After Ike

I've sent plenty of emails about us 'evacuating', cleaning up, etc. So, I won't re-write all of that here (what, Jen not repeating herself a millionth time? - amazing!)

I just wanted to share one thing about my personal experience with the storm and my blog seemed to be an appropriate place:

I have always been a big believer of "things happening for a reason" and good things happen during bad situations. We are living this perfect example. I have already told many of you, but I have to say it again, the way our neighbors have come together during all of this has been awesome. During clean-up, everyone walked from house to house helping drag limbs, raking, helping with chainsaw "safety", etc. No one had to ask for help, we all just did it for each other. Lewis went out of town and my neighbor from across the street called to make sure we were okay & let me know that he was keeping an eye on the house for us while Lewis was gone. Lots of little things. It's just been awesome. It has also been a great lesson for our kids about community and "citizenship" and literally "loving your neighbor". Really cool.

Things are still 'weird' around here, for a lack of a better word. I will not feel back to 'normal' until we're back into our regular routine of school, work, etc. Of course, I like routine, & this is very OFF routine. At the same time, it's been okay. We're all doing fine. We're happy & healthy and that's the most important thing.