Hurricane Ike :-(

Well we survived Hurricane Ike and are even among the fortunate few that have power restored in Houston. Neither of our families nor most of our friends have power, so we have had lots of people over here, we are happy to be able to provide air conditioning and a fridge!!

For the record, I will NEVER again shelter in place or "hunker down" as they call it here if a hurricane of any strength is coming neay my home. Luke did fine of course during the storm, we all stayed downstairs during the storm and Luke hardly even woke up. It was very scary and Vic and I spent most of the evening huddled in the bathroom while winds and rain that sounded like they were going to tear our house apart ripped by. I just kept waiting for the sound of broken glass, but fortunately we never heard that! We suffered little damage, which we are tremedously thankful for. We lost most of our fence and had some minor tree damage, and we had water in our sunroom, but our house is fine other than that.

As awful as the storm was, things are absolutely crazy now. I just went to run an errand and if you can find a gas station open, there are lines as far as you can see of cars waiting for gas. Some grocery store are open, but many don't have anything cold and there are lines to get in those. I am going to try to venture out today to get some more food to feed people that come over!

To all my friends in Houston that I can't get a hold of, I hope you are ok and that we can get in touch soon!! Here are a few picture of our house.

This was Austen and Vic boarding up both of our houses. We felt a little wimpy putting boards up, but wow, we were glad to have those when the storm came. The wind ripped a board off our kitchen window and was beating against it, but by some miracle is stayed on the ground and never went anywhere.

We had a few pieces of fence still standing :-) Oh well, this is an old fence that needs replacing anyways!

We had a section of our tree dangling that needed to be cut down. Vic cut this section down, and then fortunately a neighbor came by with a chainsaw and helped cut it apart.

Lastly, I just want to say how thankful we are for God's protection during the storm. On the day the storm came, I was doing my bible study and it was no coincidence that it was on God being our refuge and shelter and this was one of the verses, which came in handy when we were riding out the storm "....I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed." Psalm 57:1

A few more steps....

Luke took a few more steps this weekend, but still never more than one at a time. So of course I have not gotten a picture :-( We had a fun and relaxing weekend though. I hosted a baby shower for my friend Kristy, and other than that we watched a lot of football, it was wonderful! And on saturday, Luke turned 14 months, so hard to believe!

Kristy and our friends that helped host her shower

On sunday, I did one of my favorite things, dress Vic and Luke in matching (or close to matching) outfits! I am not sure that either one of them enjoy this as much as I do. But I figure I will take advantage of this while Luke is too young to protest what he wears :-)

First Step!

Well Luke took his first official step last night! He only took one step, but he did it twice. Today, he of course, is refusing to take any more steps. This is how Luke has usually done things....he shows us once that he can do something (as if to say, "Get off my back mommy, I can do it!") and then he doesn't do it again for a long time. So we'll see, it might be 6 more months before he is running around. We didn't get a picture, but if he starts taking more steps, we'll try to get one :-)

Playing at the park

We love to take Luke to the park, and we have been several times this week. The park has put in a whole area for toddlers to play on and Luke loves it! He loves to climb up the slide (doesn't like to go down, just climb up!) He likes to crawl through tunnels and still enjoys the baby swings. We look forward to when it cools down a little so we can go earlier in the day. Here are some pictures.

Luke was so excited when we got to the park, he almost jumped out of his wagon!

Daddy pushing Luke on the swing

Luke bouncing on the seahorse

Luke playing with the steering wheel

Luke and daddy on the big kids slide!

Words

I keep forgetting to mention Luke's first few words. We are counting his official first word as "go"....he started saying that about a month ago, but has not been saying it much lately. He is consistently saying "done" or "all done" when he is done eating, which is a great improvement over throwing his milk and/or food on the floor! He loves to say "mama" and sometimes "dada" but we are not really sure if he clearly associates those names with Vic and me. In fact, the other day at a friend's house, Luke was banging on the refrigerator yelling "mama!", so I am a little offended that he has me confused with a large appliance!! Really, as I have long suspected, I think Luke just associates yelling mama with getting food :-)

Visiting Friends

Luke and I spent the week visiting friends and staying with grandma and granddad while Vic was in Montana and Utah for work (he wasn't too thrilled to go to such exciting places!). We stayed one night with Trinity and Kristy, and we also visited Jessica and Sterling. It is now becoming almost impossible to get a picture of Luke without him moving, much less Luke and another child in the same picture.....so this is the best I could do! We had a fun week but we are glad daddy is home now. As you can see, Luke is also continuing to help around the house with things like unraveling all the toilet paper!

Luke doesn't just like to unravel the toilet paper, he then likes to shred it to pieces!

Luke and Trinity digging in the grocery cart and playing in the kitchen

Luke and Sterling playing together

Chuck E. Cheese

We have continued to have a low-key week, spent mainly indoors or at the pool. Fortunately, Luke loves to go in the water and is happy to stay for as long as we want. Last friday, my parents came over and grandma decided it was time for Luke to make his first trip to Chuck E. Cheese. Yes, I know Luke it too young to go there, but we were out of good ideas for close and indoor ideas. Luke was in a bit of a funk, so we don't know if he enjoyed it or not. However, Luke LOVED watching Chuck E. Cheese talk on the stage. He was so excited, he looked like he wanted to crawl up on stage with him. He was much happier after we left and had lunch, food always seem to cheer him up! Luke is still getting closer to walking, he pushes everything that has wheels around the house, but doesn't let go yet. Here are a couple pictures from our outing.