Saturday at the zoo. It was quite a crowd, in addition to me, Rob & Elena, we had Mama Janie & Daddy Ron, two other little girls from church + Mom/Aunt. The little girls are 6 months & 3 months older than Elena.

Here they are lined up to watch the story time - Minnie Mouse, a Butterfly with her wings off & Laney who refused to wear her costume. They all discover the concept of "Trick or Treat" at the zoo. At several locations throughout the zoo there were places where zoo workers were handing out candy. The girls thought that was awesome!

Laney & Mama Janie in the ground hog viewing tube.

Here's Rob & Elena in front of the giraffe enclosure.

Laney didn't make it much longer. She specifically requested to see the bears - which she saw and then promptly crashed. We went ahead and took her to the little pumpkin patch they had at the back and got her a mini-pumpkin, because we'd told her she could have one.

Catching up - The Charity Showcase

I meant to post this last week. The day after the Halloween Party, Kat's band had the Charity Showcase. This was a second annual event - last year the bands in the district raised money to buy a band in another district instruments, this year they raised money for the Red Cross Hurricane Ike fund.

Here's Kat's cluster at the start of the show:
Daddy & Laney in the stands

We caught Kathryn in the stands for a few minutes, she got to spend 13 hours of her Saturday at the stadium between the showcase & the football game that followed.
The following Tuesday was UIL Marching - they got all ones!!! This was the 6th year in a row. They qualified for Area, which was this last Saturday, but unfortunately Kat had a poorly scheduled stomach bug, so she missed it. This coming Saturday is the final game of the season.

Sick Day + Party = Today

I had a second sick day home with a sicky. She looks like she has bronchitis, doesn't she?
She's been better today, the fever was gone after breakfast. We took these in one of her more energetic moods. We had been watching Sesame Street and they were playing "Let's Pretend" and she wanted to be a lion. This is her lion mask that she made at day care a couple of weeks ago.
On to the party. Tonight is Kathryn's Halloween Party - we currently have a backyard full of teenagers. Rob is considering as going as Dark Helmet for Halloween.

And some pics of the decor - the entry to the party:
The witch on the play set
Our dummy swinging from the trees
And our hostess in her super cute costume:

Walking for the Cure

Laney, my work friend, Enis & I walked in the 5K of the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure (Breast Cancer foundation) on Saturday.

Here's Laney as we're staging for the walk
We did well, it took us a total of 2 hours, including at least an hour "staging" which means trying to get through a relatively small entry baloon arch along with 10s of thousands of other folks. Laney actually walked most of the staging route, which I would guess was probably 6 or more city blocks and then she walked (practically had to run to keep pace) another 1/8 of a mile or so later on the route. Heres' me, Enis & Laney 3.1 miles later. Me & the Doodle when we finally found our car - we forgot the cardinal rule of parking garages, always remember where you park!

Our new addition

We took the plnge into new "car" ownership today. Meet our new Saturn Outlook:
It's a seven passenger cross-over, so no more cramped trips to Dallas or borrowing/renting a car to go on vacation
One downside - look at how much garage it takes up! Especially after only having parked sedans in here, this is a little mind blowing.
And the bittersweet, this is the one time that the new Outlook was parked next to my old Saturn, Ruby.
Ruby went home with a new owner today. My best friend, Stina bought her to replace the Ford Explorer that was flooded during Ike (it was parked in Galveston while she was on a cruise). We were talking today and she remembers when I first brought Ruby to Nacogdoches after my parents gave her to me in Dallas. Sniff. That was 10 years and 133,000+ mile ago!

Congrats on 3 years

To Aunt, Katy & Uncle Derrick

Love, Rob, Heather, Kat & Laney

We don't like Ike!

First off, we're fine! We came through great. Our God is an Awesome God! We got our trees trimmed by our friendly neighborhood hurricane, but he was kind enough not to provide us with a sky light or anything similar.

Rob & I stayed up until midnight/1 AM listening to the wind howl and then proceeded to sleep through the rest of the storm. We lost the power sometime after that. When we surveyed the damage on Saturday morning after the winds & rain died down, we had a bunch of downed limbs & tons of leaves, but that was it. We also have a tiny bit of roof damage near our chimney.

The neighborhood came through okay - we lost a lot of fences, had a several LARGE trees come up at the roots, but only one hit a house. We also got to keep our land telephone lines until sometime Sunday afternoon. The folks who live on the neighborhood perimeter got power back Sunday night, those of us on the inside got power back on Monday afternoon. We got the phones back late Monday & never lost our water.

We likened it to camping in the house. We ate off the Coleman propane stove. Had limited light at night. Listened to other people's generators run all night long. Didn't shower for several days at a time.

Unfortunately, friends and family didn't fair so well. No one was hurt, but we know lots of folks who still don't have power. We know a few who had trees fall into their homes or vehicles. We also have friends whose homes and cars were flooded.

You become very thankful for the large things - a whole house, no injuries and for the small things - the folks who got power first & took your frozen foods to keep them frozen.

Life is slowly returning to normal on our side of town, the grocery stores & gas stations are opening. More & more stop lights are working. Each day more people get their power back. Rob went back to work Tuesday, I went back today. School should start again Monday. Hurricane season ends November 1. I can't wait.