Carter played his first soccer game today. They did really well considering they only got to practice once. Some of the kids have played in past seasons so that helped. Carter played during the 2nd and 4th quarters. He did really good. We are so proud of him! His team wore white jerseys and their team name is the "Fireballs". No one was really keeping score but Carter's team did score more goals than the other team. So, if they did have a winner, it would have been his team. Here are some pictures from the game. I took some video but I am unable to post it on here (still trying to figure out how to do that).

You can view these pictures and others in the Family Photos/September 2008 album.

Houston is still recovering from the hurricane. Businesses are slowly opening again. Frank went back to work yesterday. His office was fine. They were without power for a few days but back in business again.

The power at the church where the kids go to preschool has been down most of the week so the kids couldn't go to school this week. They are climbing the walls, and so am I, for that matter. With all the cleanup and power outtages around here, there really aren't that many places to go. Places where kids play aren't really a priority, so they have been put on the back burner.

The damage to our ceiling is getting worse and worse. Some more insulation and drywall fell overnight following the day of the storm, so we had to clean up a mess again the next morning. We see alot of water stains on other parts of the ceiling and down the walls now. We got the roof fixed the day before yesterday, so we are good there. We have called on someone to do the drywall and to replace the carpet that got damaged. We are waiting for them to come out to look at the damage/repairs to be done. I have added some more pictures (what the ceiling looks like now) to the Misc Photos/Hurricane Ike album. Whew! What a mess!

We were in the middle of Hurricane Ike as it hit Houston in the am last night. The kids slept in the room with us and we covered the windows as best as we could. We lost power pretty early on. During the night we got up and discovered that our light fixture over the landing of the staircase was dripping water and the ac vent in the middle of the ceiling not far from the light fixture was leaking water also. Frank went up into the attic and saw a long line of water dripping from the peak of our roof. When he went out this morning, he saw a strip of shingles torn off the front of the roof. Sometime after that, our ceiling over the staircase fell in, drywall and insulation. It was EVERYWHERE! You can say that it was snowing insulation in our house. It took several large plastic bags to get it and the drywall up off the stairs. We thank our sweet neighbors for coming over to help us with all of it. They were lifesavers! We are all doing okay though. We are thankful no one was hurt or anything throughout the whole ordeal. Here are some pictures of the damage we suffered (more can be seen in the Misc Photos/Hurricane Ike 2008 album)

Carter had his first soccer practice yesterday. He did pretty good for his first practice and for being 4 years old.   I think he really enjoyed it. He went right out and did what he was told to do. We did run into some rain though. It rained about 15-20 minutes into practice and it rained until the kids were almost drenched. The kids played right on through though. Gail on the other hand started getting really fussy about half way through practice. She fussed and fussed because she wanted to go out and play with the other kids. When she gets like that, it is hard to get her to calm down. I've got to find something for her to do while we are there to keep her distracted. Anyways, here are some pictures from practice. (There are more in the Family Photos/September 2008 album.)

The four of us went to the Space Center today to get out the house for a little while. Carter probably got alot more out of it than Gail (which one would expect) but even Carter didn't seem very interested at times. The problem is is that there's not really alot of things that a 4 year old and a 2 year old can do. They did have this gigantic playscape thing in the very front. All the kids wanted to do was play on that thing. They (the people at the S.C.) made the mistake of putting it right inside the front door so that is really the first thing that pops out at you. Well, we made the kids wait until we had seen most of everything there. After all, that is not why we spent the money to go there.

Here are some pictures from our visit. More can be viewed in the Family Photos/September 2008 album.

Football Update:

Both Georgia and Florida won their games today. Here are the scores.

Georgia  56    Central Michigan  17

Florida  26    Miami  3