Baby K Arrives - Hello Madeline Anne!

After my water broke, a little after noon on January 22nd, the on-call doctor told us to go ahead and come to the hospital and she would "check things out." We decided to do a couple of things around the house including taking this picture before we headed to the hospital. The doctor actually called us when we were exiting the freeway asking where we were and wanting to know why we weren't at the hospital yet.

She's here! Madeline Anne was born at 9:42 p.m. on January 22nd. She weighed in at 7 pounds 10 ounces and was 20 inches long. We waited to find out if we were having a boy or girl, but were greeted in our labor and delivery room by the doctor announcing "so we are having a little girl!" Paul and I played it off and Paul still announced to me that Baby K was a girl when she was born.

Baby K has a name! Finally!

The day before Baby K's due date Paul and I finally settled on names for Baby K. The day after her due date, January 18th, we took these pictures.

Snowing in Houston!!!

You gotta love Houston.  Yesterday it was 68 degrees, today it is snowing.  Here are a couple of pictures of the snow.

Risen from the dead????

Anyone who has visited my neighborhood knows that it is full of big, beautiful trees.  It is one of the leading reasons why I fell in love with the neighborhood.  My backyard was like my own private sanctuary, surrounded by big, huge oaks, many of the prettiest in my back neighbors' yards.  During Ike, the winds ripped two of the biggest oaks from the ground, taking a much smaller Dogwood with them.  As I surveyed the damage, I was perplexed why two big healthy looking oaks would be lost and the dead oak in my neighbors yard would remain standing.  It just didn't make sense.

Now, two months after Ike, in November I might add, my backyard has somewhat of a spring time feel about it.  The dead oak has sprouted  light green, spring-like leaves.   I guess something good has come out of Ike.

Pirate Festival

On Saturday afternoon my sister called and asked if Paul and I would take Andrew, a HUGE pirate lover, to the Pirate Festival hosted by the neighborhood elementary school's PTA.  When we picked up Andrew, he was basically still asleep from his nap, but he seemed very excited to go to the pirate festival.   We made it to the school, Paul bought tickets while Andrew and I stood in line for the Titanic bounce house slide.  We made it to the front on the line and Andrew decided that he didn't want to climb the slide because it was too dirty.  We walked the entire festival and Andrew had no interest in participating in any of the activities.  When Paul and I convinced him to try the Silly String wars, everything turned around and Andrew had a blast.

Lunchtime Entertainment

This is something I witnessed earlier this year and wanted to share it...

I met one of my childhood friends for lunch at Corner Bakery. We decided to take advantage of the beautiful, although hot, weather and sit outside on the patio. We found a shaded two-top table sitting right against the outside railing of the patio overlooking the fountains and rail line. I have never noticed the random chairs sitting out around the fountain, which were probably envisioned by some idealistic architect for weary downtown travelers and guests of our fabulous city to stop, relax a bit and enjoy the dancing water show. The reality is that most of these chairs are filled by homeless men. One of these such chairs was positioned about ten feet from our table next to a tree. As I was eating, I had a vision of a man kissing the tree in my peripheral vision. Not believing what I thought I saw, I turned to see that the shirtless homeless man was not kissing the tree, but rather he was licking the tree. He was not just licking the tree with the tip of his tongue, but rather more like the way a dog licks his, well you get the picture. The man proceeded to lick the tree for a solid five minutes. When he began picking at the cracks in the sidewalk like he was looking for grub worms, I decided it was time to leave before he actually pulled something from the crack and popped it into his mouth.

Hurricane Ike

Hurricane Ike rolled into Galveston in the early morning hours of Saturday, September 13th.  Ike caused major damage to the island, including taking out the historic Balinese Room.  Ike continued north into Houston and East Texas creating havoc along the way.  The eastern portion of the Texas coast took the brunt of Ike's fury, while Ike was more of an inconvenience to Houston and the surrounding areas.  On Wednesday night and all day on Thursday, Paul and I, along with my brother and sister-in-law, headed to League City to help my parents prepare for the storm, boarding up windows, packing pictures for a trip to higher, dryer ground, moving clothes and furniture upstairs.  There was a different feel around League City that day compared to the days preceeding Rita.  Rita was a panic.  To me, it seemed with Ike, like everyone knew, without a doubt, that the hurricane was going to hit dead-on and everyone was quietly working to take care of what needed to get done and get out.  There were no massive traffic jams on the freeways, no real lack of fuel before the storm.  It was really, very different.

 

Paul and I headed to Jodie and Randy's for a little hurricane party in the late afternoon on Friday.  My parents and Emily were already there.  Jodie and my mom spent a large chunk of the afternoon at Costco stockpiling supplies.  We headed over to relax, eat and enjoy everyone's company before the storm.  

Here is a video taken around 5:30 Friday evening of Andrew, Mom and I watching the clouds starting to roll in to town.

Our intent was to wait until just before the storm got bad and then head home, to sleep in our own bed, and to be here in case we need to sure up the house if anything happened.  Around 10 o'clock, things were starting to get a little hairy, so we decided it was time to hit the road.  We said our good-byes, despite Jodie asking us not to go, we were headed to the car, when Randy asked if we knew if we even had power.  Paul called our neighbor and found out that our neighborhood lost power about an hour before.  Apparently 

the transformer in our backyard blew, raining a shower of sparks down on the tin roof of the neighbor's shed.  The sparks danced across the shed catching the Magnolia tree in the adjacent neighbor's yard on fire.  Luckily, another neighbor saw this happen and called the fire department, who responded quickly and extinguished the fire. 

Well, given the fact that Jodie and Randy still had power, and we didn't, our decision was made.  I was really wishing I had listened to myself earlier and grabbed my toothbrush and blanket.  :)  At that point, I decided it was time to have a beer.  

We settled in and began watching the various newscasts begin reporting stories across the Galveston/Houston region.  I decided that if I were looking to get drunk, I could easily do it by drinking anytime someone on tv said the phrase "hunker down."  Wanting to have my wits about me should something happen, I refrained.

After an eventful night, which consisted of little sleep, we lost power at 2:30 am, I decided to give up on sleeping around 6:30 and join my mother and brother-in-law on the front porch, watching the storm. 

Jodie and Randy's street the evening before Ike blew through.

The view from their front porch as the sun came up on the tail-end of Ike.