We went outside Thursday morning to find all our neighbors picking up limbs and cleaning up their yards.  We made some pictures of our yard and our neighbors yards then went back inside for a bit.  Our Assoc. pastor, Frank came over to check on us.  He told us that there was power and telephones at the church so we decided to go up there to try and get a call out to Wade and to my mom.  Our cell phone had lost service completely on Wednesday late afternoon.  The kids and I loaded up and headed out.  We were amazed to see all the water in the Arroyo Colorado (it runs behind our neighborhood).  All traffic lights were out . . . trees down everywhere . . . we finally got to the church and made our phone calls.  Then we decided to just drive around a bit and maybe see if Walmart were open because we had no power and no a/c at home.  We got to the Walmart in San Benito and it was open - running on generators.  There was no cold/frozen food available but we were pretty well prepared so we just bought some fun food (fruit snacks, cookies, etc.) for the kids and then headed on home.  We took several pictures of flooded roads and trees down and all that.  We got home and started cleaning up our yard.  We found our broken skylight in several pieces in our yard.  After a little while some friends of ours came over to check on us and we all swapped storm stories. 

Our friends, Layne and Jill came back over and Layne climbed up on our roof and nailed down some roofing material over our skylight in case we should get any more rain.  He also sat up our fences that were down and temporarily nailed them into place.  Finally, he trimmed the broken branches that were still hanging.  Their son, Matthew, who is Adam's age stayed the afternoon with us and helped us clean up the rest of our yard.  And they invited us over to dinner that night.  They still had no power but they had a generator and had kept their freezers and fridge running and planned to grill some fajitas.  We had a great time at their house.  We ended the evening by playing dominos outside on the patio next to their pool.  Still no power at their house.  As we drove home there were lights on on our street and I got so excited!  But about 2/3 of the way down (we are on the end of the street) it was black -- still no power.  The kids and I stayed there that night but it was a long, miserable, HOT night. 

Friday morning we got up and headed to the church.  Frank and Melanie and our good friends, the Blakeslees (our children's minister and his family) still had no power and they had spent the night at the church where it was cool.  We decided to do the same on Friday night.  We spent just about all of the day at church.  I came home once to check to see if the power had come on (it hadn't) and to clean out my two refrigerators and freezers and throw everything away.  Our youth minister, Matt and his wife Sara had power at their house so they invited all us unfortunate ones to come over that night for supper and bring whatever we had in our freezers that had thawed that we wanted to cook!  Also, Matt and one of our youth guys came over and moved our little small chest freezer up to Wade's office and plugged it in -- most of the stuff in it was still frozen so it was all saved.  That night we all had a great time at Matt and Sara's house.  We got back to the church that night and our kids along with the Blakeslees kids had a blast camping out at the church.  I slept on the couch in Wade's office.  I actually had a cake order that was not cancelled so I baked it at the church and got up Saturday morning and decorated it -- that was a great, fun distraction!

Saturday we spent most of the day at the church and then I delivered the cake I had done and went by my house to check on power and pack up our clothes for spending the night at church again.  Our good friends Sally and Hank had power at their house so they had all us unfortunate ones (haha) over to their house for dinner Saturday night.  It was wonderful and we so appreciated the great food and the really great fellowship.  The Blakeslees power had come on so they were blessed to be at home on Saturday night.  Rachel spent the night with them.  The boys and I camped out at church again Saturday night in Wade's office.  It was really quite funny to wake up on Sunday morning, put on your clothes and you're already at church!

After church I called one of my customers who was supposed to have had their wedding on South Padre Island on Monday.  Of course, the Island was closed to non-residents and non-essential personnel so they had to cancel their plans.  I felt so terrible for them . . . but thankfully she said they had found a place to get married on Monday (in San Antonio, not here) so at least that worked out for them.  (Sheri -- I hope that you had a most beautiful wedding!  I'm so sorry that Dolly ruined your plans for a beach wedding!)

Sunday afternoon we went to the Blakeslees for lunch (what a blessing again) and then we hung out and watched a movie.  Around 3:30 I decided to drive over to my house to see how things were going.  When I pulled up in the driveway and turned off the van I noticed that our neighbors generator wasn't running... a good sign!  Our other neighbors were standing outside and they said the power had come on about 20 minutes earlier... YAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY!!  I was so excited!

4 1/2 days without power = no air conditioning, was long enough!!!!  And as I type this blog on Tuesday there are STILL people in Harlingen without power.  When we lived in Hope and went through the ice storm Christmas of 2000 we were without power for a week -- but at least it was winter - we took all our food out of the fridge and put it in coolers outside and it stayed fine and we had gas logs to keep us warm... down here in the summer when there is no a/c it's stifling... please continue to pray for the people down here who are without power -- those who have lost their homes completely and those who have major and minor flood and wind damage.  Dolly hit us hard -- but it could have been so much worse.  We are thankful.

The Texas Baptist Men Disaster Relief Team arrived on Thursday.  They have been sleeping at our church as well.  They are set up to serve around 5,000 meals a day and the Red Cross distributes the meals.  Every year at convention meetings we hear of their volunteer work in different areas of Texas and I believe they even went to Lousiana in 2005 -- but it was such a incredible blessing to see them here in our town ministering to our friends and neighbors.  "Jesus with skin on."

It's been amazing to hear the stories of people coming together to help each other out -- just like our staff has been helping each other out by having everyone to dinner each night... and to hear stories of neighborhoods getting together to grill food and share what they have and get to know each other.  I know that God's going to use this hard time to bring some wonderful results and bring people to Him!

I talked with Wade one night and told him, I really am sorry that you're missing this... we're having a really good time!  haha  He wanted to come home when all this happened but I convinced him that we were all fine -- there was nothing he could do -- and that God had put him in Dallas for this time for a reason and he's found that out too.  Pray for him as he has three more days and then will be driving back here on Friday afternoon/night (9 hour drive).

And now... back to the fun stuff... I have a wedding cake tasting this afternoon... and a bunch of cake orders for the coming weekend -- life goes on!