38 weeks + Hurricane Ida

Thurs the 26th:
Welp, we're evacuating for a potential hurricane this weekend. It's Thursday night as I type, but we aren't planning on leaving until the wee hours of Saturday with a potential landfall of Sunday. It does seem like it'll be a larger storm - a category 3 - but mostly we want to leave because of power outages and pressure changes that might induce labor. We're looking at a 5hr drive - with a 9mo bump, ick - but hopefully everything will all pass smoothly with no major damages or loss of life, God willing.

The week's been a mostly smooth one with school work ticking along, Paul taking some of his to the library on occasion, which he enjoys. Ada's writing little narrative stories about whatever's currently happening and also wanting to take pictures (see below). Jack wants to do school all the time ... except when he wants to color; which is sometimes during school, and then he does not want to do non-coloring schoolwork, ha. And Pip is impressing us all with her coloring skills as well as her cleverness in correcting her own speech when she hears any one of us say something the way she said it. Ex: the others say in place of a "darn" "Biscuits!" something they got from Bluey, the Aussie cartoon. Pippa said "Bikits" which someone repeated, then she puts on her thinking face and slowly says, "Bi-s-cuits". Fascinating!

Monday the 30th:
Yep, there was a hurricane, alright. Hurricane Ida barreled through as a Category 4 with 150mph winds and ripped up quite a bit in her path. The entirety of the metro area is without power and looking to be so for a couple of weeks. Towns outside of New Orleans are flooded and/or ruined, and there are rescues still underway. Unfortunately, Ida hit on an ever-present wound of a date: August 29th, when Katrina hit in '05 and broke New Orleans. There are several similarities but also many differences, and, as always, the people are hopeful!

For us, personally, things are going just fine. We heard the 2:30am alarm on Saturday, hit the ground running to finalize packing, get the kids in the car, and we were on our way to collect my aunt on the way out before 3am. We stopped at 7am in Orange, TX and arrived at Ginny&Ryan's in east Houston by 10. The ride was much smoother than I'd anticipated for little baby Cinco, for which I'm very grateful, and we spent the rest of the day resting, the kids playing, watching TV and otherwise enjoying being with family. Mom and Dad had already arrived the day prior and were quite stressed out about what they'd be going home to, being so close to the St. Louis Bay and Jordain River. Basically for 24 hours, we were anxiously awaiting a turtle's arrival ... you know it's coming; you see it coming; you can't rush it, and it'll get here when it gets here. Then finally we start getting word from folks back home that she'd arrived ... winds picking up, rain starting, etc. We attended Mass early Sunday morning, praying for so many things, and came home to news from Mom and Dad's neighbors that they were faring quite well - even with power! The worst of the winds for our neighborhood and city were later in the afternoon, and we went to bed not really knowing what sort of news and images we'd wake to. Fortunately, a neighbor contacted us early to say our house looked to be in good shape! What a blessed relief!

Widespread power outages, declining water potability, and a baby very much on the way are all deterrents to returning soon. In fact, the city's asked those who've evacuated just to stay away for a bit until they can get a better handle on things. So now we wait. Wait to see what happens with hospitals at home, wait to see if baby comes sooner rather than later here in Houston. Even if I do give birth here, we'd likely wait a short while before making the trek back home. So we wait.
And we pray. For clarity, for peace, for perseverance and strength. With gratitude.

Also. Dylan and I celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary today! Amidst the chaos and uncertainty ... if that's not a metaphor for marriage, I'm not sure what is! We decided to take the kids to NASA's Space Center Houston for the day, and it was delightful!