Afraid of Heights

Here are more pictures of the squirrels. We took them outside to get some sun. Richard put a branch in the ground and set them on it. They got about an inch off the ground, but they were too scared to climb any higher! This is crazy! Squirrels that are afraid to climb. (Ha-ha.) They are both getting around well now and will chatter at us when they get hungry. We tried to sleep in Saturday morning, but they made so much racket that Richard finally got up and fed them. Nicole's squirrel even came to her the other day when she called it!

Johnny Appleseed Day

Friday was Johnny Appleseed Day at school for Lauren's class. When Nicole and Natalie did it, they wore a pair of blue jeans that were cut off with strings hanging. I tried to get Lauren to wear them too, but she said, "I am NOT wearing those to school!" She finally decided on these blue jean shorts with bandana material around the legs. She said, "Now those are CUTE!" You've got to love her though, because when I said, "All the other kids are going to be wearing ragged jeans", she said, "I don't care WHAT the OTHER kids are doing!" Hopefully, she will keep that same attitude when she is a teenager!

My New Toy

Richard totally surprised me the other night. We have been looking at laptops for a while now, and he found a good deal on the one we have been watching. I now have a Sony VAIO laptop. Woohoo!!!!! I think I have the best husband in the whole world! :-) Now that we are connected with high speed, he bought a router, so I can surf the 'net on my laptop at the same time he is using our old computer. Now to get the kids to stay off the laptop....


















It's grey. I don't know why this photo that I found on the Internet looks pink.

I've also found the new camera that I want! I'll have to wait a while though until we pay off the laptop. Maybe Santa will put it under the tree for me ... with some cool lenses too ... ha-ha! It's a Nikon D90. I have been debating about the D80, D200, and D300 for a long time now. Well, Nikon just introduced the D90, which is cheaper than the D300, but has some features that are actually better than the D300. I know that most of you who read this will be like, "Who cares?! A camera is a camera...", but I'm sure that my photography board buddies can totally relate. I'm excited that I have finally decided what I want.

Squirrel Update

The squirrels eyes are open now, but every time I tried to take a picture they closed them! A friend gave us some baby formula, and they seem to like that.

















They even hold the medicine dropper by themselves some while they are eating.

They sure are cute. The kids are having fun playing with them. The girl is really outgoing and active. She got out of the box one day, and we found her in my closet in a houseshoe! The boy seems to have a problem with his back legs. We think he may be paralyzed from when the tree fell during Hurricane Ike.

Hurricane Ike

We survived Hurricane Rita three years ago and here we are again with Hurricane Ike. It's just unbelievable that a storm can travel as far inland as we are and still be a catagory 1 hurricane.






















Jack was a baby during Hurricane Rita, but this time he enjoyed helping us cook outside on the grill. It has a burner on one side, so we were able to cook everything that we normally would inside. It just takes longer with one burner instead of four. This was beef tips and rice that we were cooking for lunch one day.




















It was hot in our room at night so we moved matresses to the living room and slept in there with the windows and front door open. We all slept in the same room because the kids didn't want to be in the dark by themselves. Luckily for us a cool front came through the next day and cooled everything off for us.
















I don't know if you can tell from this picture or not, but this is one huge tree that we have in our yard. It is about 16 feet around at the base.




















This is the other side of the tree. One of the limbs fell in our neighbors yard. The limb is as big as most trees. We were so afraid when we heard it that it had landed on their garage, but it missed it and their truck too.
















This is in a neighbor's yard at the end of our road.














This huge tree was one of the few trees left on the school campus. They removed a lot of others when building new buildings a few years back.
















More limbs down in our yard.





















Here are some refugees that Richard found after the storm: two baby squirrels that lost their mother. The kids have been feeding them milk with a medicine dropper.

We were very blessed that there wasn't much damage in our area. It was mostly trees down. Not too much damage to buildings or people injured. Our power is back on now. God is good!

Nicole's Baptism

We are so proud of Nicole. She made the decision to be saved a few weeks ago and was baptized this Sunday.