Back home........

We left Magnolia today at a little after noon.... and pulled into our driveway in less than two hours. Sure beats the 15-hour drive of Wednesday, from our driveway to the house in Magnolia.

I am so glad to be home. Our house was just fine..... lots of little tree branches tossed around the yards, and the flower gardens look as if a giant walked around in them. The screen-porch wasn't damaged, most likely because we took everything out of it, and everything out of the backyard. The big Live Oak tree in the corner of the yard is still standing, thank goodness. I was worried about that falling, and wondering which direction it would chose for its landing spot.

My husband and I both cried when we got back home. We know how blessedly lucky we were to have gotten in touch with C and her parents when we realized we would never be able to drive to Dallas. I still find it hard to believe that a two-hour drive took us 15 hours on Wednesday.

Gracie was just the best-behaved dog, all the way in the car during the ride (and we stopped to let her out from time to time), and at the Magnolia home of R and A and their son J. Even my four cats...... they were quiet during the car ride, and very quiet in Magnolia. They were comfortable in the laundry room there, and I kept going in there to let them know we were still around and didn't just drop them off and leave them. I was so worried about how AngelBoy would react to all of this, but he did just fine. In fact, he turned into a lap-cat while we were up in Magnolia. Every time I picked him up, he cuddled into my arms and didn't want to leave--- very different for AngelBoy, who likes to stay close to me but doesn't like to be held for more than ten seconds at a time.

What is amazing to me also is how comfortable we all were up in Magnolia. We had 8 people in that house, plus the 5 dogs and 4 cats. We had to keep the dogs separated for most of the time, but we all took turns letting them inside the house, out in the backyard, or closed up in our bedrooms. We all played cards, watched CNN for the hurricane updates, read books and magazines, cooked together, did laundry together, and just talked and talked and talked. We said it was like being away at camp.

The owners of that Magnolia house, who have been friends with C and her parents for some years now (they used to live on C's street before moving up there), will soon be moving to Colorado. (The husband's job transferred him there and the house is up for sale.) We asked R and A where we would go for the next hurricane, after they moved away. It was decided that we'd have to either drive to Colorado, or ask the new owners of the house to take us all in.

Beautiful homes up in Magnolia. They look like Clear Lake homes, but they're sitting on lots of acres--- either three acres, five, or ten. That's a lot of land to be mowing and taking care of. Some of the home-owners up there have horses. The night just before the storm hit there, we could hear some of the neighbor's horses kicking up a fuss in their stables.

Our house is looking like home again. Some of the furniture is back on the screen-porch, everything in here that we put up higher (in case of flooding) is back in their usual places. I've got tons of laundry to do...... lots of towels and blankets that we used to cover the car seats and put into the cat-carriers to make them soft and cozy. But tomorrow is another day.

All I can say is that we are so grateful to our new friends up in Magnolia. They graciously opened up their home to us and our pets at a moment's notice, and they did so just because we were friends of C and her parents.

I was on the cell-phone with our friends in Dallas during that 15-hour drive as my husband and I inched along in the evacuation traffic going north of Houston, and I was crying and P was crying, and we were both so sad that there was just no way for us to continue driving to their Dallas home. We promised that we'd drive up to Dallas and visit them as soon as we could..... except we'd both be in one car, without the dog and the cats, and we wouldn't be running from a hurricane.

I am so glad we're home and these past few days are behind us. I have loved this house from the moment I first saw it, but I was never so happy to see it as I was this afternoon.