Ike is coming....

Our next door neighbors house. There are several in our neighborhood that have boarded up windows.
This is the gas station on the way to our parents house and Walmart. It is typical of most gas stations here!
Here's the pump.
This is our neighbor that lives across the street. He taped his windows so they wouldn't shatter.

Here is our garage filled with all of our potted plants, hose, shepherds hooks, grill, Lillie's playhouse, pool, picnic bench, patio furniture and so on!

Well for those of you that watch the news I am sure you have heard that Ike is coming to Houston. The attitude right now is similar to what it was when Rita came two years ago. Most of Houston evacuated then sitting on the freeways for long periods of time in the midst of horrible traffic! We took our dog, Maddie, and headed to Dallas for Rita. There was no gas, water, bread, or peanut butter to be found anywhere in Houston. A normal trip to Dallas for us would be about 3 and a half hours and it took us over seven to get there. So needless to say a lot of people are not interested in leaving town this time. It has become hard to get gas, bread, and water again though! Eric informed me yesterday that Ike had turned and that if I was going by the store, to pick up some water. At 6:00 on my way to school I stopped off at the store yesterday. The parking lot at that time normally has 3 cars in it and yesterday it was full, at 6 A.M.! I bought three cases of water and 2 loaves of bread. Then yesterday afternoon I was finally able to find a gas station with gas to top off my Explorer. It's always interesting to see how everyone reacts during times like this. WE have no idea what to expect this evening so from house to house the preparations have all been different. We brought in everything from our patio and front yard so our garage is full! We have also adopted a cat that lives out front named Chloe but this evening I am bringing her in to the laundry room. I am expecting heavy winds and a lot of rain and praying that the wind doesn't knock down any of our trees. We have HUGE trees in our backyard and I think that could potentially be the worst damage but we will see. We also run the risk of losing our electricity. Two years ago because so many people lost power they turned it back on and had "rolling blackouts." That basically meant that they turned power back on for an hour or two then turned it off for three -five hours. We never knew what the time period was going to be for them to be on or off. It was difficult and right now it would be HOT! But I just thought for those of you that don't live in areas like this I would share what the attitude has been around here! :) Pray that everything goes OK and that they are anticipating worse than what will really come! Thanks!