And yet another update...

We are in Houma now with all our power and conveniences (internet and cable). School is supposed to start on Monday but we also have Ike out in the Gulf trying to decide who to visit. He's knocking but we're not letting him in. He is not welcome in our town but you know how unwelcome visitors can be...SO we are watching the storm and hoping it stays south and west. I'm tired of all this getting up and going and evacuating and all that. Lets get on with winter already...did I just say that?

Update

Well we are back in Houma with electricity but without cable and internet. Our neighbor, Mark, across the street has it all so we came over to his house to mooch his cable and internet for a while. Mark is a respiratory therapist at the hospital Jaime works at. He and Jaime play tennis and hang out sometimes. He is a nice guy who has lived in this area his whole life.

Houma looks to be getting back into shape. We have a little tent city in the Dairy Queen parking lot where the support crews are stationed. We have people from all over helping out down here. As it stands it looks like Julian will be back to school on Monday as long as nothing stands in the way. It looks like Ike is going to go south and pummel TX or Mexico or both. We are hoping it stays on that projected path because another week away is just more money out of the pocket. Jaime is still unsure about when he is going to be starting back up so we are all just sort of waiting around for something to happen. It is hotter than then hinges of hell and our dumpster is overflowing and stinky with all that old freezer meat in there fermenting in the sun.

Anyone want to visit? Haha

Update

me


First of all in the top picture we have Julian and his OK cousins in the tree in his grandparent's front yard. We have Julian, Jada, Aryan, Michael, Gabriel, and Daniel. In the second picture we have Isabella aka: Chunky Monkey. She is one of our friends from Nevis who are now living in OKC. We went to the zoo with them. The other picture is of Julian and Kaleigha (Chunky Monkey's sister) at the zoo.

Since we have been in OK we have done a lot of fun things. Our first weekend was spent catching up. The guys played golf and the girls got pedicures. It was fun for Sandy (Lance's wife) and Mercedes (their 5 year old daughter) went off one evening and got our nails done. They really got a kick out of Mercedes who is a laugh and a half. She is very funny and never stops talking. But during her trip to the "spa" she was very quiet.

On Sunday afternoon Lance's sister Sabrina called to see if Julian wanted to go to the rodeo with them. He decided to go since there would be more boys in that group than at our group here at home. He had a great time watching barrel racing, bull riding, and other rodeo stuff. He did a calf scramble with all the other kids and they ate lots of rodeo food (cotton candy, popcorn, and nachos). It was nice for him to get out of the house doing something fun.

On Monday Jaime and Julian and I drove into Oklahoma City where we met up with Bombay and the Battencourt family. They were all people we met in Nevis. The Battencourts have three kids now and we headed out to the zoo for the afternoon. Jaime went with Bombay to check out the hospital while the rest of us went to the zoo. The OKC zoo is really nice. We got to get in for free as Amber's "family" on her family pass. Kaleigha was snapping pictures for a photo contest she is entering. She got a lot of good shots of grizzlies as they were playing in the water. After we left the zoo we went back to Amber's house and got updates on the hurricane, then went to dinner with Amber's family and Bombay.

Tuesday and Wednesday we didn't do much as far as I can remember. We visited Jaime's father and brothers and some of their kids. It was good to see all of them and see how big the kids have gotten. The weather on Wednesday got really windy and cool most likely remnants of our friend Gustav.

Thursday we went back to the city to go to the Omniplex which is a science museum there. It was a good place to bring Julian. It was all hands on activites and there was also a show that we got to see which was all about explosions and fire. That was really neat. We all had a great time there. Then we went to Bricktown which is similar to Lodo in Denver. It has lots of shops and restaurants with a little man made canal with a walking trail that winds around the edge of that area of town. It was a good day in the city.

Friday night we went up to Mooreland for the first Sayre Eagles High School football game. That was really fun. Lance's brother Quintan is on the team and another friend Tyler who is living with Lance's family for his last year of high school because his family moved out of town and it was too long to commute. Anyway, it was very cold. We had to go to Walmart to get sweatshirts because we didn't bring our freezing cold gear. The game was fun. The team they played HAD been undefeated at home for the past couple of years...until that game. Sayre played well and the score at the end was 29-8 Sayre on top.

So today we are trying to decide what our next step back to normalcy is going to be. Wish us luck!

Gustav

On Friday the 29th of August we left our house to escape the wrath of Gustav. It was still up in the air where the thing was going to hit but we decided that since we had a long weekend anyway we would go visit his friend Lance and their family and that way we wouldn't have to attempt to find a hotel somewhere and pay for many nights of hotel stay. So we headed out and came to Sayre, OK. We have been here even since...it has now been 8 days. Our area was hit hard and word has not been good up to this point. We had been hearing that the electricity would be out for weeks. As it stands school is closed until further notice. We did just hear that our house is ok. Our landlord just got into town and checked out our house. She told us good news and that things are ok in our unit. We do know that the end units had damage and took on water but we are happy to hear that our unit is ok. Also, Rocky, Julian's Betta fish is still swimming around too. I had Gwen (the landlord) put another extended feeder pellet in his tank and hopefully we can go back soon and take care of him properly. Poor little guy has been all alone in the dark in there. The electricity across the street is on so we are keeping our fingers crossed that ours will be up and running soon. Now we have to decide what our next step is going to be in getting back home. I sure have missed my bed.

Happy Birthday Julian

Julian's 10th birthday recently passed by. He did not really have a party this year but he got lots of presents and went out to dinner at the Outback. Jaime downloaded the Star Wars Clone Wars movie and they watched it together after our festivities. He had a marble cake which I slaved over all day. His celebration started out with a scavenger hunt which began right after school. I put his first clue in his lunch box so he could start thinking about it during the day. When he came home he had lots of ballons and clues to search out and at the end of the scavenger hunt he found his presents.