Still in Tyler. The plan had been to leave this morning after church, but some of our friends left ahead of us and said that the traffic was horrible. Now the plan is to leave at 4AM tomorrow. I have the boys that I babysit on Tuesday so I have to be home by tomorrow night. It looks like my doctor's appointment will be rescheduled again. We'll see how that all goes because of all of the power outages. As of this morning, 88% of the Houston area was without power. It does seem like some people are starting to get their power back but we won't know until we get home. Being a hurricane evacuee sure is interesting...

So far, so good. We've heard from some of our friends' neighbors and it seems like everyone's house is doing okay. The worst part of the storm has passed our area and now it's headed up this way. By the time it reaches us up here in Tyler it will be a tropical storm. We are expecting wind and rain an possibly a power outage but it won't be anything like what our friends would have experienced if they had stayed down in the gulf.

Gilbert is hoping to leave really early tomorrow morning to beat some of the traffic back into Houston. We have to be home tomorrow night because Gilbert is expected to be at work on Monday morning. We most likely won't have power when we get home, but who knows?

Thanks to all of you who have been keeping track of the hurricane and praying for us! Hopefully it won't be too long before I can update again.

Hello, everyone. I know a lot of people are wondering what's going on with Ike right now. Gilbert, Matthew, and I, along with a group from our church, evacuated yesterday to Tyler, TX. A relating church up here has opened their building to us and we're all staying in different classrooms with our kids waiting out the hurricane. We're constantly watching the news to find out how are homes are doing and trying to have fun in the middle of it all.

As of right now, there is already flooding in the coastal cities and we're already seeing damage to buildings that are near our friends' homes. The Clear Lake Hilton is missing parts of walls and it hit a bit close to home for our friends who live about a mile from there. Gilbert, Matthew, and I live further inland so no flooding is expected for us. The major concern where we live is wind. Luckily all of the trees in our area are young, too, so we don't have to worry about any trees falling on our house. All of our power is run underground, too, so we don't have to worry about power lines falling down in our neighborhood. We're hoping to go home Sunday but we may still not have power when we go home. I will hopefully post another update soon.

Okay, well the shock still hasn't worn off and I still haven't been completely able to process the news just yet. I don't have a whole lot of answers for everyone who has questions. I'm feeling fine. A bit tired, but I'm blaming that more on the boys I babysit and Matthew. They wear me out on the days I have them. I don't know how far along I am yet. My best guess at this point is anywhere between 4-7 weeks. Big span, I know, but that's all I've got right now. According to that, this baby could be due anytime between late April and mid May, right around our 4th anniversary. It looks like this little one and Matthew will be almost exactly 18 months apart. I do have a doctor's appointment on Friday, so hopefully I'll know a little bit more by then. In the mean time, we'd like to ask you all to pray for our little one. We're praying that this pregnancy is as healthy as Matthew's and that this one will go just as smoothly. I'm also kind of hoping that this baby decides to come a little early, too. Based on what the doctor said when I had Matthew, he would have been about 9lbs if I had delivered around my due date.

Yes, it looks like Hurricane Ike is headed for us. I think we'll have some more information tomorrow about what will happen this weekend. I'm hoping the don't call for an evacuation. If they do, I'm hoping we don't have to leave until Friday afternoon. Just because I really want to make it to the doctor... Don't worry though, if we have to evacuate before then, we'll be out of here and I'll reschedule my appointment if I have to. =)

Ok, well, Matthew's birthday is in 11 days. One week from tomorrow our families start to arrive from out of town. Things are going to be crazy for a few days.

Matthew decided he wanted to be like Daddy and walk around the living room waving a lightsaber around.







This outfit was given to Matthew by his Grammy at one of my baby showers. He hadn't worn this shirt yet because it's flannel and I know I wouldn't want to wear flannel during a Texas summer. Luckily, it's pretty cool inside the school where our church meets so he got to wear it to church. The back says "Rock and Roll World Tour"





This picture cracks me up. Gilbert says it's Matthew channeling Ray Charles.



We went to the grocery store again on Sunday and Matthew got another balloon. It was the highlight of his day.





A very unflattering picture of my son and his new favorite snack, Goldfish.



Daddy bought Matthew his own lawnmower. It blows bubbles and Matthew thinks it's great.





It's so great he likes to pick up the box, too. Seriously, the box is completely off the ground.



And a big, cheesy smile to end the post =)

We just wanted to share...

Matthew would like to say: oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo,

Okay, so we've had nothing but blue skies since all of this talk with Gustav. It died down pretty quickly once it made landfall so we never saw any rain.

We can't believe his birthday is in 17 days!Our baby will officially be a toddler on Sunday, September 21st. Invitations for his party are out and the grandmas fly in in a couple of weeks. We're going to have a full house for about 5 days.

Surprisingly happy at 6:30AM



Matthew had his first blueberry pancake on Saturday. He loved it.







A couple of friends from California came out to surprise Rachel for her birthday. It was so good to see them



So happy to be eating a Hawaiian sweet roll



My boy walking around with Daddy's work badge in his mouth.





This is one of Matthew's new favorite spots in the house. Gilbert was in the backyard mowing the lawn last week and Matthew realized that he could see him if he pulled up on the window sill. Now he stands there and bangs on the window until the dog comes over to see him.





And just because he's cute



We watched Transformers on Monday and we noticed Matthew was dancing during the end credits of the movie. We started playing different songs for him and it turns out that he just likes Linkin Park's "What I've Done" and the Friends theme song. Here's the video from Monday.


Untitled from Melissa S on Vimeo.

Okay, so we've been getting a lot of questions about whether or not we will have to evacuate because of Gustav... the answer seems to be no. If I'm not mistaken, it already made landfall in Louisiana and it should lose momentum as it moves across land. We may get some rain here, but nothing to be worried about. As exciting as all of the evacuation talk has been around here, it looks like we won't actually have to do anything this time around. =)