Slacker...

But with good reasons!!!

We have been super busy here! Hardly a night goes by without some sort of practice or dance class or game.

Alex is is doing 2 soccer teams again this fall. It actually happened by chance. Jimmy's football Coaches Wife coaches a U12 Tournament League and we got to talking.... yadda yadda yadda Alex is playing in her first Tournament this weekend!

Here are some pics of her first game for the T.L.

The T.L. is 2-0 and her rec league which has some ladies that have never played before is 0-1-1.

I may be just a overly proud Momma, but doesn't she look awesome! Can you believe that she will be 11 years old this coming Thursday?

Jimmy is LOVING his first season playing football, its actually Flag Football. He is playing defence, he rushes the QB.

Max is patiently awaiting next year so he can start soccer. But for now he is happy to kick the ball around the sidelines.

He has found a new Best Friend in Moses. They are always cuddling together. Moses usually has his head down on Max's chest but when I came around the corner with the camera he perked his head up as if to say "whatcha doin Ma?"

Katie Grace... is a grumpy gus this morning. But here is proof that she actually does smile once and awhile, and can stop screaming and whining for more than a minute at a time....

She does look pretty in her Pats' gear.

Still here

We survived the night here at home. The power went out briefly at around midnight, but then came right back on. We had all 4 kids camped out in our bedroom on the floor, just in case anything happened. No damage here or in the neighborhood just lots of wind since about 6 pm yesterday. I would say that the sustained winds have been about 40 with gusts up around 60-70 mph. Lake Charles had a lot of flooding around the actual lake, but we are on the other side of the lake and further inland, so flooding isn't really an issue. Its just the wind. Its been blowing and whipping around since about 6 pm yesterday. Jim took these pictures and movie this morning.

My poor key lime tree...

guess who is having margaritas and key lime pie later?

Here we go....again...

We have been keeping a close eye on Ike as he has moved into the gulf. Forecast models show him moving towards the TX coast. We will be on the bad side, east: meaning that we should experience lots of rain and wind from Friday night into Saturday.
There is no main mandatory evacuation, only those who have special needs and live in trailers are being told to leave at this time.
They closed the schools again, no school today or tomorrow (they were supposed to have Friday off anyway for teachers in-service day).
Last week when the potential for Ike to come into the gulf presented itself, we made arrangements to evacuate to San Antonio, but more than likely we will remain here because that seems to be where all of the people from Texas who have mandatory evacs are going.
The weather channel is forecasting that Ike will be very similar to Rita which is causing a lot of people around here to be very cautious. Rita did a lot of damage here, lots of downed trees and power outages. We have our generator, gas, bottled water and emergency food prepared from last time.
Right now as I write this at 10 AM Thursday morning, the sun is shinning, not a cloud in the sky and a beautiful 85 degrees.
I will keep everyone updated...

Home again

We are home safe and sound. Our Parish has a system in place where you can sign up your phone/text/cell numbers and an automated message will alert you to any new information. The text message came in at 9am yesterday. We had planned on going to the zoo, but once we got news that the mandatory evacuation was lifted, we packed up and headed out. We got home around 11 or so last night. OK city is a loooooooong drive. It took us about 12 hours to get home between the stops and the traffic. At one point on rt. 10 in Texas Jim noticed that about 80% of the cars were from Louisiana. Everyone was going home.

Moses did fantastic in the hotel room and in the car, he really is such a good dog.

There wasn't any damage on the house, lots of leaves and debris in the pool, some yard pick up to do. But we got really lucky with the path that Gustav took.

Jim went back to work today to help restart the plant.

For me today is all about unpacking, laundry, cleaning up, and putting everything back together.
FUN TIMES!!!@@

Arrived in OK City

We are all safe and sound at the La Quinta Inn & Suites in OK City. We got here about 11pm last night, a looooooong day of driving. We are all pretty spent this morning.
We are still glued to the weather on TV.
You can check out our local TV station in Lake Charles on kplctv.com, they are estimating that we have already gotten about 5 inches of rain, with more to come. We will keep watching today and hope to hear news from Neighbors that are scattered around Texas, Arkansas, Northern LA, Mississippi and Alabama.
Thank you all for your prayers and thoughts.
We will continue to update that blog as news comes in.