The coolest truck I've ever seen!

This is a video of some trucks (that I found to be completely fascinating) cleaning up the piles of limbs and branches that the neighborhood put out at the edge of their yards. I could have watched that huge limb eating truck all day.

Ike!

These are a few of the many pictures taken from the storm (hurricane Ike). None of the pictures are in any sort of order, sorry. Things around here have been NUTS since the storm. Brookshire Brothers (the grocery store)... (that I happen to work at) has been crazy with lot's of people from all over east Texas buying the necessities (sp?) of life (you know, things like chips, bread, and soda water). Anyway, I will add more of the pictures from the storm later when I have more time. Right now it's 10:38 and past my bedtime. I'm tired.


A power pole next to our house that decided to lean on one of the surrounding trees. It was tired of standing up straight all the time.

Me and mom standing in front of one of our neighbors yards... the yard had became a small pond after Ike's visit.

We had a lot of trees fall down in roads. This is a sad attempt to take a picture of one of them.

Dad moving a branch off the road

Me and Isaac looking at the incredibly fast moving clouds just hours before the storm hit.

Dad and Mom just hours before the storm hit

Aaron... (again)... just hours before the storm hit

The top of one of our trees after the storm.

Some flooding in the neighborhood left by Ike. Thanks Ike.

Aaron took this picture of one of the trees that had fallen in our neighbors yard. It was hollow all the way through and we thought it was pretty cool.

Before Hurricane Ike

The day before hurricane Ike came to town me and mom went on a walk around the neighborhood. We saw that several (about 7) of our neighbors had boarded up their windows and others were a little more lazy and just put tape up... and then there was us. We didn't board up our windows or tape them. It's like we didn't care that they could possibly be blown to pieces!

This is mom on looking at the houses in the neighborhood with me.



Our house before the storm. Notice how there are no boarded or taped windows.

This is one of our neighbors with taped windows. I think the tape adds a nice decorative touch to the house. They should just keep it up all the time. :)

Another one of our dear neighbors got creative with the boarded up windows and wrote some spiffy rhymes to Ike. The one in this picture say's " Go fly a kite Ike"



These ones say " We're ready 4 a fight Ike!!" and "Nobody likes Ike"

This neighbor of ours prepared not only by boarding up the windows, but also by cutting down one of their big trees next to their home. (two other neighbors also cut down some trees before the storm)

Hurricane???

Well, Gustav came to visit Louisiana and Texas these past few days and fortunatly for us he was very worn out by the time he reached us. We were ready for his visit (we had the flashlights and snacks), but our most unwelcomed guest decided to spend most of his energy blowing around in the gulf, so we didn't get to see him in his full glory (and we are not too distrought about it either).
To make sure this experience (of having Gustav come to visit) was not a complete flop, we took some pictures to try to make it look like it was a more exciting experience then it really was...

OH NO! Isaac is blowing away in the wind!

It's a good thing we had that little plant to hang onto, otherwise we all might have blown away in the wind. We were pretty much hanging on for dear life when this picture was taken. (the flash wasn't working properly on the camera and that's why the picture is really dark)

This is what it looks like when the wind is threatening to blow you away. (very convincing, right?)

Gustav and me are buddies... he didn't want to blow me away.