This Week in Ormsonville

We've had an exciting week here in Houston. Okay, I guess that's not exactly true, but we had a lot of fun at least!

Even though Teik is the baby brother, his bully side came out this week as he wrestled Sevy down. He felt bad after awhile and tried to console her tears.
Sevy thought it would be fun to have a slumber party with Teik and was a good mommy by covering him with her blanket and then trying to snuggle with him. He didn't know what was going on and just stared at us for help!

While we were getting ready to head out on Saturday, I stuck him in the highchair and he was loving that. He cracks me up by randomly laughing at his own secret inside joke. He was officially 3 months old so maybe that's what he was so excited about.
Never will a 2 year old seem so big until you stick them side by side with a 3 month old. Teik is a big kid, and looks like a little mini-me next to Sevy. She just LOVES him though!

Candice-these are for you. Apparently to Jon, I've started looking like Nanny McPhee. I didn't know if I should take that as a compliment . . . It's probably a good thing Jon's going to be a dentist!

And now poor Teik's teeth are coming in a little Matorish-like. He even is getting the "shifty" eyes. I don't know if this should concern me or not . . .

We found free tickets to the Children's Museum of Houston for Saturday. Sevy and I were going to make it a girl's day out since Jon had to get his car looked at, but the Midas people were going to take longer than expected, so it turned to a family outing! We were thankful to have Teik's carrier in the car (one of these days we'll get a decent one), and monkey backpack, because we had no strollers with us. It turned out way fun for free. Sevy loved climbing in all the cars they had. It really wasn't too little kid friendly, but we lasted just over an hour and were out of their anyway. We take advantage of the free days at the museums around town because the temperment of a 2 year old is iffy! The zoo is definetely worth the membership, and with free parking, I don't feel bad about taking the kids their for only an hour before it gets too hot, and I get too cranky! It's fun being here with so many opportunities to check out with the kids.

And We're Back!

We thought we'd just update on our life. As everyone knows, Ike hit and we were in Dallas (thankfully!). We came back to Houston last Monday and as luck would have it, our car decided that this would be the day to give up the ghost (battery). So, we bought a new battery and jumper cables while everyone else was buying water and gas. We made it home and had no power, but we did have water, so life really could have been worse! Our house survived with barely a scratch! We were lucky to have friends that offered their apartment to us while they bailed town, and we thankfully accepted! Power came back Wednesday night sometime, so Thursday we moved back home. As luck would have it, we weren't even home an hour when Sevy decided to stick a metal baby spoon in a socket and blew the fuse. Of course it was the fuse to our refrigerator, because what else could go wrong! She was lucky that the spoon had a plastic end, because that would have given her quite a shock! We still didn't have internet until today, so this is why I'm so behind! We really are lucky though because there are still a lot of people without power or with major damage done to their homes.

This is one of the main reasons we bailed town. This is Sevy sweating at like 9am. My kiddos sweat something fierce and we knew we would lose power and I feared both my kids would melt if we stayed.

This is the neighborhood across the street from us. Check out the waving fences.

This house is just a few houses down from ours. Their back fence did not make it at all.

This house is across the street from us. Most the trees in Houston and Pearland look like this. The most common downed trees are huge, which is probably why so many people are still without power. Trees probably did the most damage to power lines. The other freaky thing was billboards. Huge metal ones were twisted and on buildings and apartments. I wish I got a picture of that.

This is Sevy's BFF. The Polls joined us at the Martin's house because they too did not have power and she is due like any day. We ended up with 8 people in a fairly small 2 bedroom apartment, but we had power and A/C so no complaints!

Sevy played herself ragged at Aunt Judy's house in Dallas. She and Taylor (they are 2nd cousins) played non-stop for like 3 days straight! Thanks to Taylor, Sevy has some sweet toys!

Here is the spoon, outlet, and nightlight Sevy decided to destroy. She did a good job at it. We haven't tried using that outlet again--is it safe to with char marks on it like that, or should we just avoid it from here on out?

This is Sevy being a great big sister to Teikerton. It's a rare moment to get the two of them sitting together and happy. These next three pictures are mainly for my mom. Teik is smiling more and more and giggles now too! It's so funny and he just brightens my day with one of his big toothless dimply grins!

Update

Post Ike, I'm happy to say our house made it in flying colors. I'll post pictures one day of what happened to our neighborhood and the neighborhood across the way, and it was like our house was not touched!  We have running water, which is more than most, but we do not have power, and according to the power company's website, we probably won't get power until after next Monday.  Rock on.  Jon's school was canceled for a week, so we are staying at his classmate's house who went to DC for the week.  We are "housesitting" their apartment for them, which is our way of saying that we are staying at their place because they have power!  We are so thankful for them!  We finally found internet (another lost luxury) at Schlotzky's, so we may try to visit here maybe more often until we get something.  Anyhoo-we are good and thank everyone for their prayers in our behalf! Now if everyone could pray that we might get power soon, we'll be in business!

Our Hurricane Highlight

We sat and watched the weather channel all night to find out what was happening in Houston. The highlight of the whole event,

when during the Beaumont update, a streaker made his television debut! I don't know how to put video on my blog from youtube

(yeah, I'm technologically challenged) but here is the link. It was even better watching it live!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPCetg-uNHk

Our friends that stayed told us that they lost power last night at like 6pm and that as of this morning, their fence was down, and

some water got in their house, but no flooding. This is making us hopeful. I'm hoping we can get down there soon to find out

how our house made out. We'll keep ya posted on when we can head back and when we get the power back to actually update.

Hurricane Ike

Just so everyone knows, we have evacuated Houston to hopefully avoid much of Ike.  We are staying at Jon's Aunt Judy's house and are so thankful to have her willing to take our family in!  Please keep us and our friends and our home in your prayers because frankly--Texas weather sucks!  I hate worrying about all of this.  We weren't in a mandatory evacuation, but we didn't want to wait until the last minute if they did evacuate us, or deal with power loss with the Houston humidity and two overly sweaty kids.  We'll keep ya posted!

BFF's

For those of you who don't know, when we got here to Houston, we learned that we did not belong to any ward. Oh no! We belonged to the teeny tiny Sunnyside Branch. This branch has about 30-34 people each Sunday, and yes, my little family counts as 4 of those numbers. Well, young families are slim pickings (meaning there are like 3 of us) but miraculously, there are the Polls who have a daughter McKenzie who is like a week younger than Sevy. This would just be a nice coincidence if the kids were just okay with each other, but this turned out to be perfect because these girlies turned into best friends the first time they met. They can play for hours and the only time tears errupt is when it's time to go home. They balance each other out and are just hilarious to watch. Our branch's boundries are huge and yet miraculously again, the Polls live in the neighborhood across from ours. Those girls play so quietly together, except at church where they like to laugh really loud or randomly break out in song! We are very happy to have such a great little friend for Sevy, but of course they are moving next year back to Utah. Of all the luck.

Hurricane Gustav

We finally managed to escape Tornado Alley just to land ourselves in hurricane country. Go figure. This weekend we had the excitement of waiting to learn if Gustav was heading in our direction. We waited for the word of evacuation and kept a steady eye on the weather channel. I was freaking out, but I really do think it was for the best. The church has been telling us forever about food storage and 72 hour kits. Jon and I always talked about putting at least a kit together, but never did it until this weekend! Packing a kit that is kid friendly is interesting. I think 3 days would be our limit! We hit up Sam's and grabbed granola bars, Slimfast, fruit snacks, jerkey, water, gatorade, and other random snacks that if we had to hit the road with the other 3 million people we share this town with, we could keep Sevy content! I had a bag packed, a box of diapers ready, and the best first aid kit you have ever seen! We were overly thankful that in the end, we were going to be fine! In fact, when I woke up this morning, I was expecting at least a horrible wind and rain storm, only to find blue skies! It's been breezy and beautiful! At least we are now prepared for the rest of hurricane season!