To be 14....friends, screams and chainsaws!

No school today for kids...a teacher workday. So....since last night wasn't a "school night"; 5 teenagers wanted to go to the Haunted Hotel. "NOT I" said Mom. I drove the crew to the Haunted Hotel; waited for them and then they road go-carts (the event was at a sport's complex) and topped it off with a drink from Sonic. It was a great night for them...laughs, screams, stories, and fun times. What a care-free time in their lives. To top off my night when going to bed, Collin said "Mom, you're the best"! I need to remember and capsulate these times! These are good times......

Family Visits

We find ourselves blessed. Blessed that we can use our "off time" from work and visit our family. My parents returned to the lake from 5 months of RV'ing and we had lunch with them on Saturday. Always a good visit at the lake.... The weather was beautiful--needing only be about 10-15 degrees cooler to be perfect. I walked out to their boat house to see the roof damage from IKE with my dad and Collin; we had to walk on about every 3rd board. For me...that was a scarey feat. (get it....literal FEET). HA HA

We drove from the Lake to see Jerry's parents for a meal out to celebrate Marty"s birthday. A meal at Johnny Carino's is always great. Happy Birthday Marty...and many more!!!

We stayed in Baytown and attended church and saw smiling, happy faces! What a terrific church family. We received hugs and short visits with so many that we miss. Pray for the recovery of the area surrounding this church; the repair of buildings and the transition to a new schedules because of damage due to IKE.

Please pray for my friend's little boy; Kyler as he will have surgery on Nov. 4th at Texas Children's for a hernia.

Enjoy your Columbus Day....remember the song....Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492????

Adding a blog after 3 weeks? What's Up?

We hope this finds all our friends doing well. What's been going on with us? Hmmmmm I just completed the shortest 6 weeks in teaching ever! Only 17 days thanks to Gustav and Ike. Alittle hard to post grades when you've only seen your students about 8 times.... we are on block scheduling.

Jerry is still busy at his plant (as well as everyone else there) cleaning and assessing. The future of the plant is unknown; but, we know he is being taken care of and probably won't know start up date (if they start back up) for some time.

Collin is still golf lessoning and had a 100 in Biology this six weeks! WOW. He loves science. Our homecoming has been moved to Nov. 7 (from the end of Sept.) and we have homecoming parade and events that are upcoming. Our poor Bear football team just can't win a game :(

We enjoyed seeing the Foster family at a retirement dinner and a wedding shower this past weekend. It's been a while since we all had gotten to see each other. Mee Maw was always the "glue" to see that we stuck together (at least every now and then).

My parents returned to Livingston after being in COOL COLORADO since May. They have some damage on their dock/ boat house and limbs down. We plan on seeing them this weekend. My grandfather celebrated his 93rd b-day on Oct.2!

Keep Orange County in your prayers. There is still much repair and transition in this area. 1000's of people are now living their "new normal".

....On the Other Side of Hurricane IKE

September 11 - School cancelled; mandatory evacuation issued for Orange County at 6:15 a.m. Collin and Babs leave for Irving, TX; Jerry reports and stays with Storm Crew with the plant
September 12-13 - Hurricane IKE blows throw Galveston, Houston and the "dirty side" of the Hurricane is Jefferson and Orange County, TX
September 14 - Babs picks up generators in Arlington to deliver to family that stayed behind
September 15 - Collin and Babs head south with tons of other folks on I45 South. No gas available south of Centerville, TX. We head east on 190 to check out my parent's lake house on Lake Livingston. No home damage; dock and boat house damage. LOTS of pine tress down. No electrcity there. We stay with Oma and Opa in Baytown --thank goodness for cool weather and a generator :)
September 16 - Return home -- purchased groceries in Beaumont after waiting "our turn" to enter the store at HEB Plus. 8108 - HOME SWEET HOME "debris" in front yard; ELECTRICITY CABLE AND WATER ARE ON! Hooray. Jerry's outdoor kitchen lost it's roof and the pool is a mess--- absolutely no big deal! Praise God.
September 18-19 - Jerry gets to come home from Storm Duty. Couldn't be more tired. Dear friends from Bridge City stayed with us Thursday-Friday as they received several feet of water in their home. PRAY FOR BRIDGE CITY- a sister community of Orange. The surge affected the whole town! It is devastating! We live north of I10 in Orange and the flooding was south of I10. Visit www.kogt.com to see pictures.
I pray that God uses us as servants to help others in need. Our beaches are gone--the two beach houses that we loved to go to are now slabs. PRAY for strength, restoration, and perserverance during this time. I THANK GOD for our safe keeping, safe passage and the health and willingness to help others. I THANK GOD for family in the DFW area that fed us and entertained us during our evacuation.

Life is full of uncertainties

Rollercoaster. That's all I can say. You know, I don't remember there being so many hurricanes as a kid. In fact, I don't remember there being so many until just the past 5-10 years. I guess that in the real world of "grown-ups" you notice things more. HA
IKE the hurricane is nearing...IKE the hurricane is not.... Let's just put it this way; our bags are not unpacked from GUSTAV. Our lawn furniture and plants are still nestled closely to our back patio wall.
Jerry took on the job as Emerg. Response Coord. on 9/1. I would call that initiation by submersion! He has had about 15 conference calls with the state officials and national meterologists since 9/1---- planning ahead and predicting outcomes that noone really knows. At school, we are submitting "3 week" grades and we have only attended 8 days of class because of storms.
I'm going with the flow........ we learn that we just have to do what we can. Those that used to know me as a TYPE A personality.....well, I'm changing. I'm becoming more of the "whatever" personality :)
High school is agreeing with Collin and Krista will turn 22 tomorrow! Where is time going?????? I guess this only means that we're getting older, too. Like my dad says.....Old Age is a good thing; it's better than the alternative.
Please join us as prayer warriors against bad weather. I am always reminded of our many, many blessings. (to a tune....counting them one by one)!

On the other side...

We received some rain and wind gusts throughout the evening. Praise God that it isn't much to comment about. We go back to school/work on Thursday. I'm hoping that we won't have to make up the weather days as we were under a mandatory evacuation. Jerry is home for the day and is resting comfortably in his own bed...much better than an army cot in his office at work! We plan to leave our home "hurricane ready" until we see what Hanna, Ike and Josephine do. It appears we're free of worry from Hanna---we'll see about the other two. We have our lawn/pool items out of the way, etc.. We give God the praise and glory for His protection over us.

Hurricane Magnet?

Good evening all! What an eventful week.... Hurricane Gustav was lurking in the Caribbean all week which sent our family in overdrive. Evacuation preparations began around our house Thursday evening with the prediction of the storm entering the gulf and threatening the Louisiana coast/ Southeast Texas coast. We had to get the yard mowed short, put up outdoor furniture and pool items, etc. and then the indoor things of securing photo albums, etc.. Collin and I left Saturday afternoon for Lufkin where we stayed in a hotel that had several rooms blocked with Jerry's company. It was comforting to have a group of us there. HOWEVER, it certainly didn't take the place of having Jerry with us. Collin and I went to the Lufkin Zoo (I'm very impressed with how good it was!) and then bowling. He whipped his mom on that one. Jerry had to stay back and work and will be at the plant 24/7 this week. We are blessed to be back home now and are only expecting 30-40 mph winds with some rain here. Dodged that bullet!! Thanks to all for the thoughts and prayers during this time.