Ike brought it.

I will start my post by saying Aaron, Bonnie, Piglet and I survived Hurricane Ike. The hurricane was definitely ALOT scarier than any of us could have imagined. I'll give you a run down of what happened.

All day Aaron and I watched the news and weather. Just watching about how people were preparing and watching a play by play of where the storm was. About 8:00 p.m. Friday evening the winds were starting to pick up and they were pretty crazy. Aaron and I just stared out the window thinking "those baby trees aren't going to make it." I was starting to get kinda worried thinking "uh oh I think there is no turning back now." Before that point everyone kept thinking Ike could turn right like Rita did. That didn't happen.

9:45 p.m. our cable goes out. This was when I started to freak out. The wind was HOWLING and I couldn't watch the news. I felt like I didn't know where Ike was. I took my sister's advice and watched a movie to take my mind off of it.

10:30 p.m. the lights went out for the first time. I thought "Oh Lord this is it." Well, luckily for us the lights came back after about 30 seconds. After my movie I was going crazy not being able to watch the news so I found a way to watch it live on the internet. By the way, Aaron is asleep during this whole time because he had a headache and decided to take a nap.

12:30 a.m. Aaron wakes up and the eye has officially hit land. At this time we are experiencing the "first" half of the storm that had just hit Galveston. We were kinda freakin out. The wind and rain was crazy-- we had NO idea what we were actually still in store for. We watched out the window and watched the news online until about 2:30.

2:30 a.m. our lights keep browning out alot so we thought it would be best to start unplugging things so they wouldn't short out. We also decided we should probably try and get some rest.

3:00 a.m. the power goes out and this time it didn't come back after 30 seconds. We were like ok there is no reason to stay awake let's get some rest.

5:30 a.m. the storm brings Aaron and I out of bed it is so insane and scary outside. We look out the window and you can't see ANYTHING. All of the lights around us were out so we were staring into a mass of darkness not knowing what is going on outside. I kept thinking there could be tornadoes and I can't see! I was so scared. Sometimes though looking out the window was like looking at a light show because of all the transformers blowing up around us.

Then, we were looking out one of the windows and I said "Oh my gosh Aaron look at that!" He said "What?" I said "You honestly can't see that!?" Then he finally noticed the water that was coming into our apt from he windows and was running down our walls. I went into panic mode and thought oh no what are we going to do! Where else is there water?!? I went into the guest bedroom and that was where the most water was! It had gotten our guest bed completely soaked and the roof was leaking in the corner near the window. This whole time I'm thinking OMG THESE ARE BRAND NEW APARTMENTS!!! We lined the window sills with towels and hoped for the best.

6:00 a.m. I look out the window and I can see shopping centers and the neighborhood next to us regaining power, and then our lights came back on!! I turned the computer on and was about to get the news up, annnnd then our power went back out. Our's was the only power around us that didn't come back! I was so upset! The neighborhood 100 yards from us had all their lights back on in their house... we had nothing. Meanwhile the wind is the scariest, nastiest and the loudest thing I had ever heard in my life, and I'm from west Texas! So I just tried really hard to go back to sleep because staying awake just made me really scared.

8:00 we wake up and the winds are still pretty strong, but the storm is starting to "pass." We decided to try and make the girls go to the bathroom outside. We opened the door and Bonnie darted out the door... once hitting the rain she quickly halted and turned herself around and darted back through the door and up the stairs... like we were crazy for making her go out there. We finally put our rain boots on, put their leashes on and forced them to use the bathroom!

Then for the next 60 hours we were without power and water. That was rough, and for every meal we ate turkey and ham sandwiches while all the food in our refrigerator spoiled and ruined. Meanwhile we can watch the neighborhood JUST NEXT DOOR with all of their lights on! That was the most frustrating thing.

Yesterday was a glorious day! We got our power AND water back! We were so super excited! As far as the damage Ike did... ALOT! While we have minimal water damage... we were so lucky! There are house around us with HUGE trees on their roofs and I now know what their backyards look like because they don't have fences. We had to drive to school today, and we happened to drive by downtown. IT IS TORN UP! There are so many glass buildings that are missing many many many windows. The floor on my building alone is missing 7 windows! Last night we went to a pizza place to have our first "hot meal!" It was super busy and the most disappointing thing was how rude the customers were being to the waitress. I just wanted to scream... I understand you just went through hurricane, but SHE WENT THROUGH THE SAME HURRICANE! Sometimes people just take advantage of situations and they never learn. Aaron and I learned to count our many blessings because we were so fortunate, and thank you for all of your prayers. While natural distasters are hard to go through... they definitely put things into perspective!

Thank you again for all of your thoughts and prayers! We survived, and definitely know that we will not stay for anything strong than Ike! :)

Love,
Lauren & Aaron