Our Vacation and Hurricane Ike

I realize this is long overdue. We went to Padre Island around August 28th for our vacation and on September 9th we were evacuated for Ike. Busy Busy!! First about our vacation. We had such a good time. This was our first time to go somewhere for more than a night with just the three of us. We usually go see family but thought we needed a little family time. Summers are always busy and especially for youth ministers, I think. We had been running crazy and so decided we wanted to go somewhere where we didn't have to do anything touristy. We stayed in a Holiday Inn right on the water and there was an amazing view. There were hardly any people because of the time of year so we enjoyed chasing Aspen around the beach and letting her run wild. We didn't think about how tired we would be from chasing a toddler to the water just before she dove in, but at the end of each day we were sooo ready for bed! Aspen is fearless. She chased seagulls and got upset when we would hold her hand in the deep water. There was one day where Guy, Aspen, and I were sitting on the sand right where the water comes in and we were watching the little clams or whatever they are digging in the sand. There were hundreds of them and so Guy and I picked some up and they would try to suck to our hand. For whatever reason we were fascinated for a really long time and then Aspen decided she would pick some up. Before we knew it she had one in her mouth. Guy calmly asked her to give it to him because we didn't want to startle her and cause her to choke. She just looked at him and started crunching down on the shell. I gasped and then she spit it into Guy's hand. The real disturbing part was that it was in pieces and the clam or meaty part was gone. I yelled out, "GROSS" and she said, "YUMMY"! It was a weird experience! Anyway, the next morning we decided we needed to go do something other than the beach because we didn't want Aspen to get too much sun, so we went to the Texas World Aquarium. This was really awesome and Aspen loved getting to see all of the dolphin shows and different exhibits. Here are a few pics from our trip!

This is the USS Lexington out on the beach

Aspen is obsessed with umbrellas and so at the aquarium we bought her this cute one with animals on it. Guy taught her how to say every creature on her umbrella!

We were laughing so hard because she carried this thing everywhere and it looked like an umbrella with feet!!

She loved the beach!!

This is her running away from us!

Now on to the Hurricane! We luckily did not sustain any water damage but our fence and trees were taken down! We returned to Houston two days after the storm and were in awe at the damage as we drove into Houston. We saw a plane ripped on half in a friends neighborhood. We saw houses flattened and electric poles lying across the freeway. The best way we can describe our experience in this is like that of culture shock. Electricity became a luxury and food was scarce basically until the past few days. One day I had a really bad day because I waited in line for over an hour for gas and then was told that the station had run out! That same night I drove to six gas stations in total darkness because the electricity in the city was out along with stop lights and each time the stations were closed for lack of gas. I also had no milk for Aspen and all stores were closed because they were too destroyed or had no electricity. Needless to say, I had a bit of a freak out that night but things have gotten a lot better since then. Many people lost their homes and it is a sad situation! It is amazing how dependent we are upon modern things. It has been a humbling experience complaining about what we have gone through and then watching others who have it much worse. Continue to pray for those who are homeless!!