Aunt Lou Got Hitched!

Lauren and Chris were married last Saturday, Sept 20 in New Orleans! It was a great party! Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. McCarthy!!!

Here are a few pictures from the weekend:

The Church!
Claire coloring at the rehearsal

On the streetcar to the rehearsal dinner

Breakfast at Cafe du Monde

Playing at the Aquarium

A picnic at the Ritz

Lauren and her bridesmaids at the Bridesmaids' Luncheon

Luncheon

Jason and his most-important job.....
...Making sure the guests get on the right streetcar

Grandma and Grandpa

Aunt Jamey and Almost-Uncle Jeff

In the limo, on the way to the church!

Limo

First Dance

Pretty Flowergirl

Mommy and Daddy getting a quick dance in

The cake!

Yummy cheesecakes

Dancing with my daddy

Just too much excitement

Sweet hugs

Happy Birthday, My Sweet Girl

Today is Claire's SECOND birthday!! She's had a much better day today than two years ago-a fun morning playing with Marie at the Ruckus Room, followed by a birthday lunch at McDonalds. Here are a few pictures of some of the highlights over the last couple of years:

And here are some shots of the birthday girl today!

We love you Claire!!

Home again, home again

We're home! We had heard that there is no gas to be found and no food on the shelves at the grocery store, so we went shopping in San Antonio last night for some Claire essentials (gotta have those yogurt smoothies), and made sure to fill up the car right before getting into the Houston area. Sure enough, the food is gone, but gas is slowly becoming more plentiful. There were a few convoys of emergency crews leaving on I-10, which I take as a good sign. Jason's building is back open, but because of the shortage of gas, he's going to work from home. My school survived with only minor water damage, but other schools in the district were more badly hit. There is still power out in most schools, and there's a problem getting enough food in to feed the kids, so school is canceled through at least the week. The principals are meeting on Friday morning to learn more about the coming weeks. At home, everything is pretty much like we left it, with the exception of a few minor issues. Jason said there must have been some strong water and power surges when everything was coming back on, because a few rooms in our house had circuits out, and the toilet in our bathroom blew a seal and is leaking now. But, those are very minor things compared to what a lot of people are dealing with. I'll post some pictures soon of some of the damage to our immediate area, along with one of Claire's adventures on our "hurrication" involving a cow. But for now, I need to go clean out the refrigerator.

We have power!!!

Emma's mom, Erica, just called to let us know that the power is back on!! Yay!!

Safe and Sound

We made it into San Antonio Saturday night with no problems. There were hundreds of rescue vehicles heading into Houston, so hopefully relief is coming soon for all the people stuck. We've learned that the running water in the Galleria area of town is completely gone, and people are draining apartment swimming pools in order to get any. Schools are closed through at least Wednesday, so we'll be in San Antonio either until then, or when we hear that our power is back on. We had no significant damage at our house, but many of our neighbors weren't as lucky. There are thoughts that a small tornado may have touched down a few streets away, based on the isolated damage--fences completely down, siding on some houses blew off, other people had parts of their roof cave in. We saw lots of trees down and uprooted, and know of a few people who have significant flooding. We were lucky.

4:30 p.m.

This is Lauren again.

I just talked to Katherine, and she said the power situation is pretty bad there. She said the power system in Houston was pretty badly damaged so power will be out for a long, long time. They have decided to go to San Antonio until either school starts again, Jason has to go to work or power is turned on.

Since nobody really knows when that will be, they are planning for the long-haul: they are taking their New Orleans clothes to San Antonio so just in case they can't make it back to their house, they will have all of the necessary clothes for the weekend. Everybody keep your fingers crossed!

They're hoping they can get out of town before everybody else has the same idea to leave...

Stay tuned!

9:00 a.m.

This is Lauren taking over the helm until Katherine's power is restored, which was lost around 6:00 this morning. She tried calling into San Antonio but couldn't get through, but she could get through to me and asked me to update the blog.

First and foremost, everybody is OK. Everybody and most everything made it though the night without harm. Some trees in the backyard are about to be gonners: one tree is almost uprooted and the other is flat against the ground, and it probably won't be long until it suffers the same fate its friend.

All windows are OK. Katherine is worried about the neighbor's trampoline: it has wedged itself in the fence and she is worried it will become a flying frisbee and hit their wall of windows. We joked around that she should tape a note to a rock and throw it at their window, then blame it on the storm!

The drainage path behind their house normally looks like a trickle. It now looks like a rushing river.

Katherine said if power is still out tomorrow, school Monday will more than likely be canceled, and she & Claire will head to San Antonio. She said when she looked outside she could see big blue explosions--the transformers blowing.

I'll post more updates as they come through...hopefully she'll be able to get through to somebody again in a few hours.

5:00 AM

Just some news: 75% of Houston is without power now, and I think we're next. Some reports are saying 2-3 weeks before it will come back on. Brennan's burned down because of a transformer explosion. The Humble/Kingwood area is getting hit the hardest at the moment, with that part of the storm moving around in our direction. I think the 7:00 hour will be our worst yet.

4:15 AM

Well, Claire and I are up. The wind is really strong, and I'm afraid our trees aren't going to make it too much longer. We've had a lot of power blips, too, so I suspect it's about to go for good. The rain isn't strong yet--we're still in the "green" part of the radar, but yellow and red are really close. Our tv keeps going out, but from what I can tell, things are much worse further south.

But, don't worry, we have on our trusty hurricane helmets.

Heading to Bed

We're going to try to get some sleep before the major stuff hits us after midnight. Still no rain here, but we have fairly steady wind now at around 20 mph, with gusts around 35. 315,000 people in Houston have already lost power, and we're anticipating it happening here at some point (we've already had a little blip). If (when) this happens, I'll try to get in touch with Lauren, and she'll update here. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep checking in and updating through at least the morning. Hope you all have a good night! See you in the morning!

Now we're prepared

Jason and I are having our own hurricane party tonight: champagne and pancakes!

(Beware of this next picture of Jason's pancakes-you might fall into a diabetic coma just from looking at it. Yep, that's raspberry jam in the middle, multiple tablespoons of butter on top, all floating in a sea of syrup.)
Cheers!

Check out this website

http://houstonhidefromthewind.org/

It breaks down expected wind speeds for the different zip codes in the Houston area. According to this, we'll see max sustained winds of 78 mph.

A Windy Walk

We decided to take Claire and Merc outside for some exercise and a chance to see what our neighbors are doing. Wind gusts have gone up to 20 mph or so, which was almost strong enough to blow Claire away (just kidding). There were lots of people out in their driveways watching their kids play in the street, and we saw only 3 houses with windows boarded up. We also had one of the scariest moments of my life on that walk: As we approached a culdesac with lots of people and dogs, a German shepherd came flying out of nowhere and attacked Merc. I had him on a leash, so I tried to pull him out of the way. I was too late, though, because the other dog had already picked Merc up by the neck, shook him, then threw him down. Jason scooped up Claire, and I screamed, which I think distracted the dog for a split second so that I could get Merc and the dog's owner could catch him. Luckily Merc's fine, but the coward just took his dog inside and closed the door. I even tried to get the guy's name, but he wouldn't talk to me. We have his address, though, and this will definitely not be last he's heard from us. In fact, if you'd like to send him mail, I'd be happy to tell you his address. :) (Jason's not letting me post it, due to "security concerns".)

Anyway, here are some pictures from the walk:

Windy, windy

After the incident--Merc didn't want to walk because the leash was bothering his neck

It's getting closer......