Ike the terrible ~ Part 2

can't remember if i put this one on....

So where did I leave you...Oh yeah...Tate's room! We discovered the roof had a huge hole letting all the rain from Ike come through the roof and YADA YADA YADA....When we walked in the room we felt the soaked carpet, saw water spots covering the ceiling and the wall was bubbled from all the water that came in. What a project we had in store.

Now as a sidenote: We were hoping for a new roof...but we hadn't asked for a new room as well...if we could have asked I think we would have chosen a differnt one....Tate's room was the only room in the house I had recently changed and I had done it the way I like. I have a good and bad habit. I like to save money but I also have a problem with settling. I settle because it is chepaer not because I like it and then end up hating it. I have not ever really decorated our hosue because we have not had the money to invest in furniture we like. And every piece of furniture we have besides our bed and kitchen tabe was given to us....so I can't be too picky but sometiems I have a hard time being content because I want to choose something because I love it not because it fits in our budget. And because we do not have furniture I have chosen I also have not decorated according to my taste but instead what was.....you guessed...cheapest! But finally I had a little extra money with the nursery job so when I was pregnant with Tate I bought new bedding and got an amazing deal at the same time. I truly loved it and saved money. I found it in ebay. I decorated around it and loved the room. I still did not go out and just choose whatever I wanted but I had a theme I liked. The walls were a light shade of khaki, with a white trim. Very neutral. I had Dark choc brown and this awesome blue, a very modern manly color of blue to off set the neutrals. It was beautiful...minus the stars that were on teh ceiling from the previous decorating that Iw as too lazy to paint over... so they remained much to my chagrin! But Oh well! So when I saw the disaster in this room I loved so much I was a little sad....but I also saw it as a way to get those darn stars off!!!

Back to story......

I immediately called our insurance company knowing they would be off the wall busy with Ike stories and I didn't want to be on the bottom of paperwork. Because we had a hole in our roof we were priority 4, which was the highest status so they would get to us as quickly as they could...it ended up being another week almost. But I know they were swamped.

This is Saturday about 2:00, we have NOT slept all night at our church with 350 people, although we were fed and had electricity, we have surveyed damage on house and discovered a lot more than we had anticipated, and now we are really not sure what to do. We had originally planned on staying at the church one more night, it was supposed to be available. But after hearing and seeing the damage we really thought electricity would be out for AWHILE and we could not move into the Church....or could we, you know we never asked....HAHA

We decided I should take the boys to SA and stay for the week and see how things came together. We had our cruise scheduled for the next weekend and now Galveston is crushed so we have no idea whether our ship is still sailing. We were told many different stories, that we could not get a refund even if they changed the port to New Orleans so we thought we may have to drive there.....and they do not reimburse for travel....I will save that outcome for later....

We went back to the Church to get our stuff so we could head to SA and were told even if we had wanted to the church was no longer available because they were running out of generator fluid and would be out within an hour. Good thing we were leaving. David chose to stay at the house and clean the yard while he had a few days off....no one knew how long it would be, they were hoping to resume classes by Wednesday... but that was not realistic.

I packed our bags, all of our stuff in one huge bag and another smaller bag with a few extra items. David loaded the car for us and we headed out. We arrived at my sisters house after 8:00 so we were worn out and ready to get out of the car. After we ate our dinner we unloaded the car...you know the entire house....HAHA, when traveling with kids it feels like the house is packed! So I took out our one smal bag, the pack and play, diaper bag, boys blankets and pillows....UMMMMMMM where is our bag??? The bag I had ALL of our stuff in?!?!? It is not in the car anywhere! Oh yeah...my husband packed the car! So a few mintues later I make THE call, I dial my husband and while the phone is ringing I am chanting

Be Nice, Be Nice Be Nice!!!! Whew, that was hard!

But I was nice.....he did have my bag! All of our clothes and shoes, diapers, wipes, toothbrushes...! We had a few peices of clothing that did not match and I had my bag with make-up and hair products. Oh well!

It was quite a week...my sister and her husband also have 4 children, so we have 8 children 8 and under in one house! YIKES!!!! Kudos to her family for letting us stay. While there for the week we enjoyed time with cousins, visited friends and had school...because now it is mobile, much to my kids chagrin! The entire time I was in SA we were at a loss as to our plan. We had no idea when the power would come back on and they were saying 3-5 weeks. On Tuesday my Dad traveled to our home to help my husband patch the roof to keep rain out until the insurance company could get an appraisal.

TO BE CONTINUED..........

sorry folks

Part 1 of the Saga of the Canfields

This was our bedroom...lots of privacy...haha

This was after a MAJOR 3 year old, long day, no nap MELTDOWN!


Dinner cafeteria style

Tate thought this was a slide

FLC the boys enjoying a PSP we borrowed....video games are VERY limited at our house so this was a treat!

This was Casey's bed, which he fell out of once in the middle of the night....he just got back up though as if it never happened
For the soda alone they thought it was worth a hurricane...we do not buy soda
After a very long day!

I finally sat down for the 2 hours that my children have rest time, and blogged the entire time, yesterday. I filled in all the details about the hurricane and life after Ike.....it took the entire time and then.......dun dun dun......I lost the connection as well as my hard work! So I have deceided to change my approach to the blog....to fill you in I will start our mini series...

So here we begin......

Life was going along quite normally, as normal as can be with 4 VERY active boys in a house 1664 sq ft, homeschooling, husband is a basketball coach and me trying to run a photography business out of my home on the side. Anyway, we had our schedule planned as usual, school during the days, working out afternoons, family time in the evenings, 2 photography sessions on Saturday October 13th. But as Saturday moved closer the realization that a hurricane was on its way became a fact, a FACT that it would hit US!

So...what to do........do we stay or do we leave.....? We went back and forth all of Thursday whether we should drive to SA or Austin to stay with family. David and I both wanted to ride out the storm at home. But we had more than ourselves to think about, we have 4 children and their lives as well the lives of their parents to think about. It was decided we would leave the next morning....then we found out Second Baptist, our Church was opening its doors, as it does with any major hurricane, to employees for refuge. That immediately became our best option. We wouldn't have to sit in traffic with 4 boys, did I mention they are active? We wouldn't waste gas in travel, we would be here directly after the storm to check on our house...we would have food provided all while enjoying electricity!!!

So friday evening we packed for the weekend, enough clothes for a few days, just in case, as well as our bedding. We arrrived at the church and it was very organized. They had wristbands for every person, they kept track of all the people staying and even assigned places to sleep. We were sent to the 3rd floor near our sanctuary, it is like a giant hallway. About 75 other people on the same level, but it is so huge it didn't feel like that many people. About 350 people altogether took shelter at Second. Again the Church's size you would not have know there were that many people.

After assigments we had dinner and David had a meeting for several men that were given nightly walk through duty. They were to go in pairs of 3 and check on people as well as potential damage to the church. Then we watched Fox news in our FLC, the church's work out gym, until almost 11:00 when we lost power. But we had a generator so no sweat. LITERALLY....it was still houston after all, we are known for our humidity.....The boys had a great time playing in the gym with some other children, oh I forgot to mention my husband led the playtime...you would have guessed that though I am sure! I was able to work out for a little while during that time as well.

Everyone went to bed about 11:00 knowing it would be a LONG night. But I actually slept....about 2 hours anyway! Whether it was the roaring of the storm outside, David getting up for 2-4 am duty, or OH YEAH the ladies who decided 2-6 am in the morning is a great time to have a conversation at a normal voice level on the floor where others are trying to sleep ...FYI just because the storm is keeping you awake do you need to ruin everyone else's sleep????? AGGHHHHHH Okay now I feel better!

Anyway...during the walk throughs it was discovered the Church received significant damage. The side of town we were in received tough winds. Just about some of the worst for the city. It was later discovered it will be about 9 months before services will be held in the sanctuary.

After a grueling nights sleep, we had our breakfast and were prepared to stay another night since we knew electricity was out in the entire city for who knows how long. We went to see our house about 1:00 in the afternoon and all looked well, at first. Then David opened Tate's room where upon entering the room the door frame dropped water on his head and the floor was soaking wet. The wall had a huge bubble and the ceiling covered in water spots.

Checking the roof we discovered a limb had fallen, from one of our 20 pine trees, and landed on our roof making a huge hole over Tate's room and allowing all the water from the rain to come in.

End of part 1..........TO BE CONTINUED!