Mia, Mia, Mia

So last week I went through all of the kids clothes and got rid of the ones that didn't fit anymore. Well that night when Mia went to get her pajamas on she freaked out because her drawer was almost empty compared to how it was that morning. I tried telling her that all the clothes that I had taken out were to small and that I would get her some that fit later. Well, she wasn't very happy with me for a few days and I was telling my friend about what happened, and that I needed to go shopping to get her some new clothes. My friend has a daughter that is 5 and desperately needed to go through her clothes. She told me not to go shopping yet and we went and cleaned out her daughter dresser. Oh my goodness, after we were done Mia had more clothes than she has ever had her entire life! ( I love my friend, she saved me so much money!!) When Mia got home from preschool I told her I had a surprise for her, she could have cared less, but then I pulled out 3 garbage bags full of clothes. She has been in Heaven ever since, 3-4 outfits a day! She also had a bag of shoes and boots. Mia loves boots, and now she has 5 pairs! Let me tell you, the next morning Mia came out in her pajamas and boots, it was the funniest thing. I asked her if she had slept in them, but she said no, that she just put them on before she came out. I wished I had gotten a picture of it. I did get this picture of her though. She is definitely a girl!

Storming mess!

Saturday some members of the church decided we wanted a cool new yellow shirt, so we loaded up at oh-dark thirty and headed up to Houston. My chainsaw needs an award for all the trees it chewed through. Sorry I don't have pictures, but here are some details.

We showed up at the stake center where the hundred or so volunteers received assignments and supplies. The assignments ranged from moving people out of their homes to tarping roofs and removing trees. The missionaries had scoured the local areas asking people if they needed help, and those people along with local first responders were the houses we tackled. Our crew went to four different houses removing downed trees. Two sites had trees strike houses. One resident decided to keep their trampoline from blowing away by letting the wind drop a tree across it. That wouldn't have been my method but it worked! It was hot, a lot of work, a VERY long day, and a lot of fun. I wouldn't be surprised if we are asked to come back in a week or two when Galveston is opened up. We might need more shovels than chain saws there.

The area we provided our service in, through the home-teaching network, had accounted for the members and their needs within a day of the hurricane hitting. Talk about a good system!

Weather Threats

First we faced Gustav, then Ike. Neither one gave us anything, unlike Hurricane Dolly which dumped more rain in two days on us than Idaho gets in six months! On Wednesday we were expecting a direct hit from Ike, so we boarded up our house and prepared for an evacuation notice from the military Thursday morning. However, through the night the predictions had shifted far enough north it appeared we were out of harms way and the evacuation order was never issued. We did have the house boarded up already and figured it was better safe than sorry, so we left the boards up until Saturday morning. (Ike made landfall Saturday around 2:00 AM) Here I am taking down the last of the boards from the windows, these west side of the house. Jennifer decided she doesn't like living in a cave. The lack of sunshine makes her somewhat lethargic and depressed. Talk about a different mood once the boards were removed.





We didn't even see a rain drop from Ike. However, we did get some hot weather! Jennifer took this picture on our back patio in the late afternoon; 107 DEGREES! The kids all played in the hot-tub (we keep it around 90 degrees in the summer) for a few hours. Then, soaking wet they wanted to come inside. Jennifer told them they needed to stay outside and dry off a little before coming into the air conditioned house. Five minutes later Brody was sound asleep in the driveway!