Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Returning from Austin

We made it back in no time from Austin today to find surprisingly not a whole lot of damage. Damage started far north of the city, but it was here and there. Going through the city we didn't see much other than billboards torn down, and big trees uprooted. Some windows were blown out, but not many. As we got closer to home there was more damage, but still didn't seem to be too severe. More businesses down here are still closed and boarded up, and a lot more trees and fences were down. You could collect enough pinecones from the fir trees to fill a house up.



Our house has really minimal damage. A fence board down. The rest of the fence is wobbly and needs repair, and a piece of siding came off. Everything else is fine.



We also found this little treasure in the backyard. Dinner anyone??


Not exactly sure where he came from. It is possible he was merely lifted from the lake/ retention pond across the street. Or he could have been air lifted from further away. Either way the kids found it fascinating to see a fish in their yard.

And in terms of the other fish...aka Sweetie and Cutie. They managed to survive 72 hours without power, without food for a week. And something like 90 mile an hour winds. We were amazed to see them happily swimming in their tanks on our kitchen island.

Water is safe again. Power is on here. And things are getting back to normal. Ballet starts again on Monday. The school district is out indefinately. Mike is out of work until at least Monday. So we will be continuing our vacation at home.

Oh and the birthday boy, the big one that is, celebrated today with lunch at McDonald's in Hempstead, and we will probably have spaghetti for dinner here. No cake since we don't have grocery stores fully stocked yet, and I don't have eggs to make one. So the full celebration is temporarily postponed.

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