Well, when I got up on Wednesday morning right after the power went off things were still relatively quiet.  I still can't believe our power went off so early when it was barely raining and the wind didn't seem to be that hard... but it had.  I turned on the radio and began to listen to the reports of Dolly's location and how she had strengthened during the night and was borderline becoming a category 2.  That made me a little bit nervous because we hadn't boarded the windows, so I just prayed!  One by one the kids got up and we had a breakfast of peanut butter sandwiches and just kept watching outside and listening to the radio.  One good thing about not having the windows boarded... we could see outside and we had some daylight coming in. 

The kids got out some games and we played a few games of Yatzee.  Rachel won every time... she was the Yatzee queen!  As the morning went on the winds picked up... they radio had predicted the full force would hit Harlingen around lunch time but it wasn't until really about 2:00 p.m. that the hardest winds were blowing.  I stood outside on the front porch with the video camera and the digital camera and tooks pictures and video.  We watched lots of limbs fall off trees and the wind blow them down our street... the power of the wind and the sound of it all was just amazing.  Then the kids told me that the skylight in our bathroom was leaking.  I went in and found water constantly dripping down all four sides of the skylight and there was this kind of mist falling . . . really kind of scary and yet the mist was kind of comical!  I emptied out a big rubbermaid storage box and sat it down to catch the water, put towels all around the cabinet and floor to catch the rest . . . and waited.

Then the kids came to tell me that water was coming in our back door into my bathroom.  We had sandbagged this door but the full force of the wind and rain were hitting that door and there was quite a bit of water coming in anyway.  We emptied the hamper of used towels and put them all over the floor to try and keep the water out - it worked okay.  We kept looking out the window and counting the shingles falling from the roof . . . then as I was walking through the house looking out windows I noticed a big section of our fence that had blown down.  And the wind and the rain just kept coming and coming - never letting up.  The guys on the radio let us know that Harlingen was really getting hit hard.  Apparently the storm had come ashore just north of us and we were in the southern eyewall (we would never get the "break" of the actual eye coming over us).  Dolly just sat there and pounded us for HOURS.  The radio guys kept taking calls from people in Harlingen and kept telling them (us) -- can you just hold out for 2 more hours?  Two hours later they were saying, "can you just hold out for 2 more hours? . . . I was really beginning the get a little stressed over the skylight.  What if it blew off or fell in?  What would I do?  So I tried to call a couple of different friends down here to ask for advice -- no cell phone service -- I tried to call Wade but couldn't get through to him either -- then I called my dad in Arkansas!  He talked me through and calmed my nerves that the skylight would probably be okay . . . and that if it fell in there was really nothing I could do but catch the water as best I could . . . anyway, talking to him helped me feel a little bit better.  The wind and the rain just kept pounding and pounding us -- I've never seen anything like it except on tv.

The kids got out the Monopoly game and I tried to teach them how to play, but I guess my nerves were too much on edge and I had no patience . . . plus the oil lamp didn't really give enough light to read all those little details of the game . . . so we gave it up.  Somewhere around 8:00 the storm seemed to have finally calmed down a little bit and it was getting dark so I decided we'd all just go to bed.  About 9:30 Adam woke me up because he couldn't sleep and he and I went into the living room and lit the oil lamp and turned on the radio.  The other two kids woke up and came into the living room and we fixed a bed in the middle of the living room floor.  They all eventually fell asleep.  Around 11:30 the storm was really howling again so I carried them all to bed and went to bed myself.  What a day!!!  And I couldn't wait for morning to get outside and see what everything looked like.