Stars align in the Lone Star State

I really feel overwhelmed and blessed all at the same time. Whew!... buying a house and moving is a big job! There have been so many things to do (and really, there still are), but I know "Someone" is looking out for me because things have just come together... It is kind of long, but I just feel so blessed I couldn't help but share:
1) I switched the utilities, but the electric company told me that my scheduled turn on would be on Monday and the scheduled shut-off was on Friday (yesterday). That would have meant we would be the whole weekend without power... but, because of Hurricane Ike all requests like these are suspended until they restore power from the hurricane damage. So, luckily we still have power!
2) On Friday we needed to paint. I found one person to watch the kids for three hours in the morning and another to watch them after their naps. The girl who watched them in the afternoon watched them for four hours (and she has two kids of her own)! She is amazing!
3) On Friday we had scheduled the arrival of our bed and refrigerator and the installation of our internet. The internet company came earlier than we thought and the computer was still in our apartment. They said we would have to reschedule and the next appointment was Thursday! However, they said if they had time, they would come back and do it. I left right then to get the computer at our apartment (about 25 minutes away, one-way). Eric called me as I was starting back and told me they were back... I was panicked they would leave again, but they had 20 minutes of work to do before they needed the computer so I made it with the computer just in time.
4) Our bed was supposed to arrive on Friday too. The delivery truck called to make sure we were "home" and it was then discovered that they were going to our apartment! We called the store and the salesperson remembered putting in our new address, but something didn't go through. He tried to tell us that they could deliver it on Monday (which would mean no bed all weekend) we talked to him some more and he checked with his supervisor and told us they could still deliver it after their other deliveries.
5)While we were painting on Friday we also discovered our water had been turned off. I guess our request for water had been lost. They said they could still do it that day if we submitted our application again (and pay a $25 same-day service fee). Eric and I talked his mom through the submission of the application (we didn't have internet service yet) as I was frantically trying to get the computer from our apartment and get home in time. (I really know now what a chicken feels with its head cut off).
6)In the afternoon I remembered that I needed to call the truck company to check on the truck... I don't know how I missed this, but I needed to schedule a drop-off time. I knew the truck was here, I had been checking on the status, but for some reason I was just thinking they would call me... (A no-headed chicken thing I guess). I called at 3:30 and they said they could deliver it Monday... I was seriously panicked now because we had 7 people from church volunteer to help us unpack at 8:00 this (Saturday) morning. I basically begged him to drop it off today (I was really desperate) and he said he could do it between 12 and 2 in the morning which I gladly accepted. He called at 9:00 p.m. saying he was coming and needed a signature. Well, that would have been great except we had left at 8:30 p.m. to get the rest of our stuff from the apartment. I was thinking, "Oh, great, I lost the opportunity", but he called his boss and got the approval to drop off the truck with out a signature! I was so impressed with ABF. I would totally use them again.
Do you see what I mean about everything just working out for us! It sure makes me want to live better so I can be blessed like this all the time!
7)This morning we unpacked the truck in less than 90 minutes. We had about 8 guys there and 2 women (one of which was my visiting teacher and I asked her to take the kids for a walk and watch over them... which was great).
8)Oh, and to top it all off, my visiting teachers called and asked if they could bring me dinner and told me they would make enough to last Saturday and Sunday! One brought a casserole, salad for dinner and blueberry muffins (for breakfast tomorrow). The other brought strawberries, whipped cream, cookies, rolls, bottled water with crystal light packets and paper plates and cups! I am so grateful that they were so thoughtful. With all our stuff in boxes it is so helpful to have something nutritious to eat (so we don't just eat left-over donuts we bought for the people who helped us this morning).
Talk about nice people. You always hear how friendly people are in Texas and now I can really see why. We have been so warmly received and cared for already! I wanted to get all this down and I know it is long, but thanks for reading (if you got this far). God really knows we are here and what we need! (I knew that already, but it sure is nice to get such a huge reminder!)
I'm planning on doing another post... maybe tomorrow... with some pictures from our Utah trip and the past week. Hopefully things will slow down a little, though we have our work cut out for us with all these boxes!

Vacation?!

Here they are! When it was finally over, here is what it looked like around Houston.

Eric's cousin was so nice to let him stay with them. Here is her daughter, dog and husband. Just like Jen, she is hardly ever in pictures because she is the one behind the camera.

After being wound up only once (compared to Abby's six or seven times) Eric felt sick. Is this what age does to a person?

Although Eric's office wasn't open, they were still encouraged to put in a few hours remotely. A neighbor removed his password so anyone could connect to his internet because most were still without internet service. What a sweet set-up!Now that Jen is back home from packing up our stuff (pictures from that trip are soon to come), we have another new development. One that we aren't too happy about. A few weeks ago when Eric's mom, Nancy, was here, we came home from looking at houses one day and she said we had forgotten to tell her about Ethan's new trick. We didn't know of any new trick and were very surprised to hear that he could now climb out of his crib. For the rest of her trip, however, there was no proof that he actually climbed out of his crib because he didn't attempt the escape again. So we were still doubting. We doubt no longer. Our routine for the past two nights has been: we put Ethan in his crib, we leave the room, a few seconds later he follows us and we put him back...about 20 times or more. It even happens in the middle of the night at 12:30 a.m.! For his nap yesterday we finally just shut the bedroom door and this is where he chose to sleep (pic below). Tonight we have had a break-through! We shut the closet door where he sleeps and listened to what he would do next. All while he was crying, he climbed out of his crib, stood at the door and then climbed back into his crib and went to sleep. Yes! Power to the parents!

Ike Update

We've been getting lots of questions about how we are doing. Thank you all for keeping us in your prayers. We are all safe. Our house (that we are supposed sign the papers for this Friday) had only a few minor damages, so we were lucky. I am now in Utah packing up our stuff to move it to Texas and left the camera with our post hurricane pictures with Eric, so we'll post those later along with more details.
Everyone asks if it was scary, but really, the power went out about 1 a.m. on Saturday morning which is when the worst part of the hurricane was happening. It was really windy and raining hard, but it wasn't particularly scary. On the far side of our building a transformer blew and a very well-known restaurant caught on fire. The wind just fueled the flames and it took the firefighters more than four hours to put it out! We watched the flames from our building. I've never been that close to a fire like that. What was amazing was that it was pouring rain and the fire still kept burning. Here is a link if you want to read more: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/091308dntexbrennans.70098276.html
Even though the hurricane was almost exciting for us (probably because we didn't feel we were in any real danger); the fire, the flooding and thinking about the economic implications of the hurricane is quite sobering. It is nice to be off work, but I think about the people who work hourly jobs just to make ends meet and if they are out of work for a week because the power is out, the implications are just so much worse. We feel so blessed to have our family safe and be comfortable.
As far as our status, we still don't have power or water at our apartment and he hasn't been to work since they closed early on Thursday. Nice holiday, but it would be nicer if he had something to do or if we were together.
Eric's staying with a cousin in Sugar Land. They got power back on Saturday night. How amazing! We are so grateful he has a place to stay. Actually another family has been staying with them too, so there is a six-year-old and two eight-year-olds. Eric calls me and tells me all the games he is playing with the kids... I thought "stuffed animal olympics" would surely be his favorite. I'm sure they are loving him... I am so blessed to have a husband who is great with kids. We sure miss him! Thanks again for all your thoughts and prayers!

Hurricane Ike!

Well, after one and a half months in Houston we are experiencing our first hurricane! First of all, thanks to everyone who has called and texted to find out how we are doing. Hurricane Ike is headed right for Houston. It is supposed to cause the most damage in Galveston, the place we went just two weeks ago on Labor Day (see previous post). Evacuations aren't mandatory for us and we feel our building is pretty safe, so we've decided to wait it out. We've parked our car on the second story parking just in case there is flooding.
I was supposed to be headed for Utah this weekend to get our stuff ready to come down. I was initially going to leave Saturday, I called Wednesday and changed the flight to Friday then was told yesterday that the airport would be closed Friday and Saturday. I am scheduled to leave Sunday morning, so we'll see how that goes.
We've filled our bathtubs with water, purchased extra water bottles and food and hoping the power outage doesn't last too long. They said it could last up to two weeks if the power does go out! I put everything I could in the freezer with the hopes that it will at least buy us a couple of days. We did one really silly thing... we went to a store and they were having sales on a lot of food. Eric saw his favorite thing on sale: frozen cinnamon and bought five bags... we forgot that if we have a power outage for more than a couple of days, they won't be any good!
Maybe we are just naive about what is coming, but it is sort of exciting... Is that bad? Don't get me wrong, I know that a lot will be destroyed and of course I think that will be awful, but it just sort of seems like an adventure right now.
We went on a walk this evening about 6:30. The streets were deserted:
We went to look out at the top of Eric's office garge. The wind really started blowing. The eye of the hurricane is supposed to travel right over downtown Houston which is where we are. It is supposed to get here in the early morning (like 2 or so).

If we have power tomorrow we'll keep everyone posted, but we feel we'll be OK here. Thanks again for your thoughts and prayers.

Labor Days and Birthdays

Labor Day brings back lots of memories since I went into labor on that day four years ago when Elia was born! This year, her birthday was on a Saturday, so it was fun to have a party on her actual birthday since that doesn't happen very often (...though maybe I thought it was cooler than everyone else did... who knows)!
Everyone we invited came! I thought this was neat because that doesn't happen very often either. I guess it isn't too hard when you only invite five families, but we had a great time. Here was Elia's announcements. I am including it because I love these pictures of her.Elia really wanted an "Ariel" cake... from "The Little Mermaid". I am usually up for a good cake challenge, but I didn't have any of my supplies and all the cakes I looked at on the Internet didn't really look like Ariel... plus, I bought this really cool "giant cupcake" mold before I left Utah. I went the easy route and bought figurines from The Disney Store. Elia loved helping me put the candies on top and we put the Prince Eric and Max (the dog) figurines on top of the white cake. Extra bonus, she now gets to play with the figurines! I have to admit, the 30 minute decorating time was sure a nice break from the three or so hours I spent on Ethan's cake (http://jenericpetty.blogspot.com/2008/04/par-teeeee.html)!

On Labor Day we went with our friends the Forbushes to the beach at Galveston. It was actually not bad... (we'd heard stories that it was). The waves were AWESOME... probably because of Hurricane Gustav. This beach bum loved the sandy muck!
Craig and Lynette watched the kids while Eric and I went body surfing! Thanks guys!

House!

We've gotten so many requests for pictures of our new house, so... here she is! Of course, we feel like new parents... we are so excited! I looked through the pictures of the inside, but you can't see much... you know, how fun are empty bedrooms really? I'll probably do a video tour once we close, which is on the 19th! Thanks for all your interest... By the way, while we are on the subject of houses, we're up for suggestions on siding color. We'll probably paint before too long and I would love to have input!

3,2,1... Blast Off!

I feel like every week we say that it's been a great week, but we really did have a great week this week. We went swimming four of the days (here is a quick video of Elia's backstroke):

We've also been out looking for furniture and appliances. At one of the stores our kids made friends with two other kids and the serta lamb. Our kids loved the lamb... especially climbing on it. The younger girl of the two loved getting a piece of the spotlight, so here is her minute of stardom on our blog.

Yesterday, we went to Space Center Houston... the place where they control the space shuttle, monitor the international space station and train the astronauts. The Sackett's (Eric's mom's cousin) gave us free tickets.
Here is a picture of mission control. (Think... "Houston, we have a problem." Yep, this is where that phrase is heard.) The screens on the wall shows live feed from the international space station.
Rocket Park:

This rocket is the largest space rocket... It was longer than a football field. It was huge!

Look at all those wires! Which one is responsible to launch the satellite?

Beam me up Scotty!
One spacey family: :)I liked this sign outside of the building. It says: "For the dreamers and the explorers who look to distant horizons. For the celebration of discovery and newfound knowledge. For the children who will be the pathfinders of the high frontier..."
We bought Elia these "space" gummy worms from the gift shop... for what they cost, they should have been from space!
Inside the building they had all sorts of amusement activities... Here is a video of some of our fun: