Hurricane Ike

Yikes - I could not believe all of the destruction that Ike did this week as it hit the Texas coast. It's so strange to watch all of the news video, and think "we were just there" every time they broadcast from a location along the seawall. I was really hoping some of my friends would agree to a joint vacation to Galveston next summer, but that possibility is not looking good now. Most of my Houston friends are okay except for the ones who still don't have power. We didn't get as much rain as we expect around here... but it's just as well. I didn't feel like being underwater. And with the cold front that blew through on Sunday, it finally feels like fall here.

I'm short on time this week, so I'm going to let the pictures do the talking. I'm so glad our friends Debbie, Justin and their little girl, Molly, moved back to Dallas. And they're so close! On Friday night we met for a wild dinner at Mi Cocina. While we were waiting for our table, Molly and Ellie met another little girl who lives in our neighborhood who is one month younger named Bessie and Ellie fed her Goldfish.

Since it rained Saturday, we mainly used it as a football watching/inside day. I need to figure out what to do with Ellie when it rains because unless we pack her up and take her somewhere, there's not a lot to do around out house. Lee had his perfect day of football... I like to call this picture "Touchdown Vols".

Sunday was beautiful so we took a long walk and went to the park. We live close to a great park with a pond that has a ton of ducks so we took some of Ellie's stale Cheerios and went there. The ducks were a BIG hit. Ellie had seen them before from the comfort of her jogging stroller, but had never gotten up close and personal. There was a huge white swan there and a black one too. Lee got them to eat right out of his hand, but I'm sure these ducks have a lot of experience being around people. We went to a park after we fed the ducks and let Ellie swing for a while. Every time we took we out of the swing, she'd run right back to it. We have big plans this coming weekend - I can't wait!

Word of the week: Turtle.