We've got power!

A beautiful sight -- lights! And with it, TV, dishwasher, regular refrigeration, the ability to vaccum, and . . . AIR CONDITIONING!!

Oh, and privacy. Here's how we spent the power outage, with all six of us sleeping in our bedroom (keeping cool with a window unit plugged into an extension cord that ran across the street to a neighbor's house that had power).

All in all, our first hurricane was not a horrible experience for us. We were so lucky this happened in September, not August, and that we even got a cool front. (As someone said -- What is the difference between Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Ike? 10 degrees.) We also met many neighbors and really enjoyed getting to know them (particularly our neighbor Hilda, who opened up her washing machine to our puke-laden sheets!). But now that we've had the experience, I'm happy to wait at least another few decades for another one.

What's worse than being without power for 13 days?

Sleeping in the same room with all four of your kids AND one wets the bed AND another throws up three times during the night AND your husband is out of town so you are alone AND you are without power and thus no lights to clean up the puke. That's worse.

"Do Not Travel to Houston"

We spent the last Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in Henrietta at GranSan and Grandad's house. We made our yearly trek to participate in Pioneer Reunion. This year Grandad was the Pioneer Association President, which meant that the whole family -- all EIGHT of us, including the grandparents -- got to ride in a very small convertible through the parade. But the boys loved waving at the crowd, loved watching the parade, and loved the rodeo. So all in all a worthwhile trip. We would post pictures, but still have no internet access at home. Which brings me to the title of this post. We headed home Sunday morning and around about Fort Worth saw the message on one of those TxDOT electronic signs they have along the interstate now: "DO NOT TRAVEL TO HOUSTON OR BEAUMONT. HURRICANE DAMAGE." That did make us question the wisdom of our plan to return, but both Cort and I needed to get back to work. Things are mostly the same as when we left. The first thing I noticed is all the debris that is piled up on the side of the streets has turned brown. There are also more stores, etc. open -- I had no problem finding milk, which was a good thing since I had to take all four kids by myself to hunt for some. We still have no power, but we now have some fans and even a window A/C unit -- all six of us are sleeping in the master bedroom, cozy but comfortable.

Ike

Here are some amazing pictures of Ike's aftermath. Luckily, we fared much better than this, although some of these pictures are awfully close to home. Still no power either.

We made it!

The whole Maddux family has now officially weathered our first hurricane, and we can say that it was quite an experience. Luckily, we suffered nothing worse than broken limbs and some damage to our gutters. There are many large trees down in our neighborhood though, and our next-door neighbor's 50-foot-tall pecan tree was uprooted and slammed through part of his roof. Downtown is officially closed due to damage, meaning that at least for Monday Amy's office and the kids' school are both closed. Cort's office suffered major damage and will be closed for at least four weeks. We are part of the three millions residents without power, but we have a gas stove, a propane grill, a radio, and flashlights. We also share a generator with friends and power up the fridge enough to keep things relatively cold. Once the water becomes drinkable, this will be almost easy! Thankfully, we have also had a cold front, so living without air conditioning is not nearly as bad as you would think. Currently Cort and I are sitting in our driveway in the dark drinking some wine and listening to the local news station on the radio. We've enjoyed meeting new neighbors and getting to know other ones better. And the kids are having a ball, although the parents are a little stir crazy!!

Hunkering Down

Couldn't resist the opportunity to say "hunker down" on the blog. We are preparing for Ike. Houston is already virtually shut down -- and it's an odd feeling for a city of 4 million to be completely shut down when, by appearances only, it is a beautiful day. We have plenty of water, food, batteries, and propane for the grill. We took the kids to the park this morning to let them expend a little energy before they are stuck inside. After lunch we'll remove all our projectiles from the yard. Then, assuming it is still safe, we will host a little hurricane party for neighborhood friends this afternoon. Once it hits, we'll hunker down. We have a plan to spend the night in a windowless closet if necessary. We should be plenty safe, and hopefully since our house is new it will withstand the storm with minimal damage. We may be miserable afterwards without electricity, but we've been trying to explain to the boys exactly what that means. (If there electricity goes out, we won't have any TV, maybe for awhile. But our TV will still be right here on the wall, right? Right, our TV will be here, but it won't turn on. Right, but we can still watch the Astros. No, the TV won't be on at all, even for the Astros.) It certainly does look like we are going to finally experience our first hurricane since Cort and I moved to Houston ten years ago.

The Oklahoma Bidens

The boys have enjoyed watching the political parties' conventions. They are very into the states right now, and there are all these big tall signs that say ALABAMA, TEXAS, MAINE, etc., etc. What's not to love?

They are somewhat confused, however, by the McCain-Palin and Obama-Biden signs. First, they think all this must be sports-related - why else would there be a big crowd of cheering people holding signs? Second, Joseph reads "Obama" as "Oklahoma." We've tried to explain the presidential election to them, and what the president is. You know, he's the head of our country, the leader of the free world, etc. Joseph thought about this awhile, and then asked, "So, are the Oklahoma Bidens a real team?"

Labor Day Weekend

Not much in the way of excitement for Labor Day weekend. Helen started off with a bad hair day, but we are just excited that she has enough hair to accomplish that feat.

Saturday morning was spent hanging out in the playroom. Have I mentioned how absolutely awesome it is to have a playroom?

Saturday was also the official first weekend of college football. Here's Charlie settling in to watch - can you hear Daddy's heart go pitter patter, pitter patter?

The only other thing we did Saturday was take a trip to Costco. Samples, samples!

Sunday we skipped church to vacuum because . . . we have a tick infestation. Nice. Exterminators are coming Wednesday. On a better note, we got ourselves out of the house (much needed) and took a quick trip to Houston's Discovery Green park, where the kids played in the water. So much fun, so many opportunities for cute pictures, so didn't bring a camera.

Monday I got the crazy notion that we should be artsy with the kids and brought out the paints. I now remember why we never let the boys paint when they were little. I'm not sure why I thought it would be better now -- when kids outnumber the adults, leaving less supervision and more opportunity for the little kids to eat paint, run away with their brothers' paintbrushes, and dump water all over their paintings.

What else did we do this weekend?



Played music.



Played football.

Rode toys naked.

Played soccer.



Said "shoe." Lots.

Watched the Astros.

Traded baseball cards.

Hope your Labor Day weekend was equally nice!

Overheard in the car

Charlie:

"Joe, you know what? In thirteen days we are going to be FOUR AND A HALF!"

Joseph:

"Yeah, I know!"

. . . I hope they aren't expecting presents.