To Evacuate or not To Evacuate.....That is the Question!

IKE, IKE, HE'S OUR MAN !!!!!

Well as many of you know we now live in Houston Texas.  We live on the south side and YES that means closer to the water and hurricanes. We have dodged 2 hurricanes already this summer with barely any rain, but our luck has run out I guess. We went to the midwife yesterday morning and Shellie has not progressed at all and so we didn't feel like we needed to evacuate. Our county is where the hurricane is going to hit the worst and although everyone else in our county was under a  mandatory evacuation order, we were not. However with Shellie being in the situation she is in, we decided to pack our stuff up just in case. As of Wednesday night we were not even considering evacuating but with all the new updates on Thurs. morning we decided to be safe and pack up. So we put all of our important stuff on counters and high in closets. Devin works in Kingwood (North side of Houston) so the family packed up and went to work with him just in case we decided to evacuate. All day Thursday the news seemed to be getting worse and worse, so we made the "smart" decision and started driving to Dallas to stay with Devin's parents. 

Most of our stuff is still in boxes anyway....

HOPEFULLY THE WINDOWS HOLD UP

WE PACK UP THE TRUCK WITH THE ESSENTIALS AND ALL OF OUR BABY STUFF JUST IN CASE. ADDIE JUST THINKS THIS IS A VACATION TO SEE GRANDMA AND GRANDPA WILLIAMS

This is our neighbor directly across the street boarding up, but the owner of the house that we are renting decided it wouldn't be that bad so our house is not boarded up, YIPEEEE and our renters insurance doesn't cover us for this.

I hope you got gas before Thursday because if not then it is anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 hour wait, IF they even have any gas left.

AND WE BEGIN THE EVACUATION PROCESS!!!!!!!

THINGS ARE MOVING DECEIVINGLY FAST

THERE ARE THE RED TAIL LIGHTS I WILL COME TO KNOW VERY WELL FOR THE NEXT SEVERAL HOURS.

It took much much longer than it should have and not because there was a mass exit of 1 million people (Idaho's population) from Houston. It took longer because the whole way to Dallas people thought it fun to pull off the the side of the road in groups of 6 cars or more, and have a little party drinking and talking. This means that as we get cruising up to 55 or 60 MPH we would have to stop suddenly because people were walking and hanging out on the shoulder right by the lane of traffic. Not to judge anyone's culture but it must be a hispanic thing because of the 30 or more groups that were doing this, EVERYONE was hispanic. I guess they just tried to enjoy their evacuation or something but it sure made it slower on the rest of us. WHO KNOWS???

Bottom line is we are now sitting safely (for now) in Dallas at Devin's parents place. I say "for now" because just turning on the weather channel and it says it could still be hurricane strength by the time it gets up here, and after us it is going up to Kansas City and higher. I guess we should have continued on to Canada eh?

MY MOTHER IN LAW IS NO LONGER SPEAKING TO ME FOR BRINGING SHELLIE AND THE KIDS DOWN HERE.  SORRY CAROL.