eye of the hurricane

Well, for those of you who haven't been watching the weather channel, or the news, or the internet.....there is a hurricane headed right for Galveston and Houston TX. Problem - we were supposed to be at a beach house in Galveston at this very moment. Although I'm not there, I can visualize myself reading in the sun by the ocean very well.

Last Sunday we flew to Houston for a week vacation just me and Aaron. He had a business convention there for a day, so I tagged along and extended the vacation plans. Sunday We flew out way to early. The plane flight went smoothly - I'm an uptight person in the airport from an incident when I was a kid - so it's so nice to travel with Aaron who is completely relaxed. When we got there I was pleasantly surprised to find that for our rental car choice there was a convertable in the same group as a buick = not a hard decision!! We headed to Emily & Lukes house that evening. Heather & Troy came to visit also, it was really fun to sit, relax, and visit without worrying about my kids tearing apart the place or whining. Plus, Emily & Luke sure know how to cook up a gourmet meal - it was impressive!

On Monday we went and played tennis. It felt sooooo good to play again, and even though somehow Aaron beat me :) I still had a blast. Plus Emily and Luke joined us for doubles after. That afternoon we headed to a very nice JW Marriot in downtown Houston. I was more than pleased to see that I had a HUGE (big enough for an iceskating rink) mall directly across the street. We explored our surroundings and then when to a Houston Astros game that night. I haven't been to a professional baseball game in a long time, and even though they don't have the funky colored rainbow outfits anymore, watching them play brought back memories of my own little league when I was an Astro. We had some pretty good seats as well.

Tuesday was the best day I've had for a long time. I'd say best day of my life - but I don't remember my life that well, so it would be biased :). I woke up, worked out (plus the treadmill was broken and said I was going faster than I was - good for my ego), read and swam by the pool, went to lunch with Aaron, shopped all by MYSELF all afternoon. When Aaron was done with his meetings we went to dinner, got massages (if I was rich I would do this weekly!), and saw The Dark Knight (which I absolutely loved, I'm a batman fan). I was amazed that even though we were traveling back to the hotel at 12:30pm I had tons of energy still. It made me feel a little young again, and validated the fact that although I absolutely love my kids, they suck the life out of me. After that day I could handle the news we were about to receive.

So as we turned on the weather channel to see the latest on Ike's plans we were informed that it was most likely a Cat 3 or 4 hurricane headed for Galveston. As I mentioned earlier, that was a problem, since we were supposed to stay in a beach house in Galveston Wednesday - Saturday (flying out Saturday morning when the eye actually hits land).

Wednesday morning we called the lady who owned the beach house - she gave us credit because she didn't think the conditions would be that bad - but perhaps when I'm done explaining you'll see why we'll call back and ask for a full refund. We called the airport to change to an earlier flight out - it would cost $300 dollars unless they saw it needful. The woman we talked to was very helpful though and told us to check back that day about 5 to find out if we could switch for free if they were evacuating.

Despite conditions, it was still good weather, and I was needing a day at the beach WAY too much. So we headed to Galveston for a fun day of boogie boarding, skimboarding, and getting fried! It was really fun and the waves were boogie boarding worthy thanks to Ike. It's fun to watch the news on the hurricane today because they are reporting in Galveston right were we were swimming......the waves are just 12 feet higher now! We took a break that afternoon about 3 to call the airport. Someone was definitely looking out for us because they changed our flight to Thursday for free. As we left Galveston that evening traffic seemed heavier - so when we found out that Galveston had just been issued a mandatory evacuation it all made sense.

We headed to Emily & Lukes house to return the boards, and stay that night before we flew out. About 3 min. after we showed up at their place we found out that their county had been issued an evacuation. I wish I could have been more help to them in that moment, because even though it was to bad we were cutting our vacation short, I felt a lot worse that Aaron's two sisters were having to leave their houses behind, not knowing what might happen. We booked a hotel by the airport to avoid traffic the next morning. All went smooth traveling Thursday and we were glad to be by the airport since they then evacuated Houston = a lot of traffic!!

Anyway to make a long story short, we had a lot of fun while there, we are home early, and I'll just have to wait till we go to Orlando in Nov. for more beach time. It's amazing how you don't notice your kids change until your gone for more that a couple days. We're back, burned, and making the most of what we would've missed if we were gone. Thanks mom and dad so much for letting my kids have the time of thier lives while we were gone. I think they were more bummed you guys were leaving now than we were to be back early from vacation - thanks a ton!!