Never going to name my baby Ike.

Well, we made it....we survived our first ever Hurricane. In the end, the only damage we suffered were a couple leaky windows and a few leaks coming through our AC vents. Overall, we are fine.

I am so grateful for the way that Houston dealt with this hurricane. I am so grateful that most had the opportunity to get out of harms way. I am so grateful that no one i know of was harmed and only a few suffered property damage.

Thursday Alex and I both got off work early. We made sure we had all of our supplies, batteries for our flashlights, water, etc. Friday was a beautiful day...really no clouds until after lunch and even then it was just windy. I went running Friday morning and then we all just waited in anticipation of the storm. We watched the news all day as reporters covered the winds and waves entering Galveston. This storm was not like most storms....it did not have a well defined eye until late Friday and even then it was as wide as Texas and was a couples miles shy of being a category 3 storm, while the Storm Surge was expected to be that of a Category 3 or 4. Unlike many hurricanes, it stayed right on target heading straight for Galveston and then for Houston.

Around 10:00 PM on Friday, Alex and I headed downstairs to the guestroom to sleep through the storm. At this point it was raining and the wind was picking up. As of 10:30 our power went out, so aside from the storm, sleeping was difficult. The storms powered through for almost 10 hours straight...the winds were crazy. Around 2 we started hearing dripping....oh no...we have a leak. Our two exposed windows leaked A LOT and some water got into our attic, so a couple of our vents leaked as well. The wind blew SO HARD!! I kept waiting to hear a window break. It was UNREAL!!

Once the sun came up, we looked out side and noticed that our street was not flooded at all...we were thinking "Maybe this wasn't as bad as we thought." Well we walked out into the street and looked down the street and noticed our WHOLE neighborhood was under at least 6 inches of water. We are in new townhomes and our builder had put in our streets and homes above the flood plain. So, we did what any first time Hurricaner would have done...we waded through the water and the neighborhood to check out the damage. We also drove around to check out the damage once the water receded.

Here are some pics from Saturday.

Our homes...still in tact. Thank you God!

This is I-10 at TC Jester

(completely FLOODED)

White Oak Bayou

(overflowing)

Debris in The Heights

What we did for most of Saturday

Tree down in our neighborhood

Still down -- not sure how you remove a GIANT TREE?!?!

Bayou in Downtown by the Theater District

(Catherine -- recognize this area?? --the bridge right before this one is where we ran UNDER it and turned around on our long run)

Urban Living Offices off of Washington

As of this morning, we still do not have power at our house but we have been fortunate and have been staying in a hotel since Saturday. Our family friend Brandon is the manager at the Marriott Courtyard in the Galleria and had an extra emergency room, so we have been in AC. My parents condo has power now, so that will be home starting today until we have power again. Thanks to everyone who has been praying for us....it is going to be a while before Texas is completely back on its feet.

God Bless.