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!