Catch Up!

I'm a little overwhelmed at how much I have to catch up on and frankly I've been avoiding it this week. I wish I was better at just posting a little here and a little there. Where do I start...

Chloe's Birthday August 31st.
Chloe turned 3 the end of August. She was really excited for her birthday this year. She wanted a lollipop, a clock bracelet(a watch), and a birthday cake.

So she got a handful of lollipops, a clock bracelet, and a brithday cake. She got some other great things from grandparents, and other family members. What a great birthday!

Ryan's brother Wes and his family were here from Dallas so we took the kids bowling as part of the birthday celebration. They loved it!

Argh!!!! The dreaded closed eyes.

First Day of School, Sept 2.

Both girls started school last month. So far...great! They go twice a week for 3 hours. This is such a nice breather for me. I get a few hours to clean, shop, grocery shop, do nothing, whatever. It makes me a happy mom when I pick them up. I actually feel like I appreciate their "sweet" personalities a little more after these few hours.

Hurricane Adventure, Sept 11-15th.

Our story isn't that exciting, but that's probably a good thing. Ryan and I decided to leave Houston and head to his parent's lake house to weather out the storm. We left early Thursdday morning to avoid any traffic. We spent the weekend fishing, relaxing, enjoying the beautiful weather, and taking advantage of our time away with the girls. I felt a little guilty about having such a great weekend while there was a hurricane causing so much damage.

After a few days at the lake house we traveled to Dallas to see Wes, Kate and the boys. The girls love Logan and Benny and get so excited when we tell them we get to see them. They had a lot of fun playing together.

We left for Houston Monday afternoon. It took us about 2 hours longer to get back. Most of the gas stations along the way had lines all the way down the feeder roads of the freeway to get gas. It was a little crazy driving into a dark Houston. Our house still didn't have power but Ryan's parent's house did so we stayed there.

We spent all day Tuesday cleaning up our house. These pictures don't look that bad, but it took us quite a while to get it all done. We were really blessed because our area wasn't hit nearly as hard as expected.

Before the clean-up...

After...
We didn't get our power back until Saturday, a week after Ike hit. I am so glad we had somewhere to stay. We are blessed to now have our life back to normal.

Here are a few pictures of areas in our neighborhood and some just outside our neighborhood:

One quick video...This is a video that shows the difference between Channing and Chloe. We were on a boat ride and Ryan took his hands off the steering wheel and told the girls one of them better come over and steer. Channing got very nervous and eventually burst into tears, and Chloe hopped onto Ryan's lap without a second thought and took over. I love that they have such different personalities. It makes moments like this enjoyable.