Two more observations...

11. How many people did not take driver's ed. Most of our traffic lights are either blinking red, or not there at all, and people are trying their best to take turns, but it gets a little dicey.
12. The Texas Baptist Men's Disaster Response team whose travel trailers are in our church parking lot. These men, and their wives, travel all over the country from one storm to the next just cleaning up people's homes, mostly the mud out of homes that flooded. They are amazing.

We figured out the water in our kitchen came from roof damage over our bay window, which was a relief because we thought it was plumbing issues.

Observations...

1. Piles and piles of yard debris in front of almost every house you pass by. The paper said the company they hired to pick it all up has 180 days to get it done. For you math majors, that's 6 months. I really don't want to look at it all or worry about the fire hazard for 6 months.
2. The small water spot on Campbell's ceiling, and the really big water spot above our kitchen table. We have a two story house. How is there a water spot on the bottom floor. Something bad is happening up there.
3. The Red Cross pod in our church parking lot, not passing out water or ice, but bleach, plastic containers to keep your stuff that didn't get wet, mops, brooms, rakes and shovels.
4. How much a street light helps when you go to get the mail at night. Its not there anymore, and its a little scary.
5. The school buses running again tomorrow. YEAH!
6. Campbell's first day in Sunday School today. I wasn't as emotional as I thought I might be. After I got the three kids here, I was ready to hand him off.
7. Campbell's cute smile. He and I had a chat a while back that I should get the first smile, since Daddy would probably get the first word. And I did. The Sunday before we evacuated, I got it, and I cried. No one believed me because he didn't smile at anyone else for awhile, but now he smiles a lot and I know I had the first one.
8. The calender flying by. How is Campbell already 7 weeks old!? When it was Cooper, I couldn't wait for him to grow up, but Campbell needs to just stop. It's very sad.
9. The crap all over my house, yes, CRAP. The FEMA lady came by this week to look around, and I had 5 minutes notice, and I was horrified as she walked around the house. Yes, I have good excuses, evacuating, kids at home, and a new baby, but most of it is just without excuse. I'm just lazy.
10. Dancing with the Stars, The Biggest Loser, House, Survivor, Project Runway, Numbers, I think that's it. Those are my favorites, and three of them are on the same night. Hence, the crap around my house.

If I just focus on Campbell's smile, its all ok.

Update #3

School is out for a whole other week! But our church is using the opportunity to minister to the community by having Camp Ike, a day camp for school age children, and our preschool is starting back again. So I will go home Monday. The cool part is that our weekday director has to go out of town Tuesday night, and she asked me to direct for her while she's gone. She said she knew she could really relax while she was gone knowing I was there, and I was one of the only people she could really trust to take care of it. A huge compliment. I'm not bragging, but as adults there are really few times when people really try to give compliments. I try to catch my kids doing good things and comment on them to encourage them to do well, but as adults we really don't do that often with each other. Some people are better at it than others, but as a whole, we don't hear compliments like that often. All that to say, it made my day.

I forgot that while we were in Bryan, Coop lost his first tooth. Very exciting. I told him the tooth fairy would leave it for me to keep since it was the first. So the next night, he wanted to put it under the pillow again to she if she would leave another dollar. The sinful nature flaring up! Jason and I actually forgot to put money under his pillow, so we had to sneak it into his pillow case while he was looking all around his bed for the money. Very awkward but funny.

Another Update...

Tuesday we decided to make a change. Not that we weren't very comfy and cozy in Bryan, but when I realized that school was out for at least a week, it seemed like a good opportunity to go to Shreveport. Mom got power back on Monday night, so the boys and I left after lunch on Tuesday and came home to rest. Jason went back to Clear Lake and stayed that night with someone who did have power, and ours came back on Wednesday morning. Yeah! He got a better look at our damage. There is a roof leak because there is a water spot on Campbell's ceiling, and water came in our front door and did some damage to our floors in the entry way. Only a small part of our fence was down. Our trees didn't uproot, but he said the tops were sheered off, so we don't know if they will live or not. But we are very thankful. Our church's power came back on Monday I think, so each morning people are meeting and going out into the community to help with clean up. Jason said parts of town look like a bomb went off and parts don't look bad at all. School is probably starting back next Tuesday, which I am very thankful for. My kids are bouncing off the walls! We will probably go back on Saturday. Our church normally has three services, but we are only going to have one on Sunday, very casual and community building. We are hoping that people will come who wouldn't normally come and can be reached by a helping hand. I'll post some pictures some day, but I may have missed the worst of it. And that's ok.

Update...

We had a friend go back to Clear Lake and he went to all of our houses to check on them. He said out of the five houses on our cul-de-sac, ours was way the best. Just damage to our fence and probably our roof, both of which needed to be replaced anyway. But no windows out, no trees down, no flooding. Our neighbors lost most of their trees and some siding from what we hear. But no electricity, and because our school district covers so much area, we don't have school all next week at least. We are hoping that we get power back soon so we can go home, although I have no food in my house and there probably isn't any in the stores. But we are so very thankful that God kept our house safe. It could have been so much worse. I'm sure when we get back home we will hear lots of stories of people who didn't fare as well as we did. I am sure there will be many opportunities to help people, both physically and emotionally.

You can also pray for Jeff and Heather and their two boys. They are neighbors of Lee and Colette who also came with us. They just moved here from Michigan in July. They aren't believers, but after being with all of us for a few days, decided to go to church with us this morning. They said we all looked like the Waltons to them, but we just said it was Jesus. So we will see how that goes over the next few days. Thank you for the prayers as we wait for power to come back. My mom in Shreveport also lost power.

Pray for us...

In case anyone is checking on us, we are in Bryan/College Station. We left Wednesday night at 10:30 and are staying with our friend Lee's parents. Its us, Colette and Lee and their two kids, and Colette's brother Chris and his family. There are 8 kids under the age of 8. Yikes. Each family has a bedroom. When we left, we were thinking it was just to be safe in case the wind blew enough that we wouldn't have power for awhile. Now we are not sure what we will come back to. Its very scary. I realized there is a fine line between saying that you are trusting God and are not worried, and just being in denial about how serious the situation is. We are trying to stay calm so we don't freak the kids out, and trying to get them out of the house alot today since we'll be stuck the next day or two. God has taken care of us so far, gave us wisdom of when to leave (we had no traffic) and provided us a place to stay with wonderful friends. So we have to keep trusting Him. He is in control, and I know years from now we will remember this time hopefully fondly. We are all safe and everything else is just stuff. So besides praying for the Clear Lake area homes, pray for us in this house with 16 people! I'll keep you posted.

Big Weekend

Thursday night Campbell took his first bottle, sucked it down like nobody's business. Very exciting. It helped him sleep 4 hours! I remember with Cooper that he had a bottle at two weeks and then we didn't give him another one until he was 4 months and he wouldn't take it. Took trying for weeks before he would take another one. I don't think bottles were an issue for Cade. At the hospital with Campbell, the lactation nurse came in and explained to me that there is no reason for a baby to have a pacifier or bottle for the first month so they don't get confused. She even put a card in his bassinet that told the nurses not to give him a pacifier. I let her, and promptly preceded to give him the pacifier the first night home. He likes it, it helps him fall asleep, and both my other boys had a fine relationship with their pacifiers until they turned two, and they went bye-bye.

Saturday Cade had his very first soccer game, and as he said, "I am the best soccer player ever." Doesn't have a big head or anything. Of course, I spent the first quarter in the car nursing, and while in there, tried to start the van to get air, and the battery was dead, so I spent the last quarter in the parking lot with a very nice stranger jumping the van. Cade didn't seem to notice my absence.
Cooper then played his soccer game and later in the day, his first machine-pitch baseball game. Mom was more scared of the 42 mile an hour pitch than he was. Yes, we had three games in one day, and will from now until Nov. 8. Cooper has always played one sport at at time, but Cade has joined the sporting scene now, and Jason (and Cooper) really wanted Cooper to play fall baseball to get better since that appears to be his favorite and best sport. I told him I was not going to that many practices a week, so he agreed to be the head or assistant coach of all three teams so he would be at practice, and he is. So he scheduled the practices back to back, so two nights a week they are gone. Not so bad on my part, except the two weeks he'll be out of town later next month.

Sunday- Campbell's first Sunday at church! I really wasn't ready to come back yet. Most people are back the first week or two, but they have husbands to tote the carrier around all morning or hold the baby, and I don't. My husband leaves on Sunday mornings before we are even awake, and I usually don't see him until lunch. But Cooper was getting his 1st grade Bible, so we needed to go. I just knew that Campbell would sleep the whole time, but nope, first song, eyes popped open, and he preceded to fuss for a long time, no matter what I did. Jason even got up to do the opening for worship and I was hoping he would hear his voice and calm down, but I think it made it worse. So I had to go out in the hallway, leaving Cooper by himself in church, which terrified me. Luckily, our preschool director came by, and carried Campbell around for me until the service was over. That's one advantage of being a minister's wife, everyone is willing to help. Cooper is very proud of his Bible and we read the first chapter of Matthew last night (skimming over the genealogy). I hope he continues to have a desire to be in the Word.
Big weekend! I am tired!

Christy's Picks of the Week

Pick One... an Empty House

Last night was the first night, other than two random nights, that we didn't have any guests since Aug. 4. We had anywhere from one to five people here. It was odd, because as much as I appreciated the help (I now have a sink full of dirty dishes and loads of laundry to do), I really wanted my house back to myself. I am a hermit, and an introvert, and even though people tell you that you don't have to entertain them, I still felt rude staying in my room all day. The best was Jason's grandmother (there is no danger of her reading this) who lectured me on how to do laundry, and talked horribly about the people who come into her Walmart in Tulsa where she is a greeter, with newborn babies with no socks. I didn't tell her Campbell had already been to Walmart twice by the time she arrived. She also complained about another grandchild's spouse who stays in the bedroom the whole time she is there. So, even though I don't blame them and wanted to be in my bedroom, I didn't want her talking bad about me, or talking worse about me than she already does. I also had to hear more than once about a family in Tulsa who's baby was eaten by their dog. I really didn't want to hear that story the first time. Anyway, all that to say, I am so glad that my house is mine again, regardless of the dirty clothes and laundry!

Pick Two... Sid the Science Kid
It premiered today on PBS here, and it is the cutest, most educational show I have seen in a while. Check your local listings and check it out. You will love to watch it with your children, an oddity in the preschool television world, for me anyway.