Hurricane Ike takes a strike!

Where do I begin... Last week at this time my daughter decided she was going to get sick. Woke up Thursday morning with 101 fever. Of course who has to stay home with a sick baby... momma does. So I stayed home from work. Fortunately I was able to get a last minute appointment with her Dr. since all offices would be closed on Friday to prepare for Hurricane Ike. Sure enough she has strep throat. Good times. Thursday evening and Friday was prep time for the hurricane. Friday night my mom came over to stay the night. It was not a fun night. 10 pm try to sleep... 10:05 mom is snoring...10:10 daughter is snoring...10:15 Nick is snoring... me...no sleep... wind... noises outside... then at 11 our power is out... 1:30 metal grinding sound outside...Nick going outside to check on the metal grinding sound at 2am...mom and me standing at the back door yelling for him to come back inside...where is he???... noises...hurricane...not good...laying in bed...mom...you awake...yes... want to play cards...sure... So we decided there was no way we could sleep through this mess... lets play cards in the candlelight. After a good hour we decide to go back to bed. I really didn't sleep a wink. Just sat there and listened to all the horrible noises outside and hoped our house would stay in one piece. A few hours pass and Nick goes to check on things. The wind has changed directions... guess the eye of the storm passed. Nick comes back in... lost the tree out front. I think at this point he crawled into bed and was devestated. He loved his trees. We planted them when they were itty bitty and now they were big. The sun starts to come up and we get knocking on the door. Our neighbors check on us. We lost our gutters, tree and some of the shingles on our room... and power of course. Well... it is 5 days later and mom is still here. We have power. She doesn't. In-laws don't. Friends don't. We have had lots of visitors and life has been crazy. School is out all week. Boss called to say our building has a lot of damage and will not be able to be moved back into until the end of the year. What??? People will be without power and water for weeks. Major devestation all over Houston with people without places to live. This is sad. But... we are making the most of it. I hear there are great prices for flights out of IAH???? Wonder where we can go???