House Update

This is Mark writing. Please check out the following:

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Hey, someone stole the bathtub!

It's true. The work has finally begun on our house! It seems like it's been a really long time since the flood, and it has - over two months. But the work is really going fast now. I try to go by the house once each day just to check out the progress, and it's probably a good idea for those working to know that we're involved in the process. Things started the middle of last week with re-wiring the inside of the house. The electricians are almost finished with that and will start work on the exterior stuff tomorrow - new service panel and relocating the wires coming into the house due to modern code requirements. Today when I went by, there were lots of new people there - plumbers. I was surprised how fast they work. I was there around 1pm and all the old pipes were gone, all the new ones were in place, and many of the joints were already sealed. I think next will be some of the heavy work in the bathrooms.

Katherine and I are now officially role models. Benjamin has started imitating us doing some things, which we find absolutely adorable. The first was blowing his nose. Katherine had a cold a few days ago and was blowing her nose a lot. That evening, there was Ben with a kleenex blowing his nose into it. Then today he started filing his nails after watching Katherine do it. Hilarious! Last night, I found myself quietly passing a belch instead of letting it roar as I would prefer. The sacrifices of parenthood.... Here's a few pictures just for fun.

An Update from the 'Hurricane Victims'

Tuesday will mark the two-month point since Hurricane Ike sent us fleeing from our home. It seemed appropriate that we should provide an update - and with Ben fresh down for a nap, I'm *hoping* I have ample time to write some thoughts, post some pictures, and even fold a little laundry. He's the superstar sleeper in his class at school (the norm is 2-2.5 hours!), but we struggle to get good naps out of him during the weekend. We've timed everything right today, though, with no premature mini naps this morning. So here's hoping that this is a good one!

Life Overall

Life is well at the 'Hippie Commune', which is what we have been affectionately calling our living situation with our friends. We are still getting along amazingly well, and our hosts have not faltered in their graciousness to us. We're pretty comfortable in our third floor 'loft', but admittedly do go through occasional down periods where we desperately miss the ease of life in our one story house with its backyard and free-roaming space for Ben, as well as privacy. But we really can't complain - as I can't imagine a better situation considering our circumstances.

It looks like, at this point, Christmas will be the very earliest we'll be back in our house. Our contractor says he'll work hard to make that happen, but it's still a stretch. Especially considering none of the rebuilding has even started yet!

Progress on the house

Chris, our contractor, provided us with his 'bid' for the work to rebuild the house. The number doesn't mean a lot to us yet (except that it's a heck of a lot of money!), because we still don't have the dollar amount from our insurance company. That really frustrates us, as it's been almost two months since we filed our claim! Friday, our adjuster called, and she had just filed the claim with the company. She would not give us a timeline for when we should expect to receive the amount, but said it would be at least another week. We're stuck in a tight spot now, as Chris is ready to start work - and can have a contract ready for us to sign on Monday, but we still don't know how much we truly have to work with, and we also have limited funds to start with, since it's still all out-of-pocket at this point. Fortunately, my company is offering interest-free disaster loans for folks who suffered damages from Ike - and it's a pretty good deal - they give us the money upfront, and then deduct an equal amount from my paycheck over the next two years. But making the commitment to Chris and starting the work makes us uncomfortable because we just don't know what to expect from insurance. Also, we're doing some upgrades in the remodel process, so we know we will be paying for that out-of-pocket, but just don't know to what degree. Fortunately, the first week will be primarily plumbing and re-wiring work (since our walls are all now open, this is apparently a very wise investment for resale), and we're committed to doing this, so that buys us a week of progress with the house. After that, though, it's going to be tough to stay committed to our decisions if we still haven't heard from insurance - as we could opt to go cheaper in a few areas if money is tight. *sigh*

We also are having to deal with re-sodding a good portion of our front yard, as our flood remediation contractor put all the rubble in our front yard for the city to pick-up. It sat there for two weeks, which was frustrating (why didn't he just get a dumpster?!), and then the city apparently hired out the job of picking up heavy trash - who did an AWFUL job of it - and essentially tore all the grass up under the rubble. We're actually going to try to file a claim with the city to get money for re-sodding. In the past, they have always picked up the top stuff with the claw, and then a person got out of the truck and piled the smaller things in the street, so the claw could scrape it up. It was very apparent that no one got of the truck, and instead the claw just tore into the yard. And they didn't even get it all - Mark had to spend a couple of hours picking up what they missed. *sigh*

Life with Ben

Ben is still doing AWESOME at school! We really love his teacher, and he always seems so pleased to be there when we arrive. This has been a HUGE blessing for us, and has certainly freed up a lot of time to deal with things with the house. Plus Mark and I are definitely less stressed and more patient and kind to each other since receiving help in this area.

Here are some photos of our adventures together as a family over the past few weeks:

We've obviously spent a lot of time with our "housemates." Here Ben is eating snacks on "Uncle" Randy's lap, while watching football. Their eldest daughter Megan was over too. She's done some babysitting for us over these last few weeks, as well.

Bathtime is my least favorite time of day. Most parents I know love bathtime, but not me. Babette offered to give Ben a bath one evening. They had lots of fun:

Mid-October marked the annual Trike-a-thon for St Jude at Ben's school. Here they are raring to go. Ben's teacher pushed his class in the 4-kid stroller - they are in the right.

Ben's class with Nathalie:

Here they come! They completed 16 laps around they gym.

Ben's teacher does all sorts of neat projects with the kids. Here's Ben's first artwork from finger painting:

Mark, Ben and I participated in the Houston Pumpkin Run. Ben's first race! He did great, and we walked almost 5k. Almost because we arrived about 5 minutes late, so to avoid being extremely last, we turned around when we reached the back of the pack. :)

Ben, Megan and I attended a family concert. Ben really enjoyed it, and was watching very quietly - right up to the point where he fell asleep! Here Mark is carrying our sleeping baby back to the car after the concert.

Ben and I had a morning to kill during a no-school day, so we went to the Health Museum. He was fascinated with this video of a talking robot.

I was more interested in the giant mouth display then Ben. I'd put him in the middle, then back up to try to take a picture - but he's obviously ready to get out!

Ben's favorite display was the dancing machine next to the lunch area. And he enjoyed it without me even putting any quarters in the machine! Let's see some moves, Kid!

Mark and I early-voted, and shamelessly used our child to air out our political views:

And of course, we've had many hours in our 'loft' playing, being silly and cuddling:

That's it for this update. Hope you are all enjoying as beautiful a weekend as we are here in Houston (high in the mid-70s!)

Happy Halloween!

Thank you Grandma Susan for turning our little monkey into a 'real' monkey this Halloween!

Triathlon report

Hi, this is Mark again. I did something last Sunday I'd never done before. I competed in a triathlon. In conversations with coworkers and others unfamiliar with triathlon, I've learned that when most people hear "triathlon" they think of the ironman - an extreme endurance race consisting of a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and 26.2 mile run. In other words, something only for crazy people who have nothing else to do but train for the event. The triathlon I did is called a "sprint distance" tri. 300 meter swim, 10 mile bike, and 3 mile run. Okay, it's not as impressive as the ironman, but it was a fair amount of training, and I was proud to have done it. My time was 1:21:36 including all transitions.
The hardest part for me was the swim. I learned how to swim at a young age, and am comfortable in the water, but that's the extent of my ability. 300M is very short by "real" swimmers' standards, but it was a big challenge for me to get to the point of being able to complete the distance. This one was held in a lake, which is another challenge - you can't see and there's no lanes dividing you from the other swimmers. Now that I managed to do it though, I'd really like to get better at swimming. I'm sure there will be a day when other sports are too rough on the joints and swimming may be all that's left for exercise. I don't know if I'd say I enjoy it yet, but I'm getting there.
Katherine swam on a team as a youngster, and watching the triathlon gave her the swimming bug a little bit, so we went together for a swim tonight. I found it so much more fun with someone else, and it was really neat to see how good of a swimmer she is, even after all these years. It's really fun to learn something new about your spouse after eight years of marriage.
The other part of the triathlon that was new to me is the transitions. Your bike is placed on a rack and you have a small area around it which has all the gear you need throughout the race - bike shoes and helmet, socks, running shoes, gatorade, and a bunch of small stuff. In order to minimize the transition time, all the gear is laid out very carefully in the order it will be needed. Katherine made fun of my running shoes with their special elastic laces, but those laces saved me 10-15 seconds! Of the various running and biking events I've done the past few years, I'd have to say the triathlon is the most fun. The others have their rewards, but it's just so neat to combine the different sports into one race. I'm definitely looking forward to doing this again!

Here are some pictures from the event. This is before the race, getting ready for the swim with friends.

The start is done in waves based on gender and age. Here are the over-40 men about to go.

This is the transition area. That's me in the red shirt all the way on the other side.

Here I am coming out of transition to start the run portion. I had just seen my cheering family, hence the big smile.

It was awesome to have Katherine and Ben there for cheering support. They came with our housemates, Randy and Babette and their daughter Megan. Babette also competed, and was actually competitive! She placed second in her age group.

Chuggin' Along

Tomorrow will start week 5 since we've been "homeless" (we left mid-day four Thursdays ago), and I think we're in pretty fine spirits considering. :)

Benjamin is doing GREAT at school - and in fact seemed pretty disappointed to not be going to school on Saturday - and was not shy to let me know! He fussed whenever we went back upstairs after being downstairs (ie instead of heading out the door), brought me his shoes several times and mine once, and even tried to hand me my work briefcase. Sorry Ben, I had to keep saying, no school today. You're stuck with me. I didn't quite know whether to be happy that he enjoyed going to school so much, or somewhat sad that he quite markedly prefers school over hanging out at home with mom. I'm going with happy, because I feel zero guilt dropping him off each morning. And he has yet to shed a tear over my departure.

We've made some progress with the house. The contractor we hired to complete the flood remediation piece (dry wall tear-out and "microban" application (to halt any mold growth)) began work last Thursday. Through them, we hired movers to box up our stuff and put it in a storage locker - and they did this on Saturday. It's the first time we've done this (ie instead of packing it ourselves) - wish we could have enjoyed the experience a bit more. :) Mark was there for the first couple of hours giving guidance to the flood remediation workers, who were still working around our stuff and around the movers. But they did much of the packing without us there, so I'm hoping our stuff is in good shape when we get to it - which will likely not be for a number of weeks yet. It makes me a bit nervous about what condition we'll find stuff - and it will be hard to sort through since we have no idea what stuff is in which boxes. But in the end it's just stuff, I suppose, and we're looking at this as a good exercise to rid ourselves of non-essentials. In fact, I'm probably going to want to clean and sanitize just about everything before bringing it back into the house - as I don't know what was touched by flood waters, and the stuff that wasn't touched may be boxed up with stuff that was... Our plan is to try to find our bed (or borrow an air mattress) and bring Ben's pack-n-play with us when the house is ready to be inhabited again and slowly bring over a car-full of boxes each day to sort and clean - eventually renting a truck for the final furniture. Not going to be an easy process, but I'm looking forward to a much simpler household in the end.

Right now our house has been completely gutted, and the air movers are blowing air around our house. I'm not sure how much longer they stay. Mark met with the first contractor for the repair/rebuild today. We had been really close to hiring this contractor to do some work in remodeling our carport/garage - so now we'll divert the funds to home repair. We already know that insurance will not cover all the necessary rebuild pieces, and we want to make a few upgrades as well (flooring and bathroom, primarily - but also possibly some electrical re-wiring). We'll get an estimate when he has the dimension information from the insurance company (about a week), and I'm a bit nervous about what the final price tag will be. Mark is meeting with this contractor's flooring subcontractor tomorrow, and with an alternate prime contractor on Friday.

Our Contractor (Chris is his name - probably should start just calling him by name, as there may be many more entries that refer to him!) gave us an initial ballpark estimate of 6 weeks - 2 months to complete the work. So Thanksgiving will be the earliest we could be back in the house. I had my eyes on Thanksgiving, but I may need to re-adjust to Christmas to make it more realistic and not be disappointed.

So below are some pictures from various stages of our house

These first few pictures were what the house looked like when I returned from Oregon. As you can see, our stuff was everywhere and Mark had begun cutting away the bottom few inches (then finally bottom foot or so) or the drywall. Little did I know this was just the beginning!

Then the professionals came and removed even more wall. This is my favorite picture to just show how weird this all was. Four feet and down the wall was cut away, but then everything higher was left in-tact. Notice the quilts on the wall in this picture below. They normally hung above our bed. The contractor originally thought they could work around our stuff. So they piled it all in the middle of each room and draped a tarp over it to protect it from dust.

These pictures show our house getting closer to finished as far as the remediation goes...

Here's our kitchen. Yep, this is the kitchen that Mark personally remodelled just two years ago. They ripped out the base cabinets, but were able to salvage the granite. A separate contractor was brought in to remove and store the granite. Hope we can find his phone number when it comes time to put it back...

Here is a shot from Ben's room looking towards the guest room. We had wood floors over concrete slab - and apparently this was how wood floors were installed in the 50s - the boards the flooring was nailed to "floats" on tar on top of the slab. Interesting.

Here's a shot from our Den looking towards the percussion studio. In this room we had paneling, so the entire wall had to come down. You're looking at the back of the top half of the drywall from the studio. That paneling is one thing we won't miss.

And finally here's a shot in our master bathroom. This is where the sink/vanity were - and the tile did not extend behind it, so the entire thing had to be removed. They actually found mold behind the tile too, so pretty much all the bathroom tile had to come down. We're not terribly disappointed about that, as we had intended to remodel the bathrooms eventually, just not right now and not in this manner.

And what blog entry would be complete without a few pictures of the B-dogg?

Daddy and Ben snuggling one morning soon after our reunion as a family post-hurricane

Ben recently discovered the joy of "folding" laundry. He spent a good twenty minutes sorting the laundry when I captured this picture. Too bad I had both clean and dirty laundry accessible at this time...

Ben's First Day of School!
Ben and his teacher Ms. Nathalie

Finally, thank you again for all the phone calls and notes - I'm sorry I haven't gotten back to pretty much everyone. Slowly but surely our life is beginning to resemble something normal again. Okay, maybe normal is not the word, as most people don't live on the third story of their friends' home - but as normal as normal can be for a family displaced who is trying to rebuild their home. All this to say, I will get back to you - eventually!

The Long Haul

The story keeps unraveling, and it's amazing to me how much damage 3 inches of water can wreak.

Today marks the beginning of week 4 of being homeless. Our spirits are pretty high, I think, considering - but the daily stresses prove for moments of pretty significant lows. Mark and I are trying to take a divide and conquer approach so that we don't get overwhelmed and frustrated - but it's hard to relinquish some of the "control" over the situation. We've pretty much decided that he's going to take the lead in figuring things out, hiring contractors, etc. and will ask for my input on big decisions/when he needs it - of course, keeping me clued into the process. I'm taking the lead on making sure Ben has something to do during the day (which means taking him to and from school, and then finding something to do "after school," as our Loft, as wonderful as it is, is pretty limited in its' capacity to entertain an almost 16-month old), and then we co-team for mornings and evenings - as it takes two to get him ready and fed and all three of us out the door in the morning, and similarly fed and ready for bed at night. (Remember, that we are on the third floor - the kitchen is on the first floor, and is not babyproofed, so it's two flights up and down with Ben, and he pretty much has to be strapped in to his high chair if we're downstairs).

The amount of work that needs to be done to the house seems to grow daily. The claims agent came to the house on Monday (or maybe it was Tuesday, I can't quite remember already). She recommends that all the flooring be replaced and the bottom 4-feet of wall be removed for the entire house. This is convenient for some reasons (ie we can finally get rid of the den paneling that we've wanted removed for some time), and really a headache for others (the base kitchen cabinets which Mark personally installed must be replaced, and the granite salvaged for the new cabinets).

Time-wise we're thinking this may take another 6 weeks, but we could be drastically off in either direction. Once we actually hire a contractor for the entirety of the work, we should have a better estimate.

We're also losing a lot of furniture - not necessarily because it's horribly damaged, but because of the big "question mark" whether it has some damage. The claims agent is pretty aggressive in declaring things that can be claimed and replaced, which is generous - and I suppose we'd rather err on the side of replacing things that maybe don't need to be replaced, then find out something is mildewy or rusty further down the road. But neither of us are big on shopping for big ticket items, and the number of things that we'll have to make decisions about can be pretty overwhelming for us.

Then there's the job of hiring contractors. Some do it all (tear out, sanitize/de-mold and reconstruct). Some only do a little. Some can start right away, some have a wait. They all say that our stuff needs to be removed and put into storage (the stuff we're keeping, that is) - but some will clean, pack and store it for you. Some won't. And then finding a place to store it is hard to come by now. Plus, it looks like we may have to pay for this part out-of-pocket. Ugh.

We actually hired a company to start the work today (as they came out to do an estimate and said they could start right away - the house is starting to stink from the water trapped behind the paneling, so we are anxious to get started), and they said that they didn't actually need to remove our stuff. But then later decided that they do. But they won't move it. So Mark's trying to find a moving company that will move and store it. Or he's considering firing the current contractor and hiring one of the other companies that will move and store it in addition to the removal/sanitation. Too many decisions.

I know this is rambling, but it feels good to be connected again, and if I don't just start typing some of our experiences, I'll get overwhelmed and not know where to begin, and I really want to document this whole experience. I think you get a taste for what we're going through.

On the bright side, Benjamin started "School" (MDO) on Monday, and he is doing just GREAT! Seriously, it is such a relief now to think that he'll not only be able to handle the separation, but that he can do it five days a week, and that he is actually doing well and having fun. It just thrills me, and takes so much stress off Mark and I, as it's overwhelming to try to both work, take care of all this mess with our house, let alone care for a small child in someone else's house.

I got some fun pictures of us with Ben dressed up for his first day of school, and him with his teacher in the classroom, but I'll have to post them when I figure out how to do it on our laptop.

So some details about the program: It's 9-3 M-F at a nearby (nearby to our house, not our loft) Lutheran church. The teacher is FANTASTIC, and is pretty much the reason we chose the school. I'm not sure how I feel about the teachers for the next class, but we really feel this was the best place to introduce Ben to "corporate care." I am still a huge fan of Montessori, so we're still working on finding an appropriate program for Ben's next move. But I hope he'll be in his current class for the next 6-months.

But anyways, the church just opened up the "infant" program (12-18 months) in January, so it's quite small. It has four students and one teacher (although it's still not full, so two days per week, it's just three students and one teacher), and the teacher has a master's degree in Early Childhood Education. I can really tell she knows this age group and how to properly stimulate them. And the infant room is large, as it doubles as the church nursery on Sundays, so the kids have lots of room to move around. We visited the class a few times before enrolling Ben, and it was so peaceful (probably because there were only two kids enrolled at the time), and the children seemed content. A huge bonus for me was that the teacher was totally happy to chat with us, and seemed really at ease with us being there. (more some other day on the Montessori that we pulled Ben out of prior to enrollment - which was largely due to this factor). She's got a neat little schedule for them, which includes daily stroller walks, time on the playground or time in the gym (with many balls, ride on toys, etc available), and the kids go to Chapel twice per week where they have music and bible stories. She also has one or two "learning objectives" per day - ie. she has pictures of some toys in a bucket for a "matching" game. Today they shined a flashlight on objects and talked about "on" and "off." And the children sleep on Nap Matts, which Ben took to immediately! He saw the other kids lay down on their matts, so he did the same, and is apparently already the best sleeper in the class - sleeping for 1.5-2 hours! She's great with the kids, great with me (ie gives me "nuggets" about Ben's day when I pick him up), and Ben seems happy when I pick him up. Today he was smiling and "flirting" with his teacher when I was holding him and talking to her at pick-up time - a great sign. And he only fussed a bit on the first day that I dropped him off. Day 2 & 3 Mark dropped him off, and apparently he didn't fuss a bit - and even walked into the classroom himself. I couldn't be more pleased with the school and how he's doing, and I think it is such a HUGE blessing amid all that we're going through. Please keep your fingers crossed that it continues this way!

So, I think that catches up for the most part of what we've been up to the last few days. I'll try to update more often, as it does help me feel less scattered and a bit more normal. But now I'd like to catch the rest of the vice presidential debate, and perhaps have a bowl of Blue Bell (full fat!) mint chocolate chip ice cream. Yum!

Oh - and THANK YOU to whoever sent the packages of board books! What a treat for Ben to have some new books to look at - not only because so many of his flooded out - but also because I tried to go to the library today to pay for the borrowed books that were destroyed (and to check out some new ones) - and apparently it sustained some damage as well, as it had a sign that said "Closed until further notice." Please let us know if you sent the books so we can properly thank you!

Good night, everyone!

First Pictures

I don't know if this will work, but a friend took pictures of our house upon their first clean-up visit (before we got there). The pictures are meant for insurance purposes, so there are a lot of just water on the floor - but at least they'll give you an idea of what they arrived to...

http://picasaweb.google.com/mamcqueen/IKE08Flooding?authkey=p8mBJiEosM4#

Update

Greetings everyone. This is Mark again. I enjoyed writing those few posts, so maybe I'll just do a few more. Don't worry, I promise Katherine will write some more too. Here's the latest news:
Katherine and Ben got back Thursday night. It was an immense delight to see them again. We're really enjoying being a family, going for walks, adjusting to our new routine, etc. However, the day after they got back, the difficult realities of the situation set in a little bit. Our temporary home was not baby proofed which required constant watching of Benjamin. The electricity was still not working at our flooded house. We didn't know how long the repairs would take - a couple weeks or three months or more. There is still a ton of work to do cataloging damaged household items, calling contractors, etc and how were we going to do that while still working and taking care of our active toddler? All these uncertainties made for a pretty stressful period. Fortunately, many of those questions have been answered and we're feeling fairly peaceful about what's happening. First is that we're more comfortable with our temporary housing. We're staying with a couple that are friends from our church small group. They're in their mid 50's and unfailingly generous. The have a house right in the middle of town, and it's one of these newer homes which has a small footprint but is tall. So we have the third floor all to ourselves. I think I'm going to start referring to it as our "loft." That sounds pretty cool. It's got a living room, two bedrooms and a bathroom. We moved some furniture around, removed some knick-knacks, found a better location for a baby gate, and got it pretty well baby proofed.
The electricity came back on this morning at our house which will make working there a whole lot nicer. (Count 'em - 16 days without power!) I met with a flood mitigation guy today who explained the process including that it would only take about a week once we get approval from the insurance company. It may take a few more weeks after that to have a contractor put new sheetrock up and replace floors, but hopefully this will take about a month, maybe a little more. Finally, Benjamin is all set to start his mother's day out program tomorrow. Originally we wanted him to go three days a week. Given the circumstances, we're going to start him going for five days and hopefully move to three days once things settle down a bit.
We have a number of really kind friends and family who've helped us with housing, babysitting, and a WHOLE bunch of labor right after the flood. They are a truly amazing blessing.
In case you're curious, last weekend's symphony concert was everything I'd hoped. Interestingly, I don't think the audience liked it very much. I will admit this particular piece of music is probably most enjoyed by a true art lover. It deals with weighty subject matter via sung poetry, and includes a lot of slow, reflective type music. Houston is not a real artsy type of city so I guess I'm not surprised. Maybe next time we go to New York...

Sometimes life just stinks

Hi everyone, Mark again. Katherine returns tomorrow so it won't be long until someone with real writing skills will be authoring these entries. For now, I'm just going to rant and rave. We finally have an insurance adjuster. Her name is Judy Hill, she's from South Carolina, and sounds VERY southern. Maybe she'll bring some of that southern hospitality to our insurance settlement. Even though a company will be coming in to do official water remediation, she strongly recommended we go ahead and cut out the bottom foot or so of all the sheetrock in our house to get things started drying out. Especially on exterior walls where the insulation is full of water. I had some guys come over last night, borrowed a generator for light and we went to town on the house. Wow, what a messy, messy job. It was really gross - you'd pull out a piece of insulation which is literally dripping water all over the floor and mixing with the drywall dust, making this pasty stuff on the floor. Fortunately, it dries quickly and I'll be doing a good mopping this afternoon.
The hard part about this is that it seems unlikely we'll be able to live in the house for a while. The musty smell might go away in a couple days as things dry out, but there's just no way to childproof all the bits of drywall hanging down and other things causing the house to be a complete mess. All the folks working with me on this project concurred it would be a bad idea to bring Ben back there. It looks like initially we'll stay with some friends who've generously offered part of their house until we get an idea how long this will take. Then we'll see after that.
It also seems our area of town is almost last on the city's electricity restoration plan. We were originally told to expect it back by Thursday, but that's now been revised to Sunday. I have seen almost no activity in the area although supposedly there are about 12,000 crewmen working on the restoration. Hmmmppphhh!
On the positive side, I started back to work today at the symphony. We're performing music of my favorite composer this weekend, Dmitri Shostakovich - his 13th Symphony. I've always felt you can readily hear in his music the very deep struggles he had throughout his life. Over the course of a season, there are usually two or three weeks which are really special and this will likely be one of them. Also, it's going to be wonderful to have Katherine and Ben back, even if we can't stay at home. It'll be nice to have their company as well as another piece of normal life returning to place. I realize this post is fairly negative and full of complaining. Sorry about that. It's all true, but at the same time I'm trying to see the positives in this experience. Ultimately, I think it is in times of struggle when we grow as people, and in my case, as a Christian. It's been amazing to see the vast generosity of a number of people who've helped us. And I've been stretched in my ability to ask for and receive help. So in that sense, I welcome this struggle.

There is hope!

This is Mark again. Thank you, Lara, for the suggestion on starting my own blog. I actually do have a blog, which has one entry from the day I started it. Realistically, I'm not generally a reflective type of person, at least not in a bloggy way. (New word for the day?) I'm always lamenting not having enough time for the things I really care about, so I probably won't keep this up. But in the meantime, my daily trip to the public library computers have been an enjoyable diversion to get connected to the world as well as enjoying some air conditioning.
Two signs of progress came today. I awoke this morning to the sound of big machines picking up the massive piles of yard waste lining our street. I felt kind of bad for them working on a Sunday morning, but I guess it's necessary. Literally every street in Houston is lined with huge piles of brush, often large trees cut into sections. I have been very impressed with the city of Houston's ability to get things moving quickly - water treatment plants were quickly restored, libraries opened quickly. Our mayor here kicks butt. I thought a newspaper columnist said it well - "Mayor Bill White is the argument against term limits."
Yesterday, I went with a team from our church to an area hit much harder by Ike. We went south of Houston to a little town called Alvin. It's not all the way to Galveston, but a lot closer than where we live. We split up into smaller teams to work on different projects in the area. My project was kind of frustrating in that it really required experts in tree cutting, not ordinary volunteers. This family had a large tree in their yard that was tangled in some power lines (non-energized). We really didn't make much headway on it until some folks came later who had experience with this stuff. I didn't know how much planning goes into removing a fallen tree - whatever section is being cut can't fall on people or things, can't remove support for the person in the tree, and can't bind the saw as it's being cut. It was surprising to see the extent of damage down there. We drove by large fields with huge trees where most of the tops of the trees had been blown off by the high winds. We're talking 50-100 foot tall, fully mature trees. Some other folks worked in houses dealing with flood damage where they got three feet of water in the house. As a reference, ours got about three inches.
The other sign of progress just happened an hour ago. I was having lunch with some friends after church. While we were there, the lights came back on!! It really was an amazing moment, one I wouldn't have fully appreciated without being sans electricity for almost a week. Maybe when I get home, our lights will be on....
That's all for today. Have a nice week!

Update and Reflections from Mark

Hi there. This is Mark writing - Katherine has graciously allowed me to hijack her blog to provide you with some updates on how things are going down here as well as some reflections on Ike.


It is now one week since Ike made landfall and we are still without electricity. The electric company says that exactly half of Houston's 2 million residents have power - guess we're the unlucky ones. They have been quick to point out that places like next door "Oak Forest" and our subdivision "Ella Lee Forest" have been harder to restore because of the trees. Unfortunate, but I'll gladly wait a few more days for electricity and enjoy the lovely trees from then on. Houston has been VERY fortunate to receive a significant cool front the day after Ike. This last week would have been a far worse scenario if we'd had our usual mid 90's and very high humidity. Of course, this front was the one responsible for flooding our house, but I still think it's worth it for the rest of the city. That being said, the heat is returning more and more each day. Last night was the first one where I had trouble sleeping because of it. Hopefully the juice will return soon!
One of the hardest parts about this is the waiting. When will we get electricity? When will work start back up? (Mine has been announced, then cancelled, then reannounced.) Most of all, when will the ball start rolling with the insurance company? We filed our claim Tuesday afternoon and were told we'd be assigned an adjuster within 48 hours. Over 96 hours later, still no adjuster. I'm trying not to be upset, remembering they're getting absolutely hammered with claims, but the waiting is very hard. Especially since we don't know much about mold and water damage, and there are many different opinions out there. When we got back, one neighbor was furiously tearing out sheetrock. Most neighbors have thought it's okay to wait for the insurance people to do their thing then start the work. I tore out a few sections of sheetrock along the baseboards and there sure is a lot of water in there. It's okay on the interior walls but the insulation on the exterior ones is like a wet sponge for the first couple inches. Not knowing how to proceed has been frustrating.
Perhaps my greatest personal revelation from all this is that I am a bone fide family man. I love Benjamin immensely, but I've had a very difficult time adjusting to life with a baby/toddler, particularly regarding my introverted need for alone time. When we made the decision for Katherine and Ben to go to Oregon until the house gets back in order and the electricity returns, there was a part of me that was looking forward to a week by myself. I have enjoyed that somewhat, but now the loneliness is really setting in. Most of our friends are couples, many have kids, and there really aren't folks I feel comfortable calling by myself to do something social. All that to say, I'm ready for my sweet wife and son to return - Thursday can't come soon enough.
I did my first "brick" yesterday. No, not some hurricane recovery effort but a kind of workout. I've entered my first triathlon which is in three weeks. I'm feeling pretty good about the three aspects of it individually, but putting them together is totally new. A brick is a bike/run combination. It was harder than I expected - the legs do not like running when they've already been beat up on the bike.
Many thanks to those of you who've been thinking of us and praying for us and the house. So far, I've found only a few things that aren't just "stuff that can be replaced." Once I can use our computer at home, I'll try to post some pictures. I've got hundreds for the insurance adjuster, but we'll save the choice ones for this blog.

Not so fast...

Apparently, we were a bit quick in announcing our good fortune in surviving Ike. Another friend (and neighbor) offered to go check out our house again this morning, after hearing that our street had experienced some flooding. And unfortunately, our house did indeed flood. I guess a huge storm passed through after Ike (yesterday, then?), and dumped a ton of rain. So while we were celebrating our good fortune from surviving Ike with no troubles minus a bit of inconvenience, our house was filling up with water. I don't know exactly how much it flooded. Sounds like at one point there were several inches of water - but now it's not actually standing water - but the carpets, etc are saturated - including everything on the floor (right now I'm saddest about all of Ben's glorious board books - how this child loves to read)...

We have the most amazing friends - we just received a call from our fourth friend who has headed over to help start cleaning things up. We are frustrated and worried being so far away from what is happening, but also so incredibly humbled by the love our friends have shown us by jumping to our aid over the last few hours.

It sounds like power may still be days (I'm afraid to say weeks) away, so Benjamin and I are jumping on a flight this evening to visit my parents in Oregon until all this gets sorted out. Mark is driving back to Houston tommorrow morning to assess the scene and figure out what needs to be done to get our house liveable again.

Please send him good thoughts and prayers as he works over the next few days in what is likely to be an uncomfortable situation - and that the current cool front that will make it so much more bearable lasts...

Thank you Dan, Robyn, Josh and Nathan for being such gracious hosts, and allowing us to share your home with no notice for several days. You guys are awesome, and we had such a fun time visiting with you...

Waiting

We're still waiting to go back to Houston. Seems that power is still out across much of the city - including the water plant, so our house currently has no power and no water. Consequently, we're not planning on going home until that changes.

A friend stopped by our house to check it out - and it looks like we escaped without damage. We have some large limbs down - including one that will prevent us from using the driveway (until Mark breaks out his chainsaw, that is) - but none that fell on the roof. Also, part of the fence got disconnected - but looks like it's still hanging on (didn't get blown totally away). From his walkthrough (thanks Joe) that sounds like the extent of it for us. Sounds like many, many trees are down all over though.

So now we're just waiting for the power and water to be back and then we can go home! No idea how long that will take - could take a week, I hear. In the meantime, we have the news on almost 24/7, and we just keep waiting...

Ike Update

As I am sure many of you are, we have been monitoring Ike via the news for the last couple of days. Today we spoke with a few friends who stayed behind in Houston - and it looks like everyone is safe - with some minor house/property damage. It seems like the damage, though, is hit or miss - ie one house is spared, but another one has trees knocked down / shingles blown off...Power seems to be out all across Houston, and no one is sure when it will return. So we may be staying put for a while (sorry D&R, we'll try not to get on your nerves too much :) )

If you have been watching the news, the downtown building with all the windows blown
out that they keep showing is across the street from Jones Hall - where the Houston Symphony performs. Officials are advising folks to stay put for a while, but we've had a couple of friends offer to go check on our house when people can go out and about again. Looks like the phone lines are down too - as we've been unable to reach folks via land lines.

We're in a suburb of Dallas now - and it looks like the remainder of Ike will be passing through here in the next few hours. We've had lots of rain and some wind, but nothing serious yet. Benjamin and I enjoyed running outside in the rain for a bit a few hours ago, and all three little Griffith boys are asleep now, so Mark and Dan are working on a home improvement project together. So this evacuation hasn't been so bad so far! But we are hoping to go home before too long - and get back to our lives...

We'll update you when we know more.

Hope all you Texans out there are all safe & dry! :)

We're Here!

Sorry - forgot to post earlier. We made it to Dallas with very little (thankfully!) drama! A bit of traffic coming out of Houston, but we mostly used backroads. Took us 6 hours instead of the usual 4 - which certainly beats the 12 hours it took us during Rita to get to Austin.

So now we're enjoying a fun-filled weekend with the Other Griffiths!! Hope Ike isn't too mean to Houston...

IKE!

Yikes! We have a hurricane headed our way! It wasn't supposed to hit Houston, but last night it turned...

We're packing up our stuff, and planning to head out within the hour. We'll be enjoying an unplanned visit with The Other Griffiths (thanks for taking us in, D,R,J&N!) in Dallas. Our biggest worry right now is the traffic. For Rita, it took us 12 hours to get to Austin (should have been a 3 hour drive) - and that was difficult enough WITHOUT a toddler in the backseat! But, hopefully "they've" learned from the Rita experience, and it won't be so bad...

Wish us luck! I'll try to remember to put up a post when we arrive in Dallas to let you know we made it there safely...

Our Trip to Jacksonville

Mark recovered our photos from our trip to Jacksonville, FL in August!!! Our trip included a visit to Starke (our old stomping ground while I was in school & Mark with the JSO), Ben's first trip to the beach, and our friend Kevin's wedding. I've uploaded the photos to our Picasa site. Enjoy!!