**Wednesday Update**

We made home with little drama late yesterday evening. We left my sisters about 1:00 pm and headed to McDonald's for lunch! We then ventured to their local WalMart to stock up on some canned items and basic necessities. My brother in law also let me take his extra large cooler to fill up with ice and cold food items (lunch meat, milk, etc). At the checkout, we were told that there was no ice! I knew my cold food would not fare well on the trip home without ice. So I desperately said a small "please God" under my breath and as we were walking out the door we saw 3 bags that had just dropped from the machine! So Taylor grabbed them and I went to pay! Coincidence? Good timing? Whatever.....God is good :-) The challenge now was fitting everything into my Tahoe! It was already filled with the ice chest, blankets, pillows, luggage, and kids! But my kids were so great, putting potatoes and cases of water under their feet and helping me to organize everything to make it fit! So we began our journey home.

To keep this long 6 hour trip (normally 3.5 hours) short, I will spare some minor details. :-) The trip did end up taking a few hours longer. There was not really a lot of traffic, but electricity was of course still out all along our route home, so none of the traffic lights were working. This meant treating them all as a 4 way stop and even when there's not a lot of traffic, things can back up quickly. So we rolled our windows down and turned up our music and enjoyed the nice, cool breeze that God sent our way to replace our air conditioners! Coincidence? Good timing? Whatever....God is good :-)

As we traveled, there were a lot of trees down, signs blown over, tin roofs lifted in spots, but nothing like we are seeing on the news for Galveston, of course. (The kids took pics of the long gas lines, etc, I'll try to post another day.) All in all, we are so blessed. When we arrived at home, some cleanup had already begun, but our yard was still such a mess. There is a huge oak tree across our driveway and lots of big limbs down. But we were told yesterday by a sheriff that we could not burn anything yet so we'll just have to pile it for now.Shawn pulled the camper next to house and hooked it up to the generator. We stayed the night in it last night because the windows are still boarded up, but tonight we will stay in the house. We'll have to take showers in the camper (if we want hot showers, and I do!), and also cook in the camper on the propane stove. Our house is all electric, and the generator won't run everything at once. So we'll just live between the 2 for now! Oh, and my sister said that she saw on the Internet yesterday that we will have power restored by October 5. What????? Yikes.

Is it true we are only 2 days away from Fall???? This is my most favorite time of the year. I can't wait to buy some colorful mums for my porch and make a new wreath for my door, but for now, I'm going to have my 2nd cup of coffee. Have a wonderful blessed day!!!(I'm not editing this since they are turning the generator off for now, so be forgiving!!)