Hurricanes, moving, birthdays and weddings… Oh my!
*UPDATE* 10/06/08 - Photo links have been added to this page.
Well I figure by the title it is evident that the last couple of weeks have been pretty crazy. To begin with mom, uncle Larry and a friend of mom’s came to visit during Ike. Sean’s parents were also here with a friend as well but they were able to stay in Julie’s new place. For our end, we had a great time. It was fun to have family here to take for some Austin sight seeing and some good Austin food. Though I’ll admit that I forgot how early they get up and go to bed! I don’t function very well before 7am in the morning!
As it turns out most of our family and friends back along the coast fared the storm pretty well. Though there were a couple of exceptions, as mom went home to a tree in her home and some pretty wide spread water damage and my cousin Mark lost his back porch due to a tree. Everyone else had shingles gone or trees in their yard, but were safe and just mostly annoyed by how long it took to get the power and water working again. From what I understand there are some parts of my home town that are still without electricity. It’s amazing to think about the amount of damage done over night by mother nature. My uncle was telling me that parts of beaches I grew up on look completely different and that Galveston looks like a trash dump. I do hope that in time things get back to where they were. Sean and I send out our thoughts out to all those still without and hope the best for them all.
Go here for more information about the Hurricane and recovery:
http://www.google.com/ikeshelterinfo_sept08.html
Well soon after our evacuees left Sean and I went into moving mode. We decide to paint our new place to make it feel a bit more like home. Sean picked out some great colors… guess who did the majority of the painting though. 
I say this with love as I am technically the one still out of work and with the most amount of time on my hands. He did do the last bit when I just couldn’t touch up any more and mom helped me get started before she went home. It turned out great and by the end of this week we will have completely cleaned and moved everything out of our old place. We don’t quite have the new place together but as soon as there aren’t a thousands boxes laying around I’ll take some photos and post them. I don’t know how long we will be at this place but we both really like it and look forward to having guests as we now have a guest bedroom. (nudge, nudge, hint, hint, wink, wink:)
As for the other things happening, well Abigail and Olivia had their first birthday and we celebrated at Nonnie and Poppies. They both really enjoy chocolate cake, but you can judge for yourself. For those of you who may not know Olivia had surgery a few weeks back. It was mainly nerve racking because the doctors had to give her anesthesia. She came out of it just fine and all scars seem to be healing nicely. Due to this Sean and I got to spend a few days with Abigail (it was hard enough keeping the one with the stitches from touching them, much less keeping the other from touching them out of curiosity). Sean and I enjoyed having her with us. They’re both such good kids.
We also got to help Melissa’s twin sister Monica and her fiance Aaron celebrate their upcoming nuptials. Monica, Melissa and I headed out for Trudy’s and Sean and Aaron went to Driftwood, Texas for some local BBQ and BYOB :). We met up after dinner and went to 6th street to see Esther’s Follies. All in all we had a great time celebrating and can’t wait until Saturday, as that’s the big day. I’m sure I’ll have some wedding photos for you to check out and from hearing all the planning details it sounds like it’s going to be a grand affair.
Well for now I need to post some stuff on Craig’s List and finish putting books away.
P.S. We wish Jason, Ying and Aiden safe journey as they head to China today. We’re going to miss you, see you in a month!