Visit from Don, Barbara, and Ike

Sunday, September 14th found us with visitors from Eastern Washington. Kevin's dad and stepmom, Don and Barbara, were visiting for a few days before heading to Virginia. After Sunday morning meeting we went to an authentic Peruvian Restaurant that is quite tasty. Some friends from our meeting and Brian and Lena from Indiana joined us. We noticed that it was quite windy and knew that the area was expected to get hit with some remnants of hurricane Ike. We enjoyed our meal. Towards the end of our meal, the lights began to flicker and by the time we left the restaurant, it had no power.

It was very windy driving home. Orange construction barrels were rolling all over the road. We saw a port-a-potty tip over - the girls thought that was funny! We noticed some branches and trees down. Once we reached our neighborhood, we were shocked at all the tree debris that covered the yards. Branches, leaves and trees were all over. The wind storm lasted about 4 hours. When it was finally over, almost a million people were without power. We lost our power for only 8 hours, did not lose any big trees and only missed two days of school. We were very fortunate! Our neighbor lost a very pretty tree in her front yard, which has changed our view from our front windows. It was a storm we have never seen before - beautiful blue skies with a few clouds flying through, no rain, but the wildest wind storm. I never realized how bendable and flexible tree really are. Thanks to Don and Barbara for all their hard work cleaning up our place while we headed to work on Monday. We can't begin to imagine what it would have been like to be apart of the full force of Hurricane Ike.

Here are some pictures of the storm damage - not in our neighborhood.