How to survive a hurricane

Lots of stories are coming out about people who decided to ride out Hurricane Ike and survived. (I personally think the people on Boliva and Galvaston who didn't evacuate were idiots.. but that's my take on it). One story reported on Yahoo news tells about Michael Ray Kujawa who tried to evacuate with his pet lion. Yes an actual African Lion! They got stranded and headed into a church. You can read it and other survival stories here: SURVIVAL STORIES

It doesn't take a hurricane to create massive destructive powers on the high seas. Here's an exceptional photo display of SHIPS BATTLING HEAVY SEAS

This photo shows a condo in Galveston that Mel (the man who took us to Tennessee and Spain to do real estate auctions) Giller sold several years ago. This video shows the damage that Hurricane Ike did to the front side:





This video shows a lot of the rampage that Galveston took. Pay attention at time code 3:23 to see the back side of the Breakers Condo project :

Hurricane Ike

April and I have been watching the videos coming out of Southeast Texas and showing the destruction from Hurricane Ike. If you haven't seen it up close check out some of these from the weather channel:

Ikes waves over road

Raw footage of destruction in Galveston

Windows blown out

Our prayers are with our dear friends in the Beaumont Stake, especially our friends and neighbors in the Woodville area. We know some of you evacuated to outlying areas and others stayed at home to ride out the storm. The reports we have heard make us feel blessed that we weren't there to experience this but we are saddened that we cannot be there to help and assist everyone with their after-storm needs.

April's mother was in the nursing home in Woodville and she reports they were without power for 2 days (until Monday afternoon). She didn't know if it was temporary or whether it would last. Meals for the residents were served cold with little variation from breakfast, lunch and supper during that time. She is fine however (other than being a little frazzled and nervous).

We pray for a speedy recovery from this devastation.

Here's some photos taken from the NY Times:

Where do we go from here?

After returning from Spain, we spent 2 weeks with my brother Bob and his wife Jenny. During that time I had two interviews with eBay and we drove all over the place looking at apartments. We found several that would have fit our needs but there was one in particular that we liked especially well. We put in our application and surprizingly they accepted us!

So back to Texas we flew. We spent a week with our best friends Tim and Denese Durr in Woodville. We rented a couple big 26 foot moving vans, loaded up all of our belongings from our 2 storage units and drove the 1400 miles back to Salt Lake. Here's some of the highlights of the trip:


April in her truck out in front of the Durr's house. Getting ready to start the long journey back to Utah.

Me anxious to get the journey over with!

We spent way too much time AND money at gas stations along the way!

Along the open road in Kansas. Notice the orange cones keeping us in a single lane. We LOVE road construction. April did manage to take out one of the cones back in Oklahoma.

April took this picture of me driving through Denver! Can you believe she actually risked her life in heavy traffic just to have a cool pic of me on the blog? She's awesome!

Many Hands Make Light Work

April and I were touched and filled with gratitude for the generous help extended to us today by our friends from church. They arrived this morning about 9 a.m. to help us move the big items from our home. Without their help I would have broken my back trying to move the washer, dryer, refrigerator, loveseat, and more. What would have taken me at least a full day of toil was accomplished in only an hour with the help of our ward family and the elders.

Tim even brought doughnuts! And Linda Odom baked a delicous cake. What more could we have hoped for?

We truly love our friends here and the thought of leaving this area tugs at our heart strings. We have so many good friends who have helped us to grow and heal. We will miss them all.

Here's a few pictures to remember the occasion.

The "boys" making a decision

Tim standing guard

Moving a heavy load

Jerry and Buck being busy

Scott and "the girls"

Alligators!

We've been living in Southeast Texas for two-and-one-half years now and had never seen an alligator. So tonight after a lovely dinner with Tim and Denese and the missionaries, Tim took us over to the campgrounds at Dam B to hunt alligators. We stopped at the boat ramp first but when no alligators were seen I began to suspect that Tim was again pulling our legs with one of his pranks. We drove on down into the campground and within sixty seconds we spotted our first 'gator!

We hung around for about 15 minutes and spotted two. If I'd known they were so easy to find I'd have spent time over at the campground long before now! It was a fun evening and just makes leaving Texas that much harder on us.

I started this post over at Tim and Denese's house.. We got home around 10:45 p.m. and spotted an armadillo waddling up the drive way. April tried to find the camera in her purse but by the time she snapped a photo the critter had snuck under the house. Such is life in Texas!