To Denver . . . and back

Cort and the boys are back home from a fun-filled trip to Denver to see Uncle Al, Aunt Luisa, and cousins Bryan and Marcus. From all accounts (and mom got a detailed account over lunch today) they had a GREAT time. According to Charlie and Joseph, highlights of the trip included playing baseball with their big cousins, watching Bryan play in three basketball games, driving up to the mountains and seeing snow and the Continental Divide, eating pigs in a blanket, watching the Denver Broncos play Monday Night Football on TV, going to the zoo, going to the dinosaur museum, and going to eat the best macaroni and cheese at the noodle restaurant with Aunt Luisa. Here are some pictures from the trip.

The boys with Uncle Al and Aunt Luisa . . . and snow!


With Dad at the Continental Divide


The cousins: Marcus, Joseph, Bryan, and Charlie


Cheering for the Broncos

Now for the "and back" part. The flight they were on was scheduled to arrive in Houston just a little after 8pm. They were about to land -- even had the landing gear down -- when weather forced the pilot to abort the landing. They flew around until they were low on gas, and the Houston airport was still closed. So, as they boys said, there was a surprise! They went to Dallas! Once in Dallas the Houston airport opened, so they fueled up and headed back to the runway . . . at which point they said the Houston airport had closed again so they shut the engines down. I think this was the point that the boys entertained the passengers with a rousing rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" -- after all, it was the 7th inning stretch of the first World Series game (they were keeping up on Cort's blackberry). Finally, they got clearance to head back to Houston, where they landed, got all their luggage and the boys' car seats, and headed to Cort's car . . . which had a dead battery. Cort had to flag someone down and get a jump. They finally arrive home around 1am. Quite an adventure, but still a worthwhile trip. Mom, Will, and Helen are glad to have them all home though.

Tired boys finally at the Houston airport

Wordless Wednesday

One of a Kind

This is Helen's "graduation report" from Movement I (she and Will start transitioning to the next class, Movement II, next week). Some excerpts from her lead teacher include:

Helen is one of a kind! I've NEVER met a little girl with her spunk,
determination and independence. . . . Helen has taught me the meaning of patience!

I know that this is a nice way of saying that Helen has been difficult to handle at times. For example, at 17 months she clears her own lunch dishes and puts them away in the sink. Impressive, you think, right? But apparently then she proceeds to clear the dishes of all of her classmates, regardless of whether they are finished eating! Needless to say, that can cause mayhem in a room full of young toddlers. We liked hearing this report from the teacher, because it has always seemed to us that she was pretty much a spitfire. Glad to know it's not just us.

Much of Will's graduation report was more mundane, but his teacher also has him pegged. She has had all four kids now, and she described Will as "the sweetest most loving Maddux." Quite accurate.

Baseball 101

The boys are 4 years old. Here are a few examples of the things they know about baseball.

The visiting team bats first.

Manny Ramirez was traded this year from the Boston Red Sox to the Los Angeles
Dodgers.

Three balls and two strikes is a "full count."

In the American League, the pitcher doesn't bat.

Lance Berkman is "The Big Puma."

When the outfielder catches the ball to get the batter out, but the runner on
base still comes home, that is called a "sacrifice."

Craig Biggio will be in the Hall of Fame.

The batter up next is "on deck."

A ball hit over the yellow line is a home run.

A foul ball is a strike on strike one and strike two, but a foul ball cannot be
strike three.

Brad Ausmus is good at catching, but not as good at batting.

The playoffs are in October.

Spring training is in March in Florida.

If the home team is ahead, they don't have to play the bottom of the 9th inning.

A home run with the bases loaded is a grand slam.

The meaning of "strike," "ball," "foul ball," "walk," "left on base," and
"pop up."

They'll be auditioning for Baseball Tonight as soon as they turn 5.

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.