Bad news...

This morning we woke up to find out a levee in New Orleans had breeched. How devastating. They are frantically working to get it fixed and I hope they do. They think a barge hit it and broke it during the hurricane. I am not sure if it is a river levee or a lake levee. I hope they fix it soon.

We are leaving to go back to swampland today. Todd knew of a great back road route up here and we are going to take it back. Poor Raelee kept looking for fast food signs on the way up - but it was so country that there were none. She thought she was starving! She would see a Dollar General sign and say "THERE it is... " and "EAT?" when we passed it up - bless her heart. We finally found a place to stop and she was relieved. It was so funny :-)

Ana and John are crying. Their city is flooding and their home may be in jeopordy if it did survive the hurricane. I hope and pray that they will have a place to go back to. We recieved word today that our house had a tree down in the back yard and our fence may need help as well. Such a small price to pay in comparision.

Ana's mom is such a sweetheart (in fact they all are), but she is our cook. She has kept us all fed and happy while we were here. She is such a bubbly person I have become quite close to her. I hope we do not loose touch.

I forgot to tell you that John was Mr Krispy Kreme yesterday. He left to get gas and returned with donuts complete with the Krispy Kreme hat. It really made us all brighten up and laugh a bit. I really like this family.

The day after...

We woke up this morning and started watching the horror again. My what a predicament New Orleans is in. There are huge buildings needing repaired and homes distroyed. All in all, I think they fared well. But watching it is horrible. Watching Ana and John looking for any morsel of thier home is worse. I cannot say anything to comfort them and can only pray all is ok.

Today, to take our minds off the event, we went to Shreveport Bass Pro, and anitque car museum, and the Boardwalk. How funny I have been to Shreveport over and over and never seen these places. Again, we were all together as one big family. It is nice having each other close by. I enjoyed the down time and wow! Bass Pro is HUGE :-) I am so glad I wanted to go there. Now if I can just get someone to take me fishing. Silly request huh?

Katrina

Today she blew onshore. I think it looks like the eye came in at Venice La and it is heading north. She had been a cat 5, but was actually not as strong when she it land at a cat 4.

Katrina tore everything up as you would expect, but it looks like New Orleans was spared the brundt of it. All seems to be intact and overall it fared pretty well. The Hyatt Hotel has tons of broken windows on one side, and other buildings suffered as well, but it could have been a lot worse.

I am still leary of the floods. When we had Hurricane Andrew breeze through in 1992, we thought we were fine. The next day the floods came, complete with dead fish, alligators, and plantlife. I worry this could happen to New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast as well.

The extending families are all mixing well. We are enjoying each others company and chatting. We sit hours on end and watch the coverage. The animals are still doing well, and we only have to watch one around Raelee. She is a bit snippy, but I can understand. Aren't we all a bit out of pocket and unsure of things? I think we are all doing amazingly well.

Hurricane Katrina

We evacuated to Shreveport for Katrina. Steve and I disageed to what we should do. He wanted to stay (by himself) at our house. Evacuating means not getting back in and possibly getting looted. So he wanted to stay and us (Steph, Todd, Raelee and I) to go on to Shreveport. Finally, I asked him if I wanted to stay and told HIM to go, would he? He said HELL no! I said then why in the world would you expect ME to? We are partners! I WILL not leave without you! He came. Yes we were a long way from home, but with Katrina being a catagory 5 I was NOT staying.

When we arrived in Shreveport we met John and Ana and thier family. They had evacuated from thier home in New Orleans and they had two dogs. We brought 3 dogs and a cat and Steve's brother, were we evacuated to had one dog. 6 dogs and a cat with 13 people in one condo!! YIKERS! I am thankful to say that other than the normal chaos with a lot of people, it went rather well. The dogs AND CAT got along with each other for the most part and I met some really great people who ultimately were displaced to Baton Rouge. The status of thier house is unknown and they will likely not be able to check it for months.

Steph, Todd, Steve, Raelee and I along with Annie, Goosey, Lady and Patches all stayed together - the way families should do in a crisis. What a wonderful feeling to be surrounded by those you love.

Updating and starting again

I have not posted in almost a year. It is incredible what all has happened in that year, but I will try to fill you in.

Rycon and his girlfriend came through the accident and had a healthy baby boy on July 7. He is perfect in every way. He has light red hair and is a beautiful baby. Jers girlfriend has a cute little blonde blue eyed 3 year old as well. He is happy having a new brother for now. We will see how long THAT lasts.

The children have all moved on to thier natural mothers. They all seem happy and have finally started to adjust. They rarely call, but I hear through the grapevine they are fine. One calls her ex-boyfriend often - and his mother likes to rub in that she calls HER and not us. I understand them wanting to seperate from us, but it still hurts. My heart misses them so much some days that I feel very homesick - and I am at home! I just don't understand - them not calling and me not adjusting as I thought I would. These children were a part of my very being for almost 3 years and now they are gone in every sense of the word.

Hubby continues to work. I am elated when we can stay at home together and visit ALONE. We often have people over and staying with us that our time alone is few and far between. I enjoy the company as well, but some days I just need my hubby, you know what I mean?