Gustav update

As of 5:00 central time, the weather station has the storm at a cat. 3 storm moving at 20 miles per hour. I guess the speed of the storm is a good thing because it will move faster over land and not cause as much flooding! The news reports have tropical force winds making landfall as soon as midnight and the outer bands of the storm hitting here soon! (It is al Rain is forcast from this evening until Friday when hopefully Gustav will have had his fun and gone on home! Shreveport is a major evacuee center with shelters housing thousands of people AND animals. Everything seems fairly calm, though there is quite a buzz of anticipation. We are currently under a flash flood and wind watch with a tropical weather advisory..whatever that means. In my world that means the red box movies will be going back a few days late and we might run out of popcorn! Also the paint supplies and construction paper are at the ready and the wii batteries are charged. (along with the real neccesities like a full tank of gas and bottled water). Yes. I allow my five year old to play video games. Yes. I understand that I always vowed I would never do that. No. I don't really care right now. I might just be playing along with him by the time we are going stir crazy on Thursday!

Gustav

We are surprised by how affected we already are by this storm! We found out late this afternoon that schools are closed through Wednesday because of the potential for bad weather but mainly so our school buses can be sent to New Orleans! We went to the grocery store and the Albertsons gas pumps were covered up with ply wood. The bread shelves and water shelves were emptying fast. The only thing you hear anyone talking about is how ready the state seems to be this time and how they are not taking any chances. Several friends are housing evacuees. As we enter Sunday we ask for prayers for our state. Pray for our leadership, that they communicate and make smart decisions. Pray for the people of the state to make smart choices and not take unnecessary risks. Tomorrow morning the contraflow efforts on I-49 begin, closing any southward traffic and allowing more room for people to get out. I've never seen anything like this.

So much...

So much has happened in the past few days that I want to blog about, but have not had the time. Topics to come back to: A's first full week of school, my first tutu sale, my future tutu sale ideas, B's brilliance (b/c we now believe he is a true Einstein.. really, no really, he is) and to top it all off, Lucas' promotion! Lets start with that one and I'll come back to the others as time allows.

Monday Lucas finished all requirements to complete his engineer training program! He is now officially a Field tech representative for a great company! We are sooo proud of all the hard work he has done. He has spent countless nights cold/hot/rained on/snowed on, muddy, tired, sleeping in folding chairs spending days away from home to learn the job. All without actually getting to do what he in turn was hired to do. All the pre-job learning was tough, but now he is getting a shot at the real stuff. I am so proud of him and grateful that he took this job and is now providing us with so much! I am able to stay at home with my boys, my lifelong career ambition :-). I am taking care of a couple of kids here at home to help with the financial gap, but Lucas is carrying the bulk of that for us! Today he was given his truck! Yay! We can get rid of one of our cars and all the costs associated with it. (YAY).


I sold two tutus to a friend and know that what I make are beautiful. I opened an etsy site, but don't think thats going to be true niche for selling these. Etsy seems a bit snooty. I make rustic hand tied tutus that are wonderful for imaginary play. There are women on there selling tutus they think are more like fashion icons. I really just want to make fun, fluffy confections. I walked into chik-fil-a carrying a couple of them and was pounced! So I KNOW I can sell them, I've just got to find a better way. I'm looking for craft sales at Christmas. Any friends or family you come across let them know!

Etsy!

I'm having so much fun making Tutus I've decided to open a shop on Etsy! Come on over and check it out! It is still a work in progress!

A's first day of Kindergarten!

Pray for Lucas!

Many of you know that for the last seven months Lucas has been completing an extensive training program for the company he works for. Basically they take him from knowing nothing about the industry and expose him to every job in the field. He has taken classes in Houston and spent the remainder of his time finishing a VERY long checklist of other tasks. Usually he goes with a crew into the field and shadows different jobs. To learn he has to DO. We are soooo close to being done! YAY. He passed his final class and only has about 9 more jobs to attend!. To go with a crew there has to BE a crew and there has to BE a job. Please pray that these final tasks come up easily so that he can hop from one job to the next and get finished! When he is finished he will officially be employed and not a student:-). He will get a job title and promotion, along with some other perks that will really help.. such as a work vehicle and cell phone! Lucas has sacrificed so much to complete this job (including missing his sisters wedding) and there is a lot of pressure on him from his bosses to get finished quickly! Thanks for your prayers for his stamina and luck!

Eduoard Hits Houston

Eduoard hits Houston as a Tropical Storm. Lucas was in Houston finishing up his level one classes, Sand Control. Waking up to discovery work is cancelled do to winds and rain. This is Lucas' first Houston Hurricane threat. Lucas made it to his IN-LAWs for dry land and a safe place to stay. The hotel room would be safe, but clusterphobia would have kicked in around High NOON. So Lucas spent August 5, 2008 undercover in Conroe, Texas avoiding Eduoard. All is well, by the time the storm hit Montgomery County there was nothing but rain. No sign of power outage in the city, no signs of branches or trees down.

Moody Gardens

We went to Moody Gardens on Galveston Island this weekend and had a GREAT time! If you havent been there it is a botanical center with pyramid shaped exhibit halls. One hold museum type programing. We saw a Titanic exhibit that was beautiful and sad. It had relics pulled from the ocean floor like pottery and even a ladies powder compact still filled with powder! They also told the stories of people who both survived and were killed. There is a rainforest pyramid where most of the pictures were taken and an aquarium that was featuring sharks. And there was an imax. We saw a 3d sea monsters and ayden was terrified. B was squirmmy so Lucas escaped with him. I stayed because A loved the movie but couldnt let go of my arm. They also have a big resort style pool with a waterfall and lagoon. There is white sand and beach chairs and a pool side bar. The boys swam for a long time! Then we headed back to the hotel with Lucas where he is staying for two weeks. It was nice to feel like we were on vacation even if it was only for a couple of days! A loves sleeping in hotels and much to my surprise even B was a great sleeper!