Intact After the Storm

We made it through the storm with no damage to the house.  Our fence looks a bit exhausted from the hours of menacing wind, but we should be able to get it back upright without too much effort.  Our neighborhood park had a couple of trees uprooted (small ones) and all of the road signs were down in the street or the nearby grass. 

I was able to get a glimpse of some of the most ferocious winds at about 4:00am.  Make no mistake, Ike was certainly a force to be reckoned with.  Opening the door had a similar to effect to that of rolling down your car window while driving 80 miles per hour as the pressure difference between the house and outdoors tried to equalize.  Standing in the safety of our brick-enclosed entryway (see picture below), I was amazed that our pine tree hadn't snapped yet.  The wind was pummeling the poor conifer holding it at a constant 60 degree angle while the individual branches flailed wildly in an attempt to regain purchase in the soil.  With each gust, I was certain the tree could bear no more and would snap at the trunk.  To my surprise, that tree as well as most others in the neighborhood made it through the night.  I guess Highland Homes plants 'em in pretty good :)

All things considered, we feel very lucky and hope that everyone else in the Houston/Galveston area was able to stay safe through the mayhem.  There is a big thunderstorm today that is hampering the rescue/cleanup efforts so it is still difficult to say how widespread the damage is, but it certainly looks like Ike was pretty rough on Houston.

Casa de Bateman against a pre-Ike sunset:

Dad is Crazy

http://yewtaah.blogspot.com/2008/09/making-lemonade.html

Batten down the hatches

So it is a few hours before we expect to start to see some nasty winds.  Today I challenge the notion that no good can come from a hurricane.  We just got both of our cars in the garage for the first time since we moved in :)  All of the not-sure-where-it-goes junk has been collecting dust in our garage.  Right now I am quite satisfied with the accomplishment of getting all of that stuff organized and the cars parked in the garage.  It doesn't take much to keep me happy I guess...

We'll continue to make small checkpoint posts as long as we have power

Ike is on the way

Seems like it has been a busy hurricane season.  We have been spared from the other names storms this season, but I think Ike is dropping by for a visit this weekend.  We'll be staying in town to stick it out since our area is not prone to flooding.  The winds may hurl some foreign objects through our windows, but we plan to be in the safety of the windowless media room.  The brick wall should provide protection against any flying debris.  Most likely we'll lose power, but other than that we hope it won't be too bad.  Cross your fingers for us!

As you can see by this latest forecast, Ike should be directly over us by about 7am on Saturday.  Projections indicate that it will still be hurricane force winds of 115 mph even though we are about 75 miles inland.

Tramonte Nearing Completion

We have been in our new house for over a month now, and we're still not done "moving in".  Now I'm not quite sure what the generally accepted standard is for time to get your house situated, but we have got to be behind schedule at best.  Part of this we can blame on paying extreme attention to detail, part can be blamed on continued entertainment for a 2 & 4 year old, and part of it can certainly be blamed on good ol' procrastination.  In any event, we are very pleased with the parts of the house that are now finalized with paint, furniture, and those other personal touches that make a house a home.

I will have to give special props to Angel's design ability.  I think we have the next candidate for Design Star on our hands.  Everything that she dreams up seems to come to fruition in an awesome room that receives numerous compliments from our guests.  Now, in the last house we had the built-in.  I like to think that it was my handiwork that made it awesome, but the workmanship was pretty shoddy even if it did take me 2 months to finish.  Making function out of an empty space was the real magic. 

This special skill is certainly apparent in Angel's latest creation in our new abode.  Our game room upstairs has lots of space, which is perfect since we have lots of kiddie stuff in the way of toys, crafts, games, books, etc.  The functional needs of this room really began to hit me as I have watched Jackson and Emily trying to post colorings of Spiderman up on the walls with scotch tape (clearly Angel knows a thing or two about kids :) )

What you see in the picture above is a black portion of the wall that has been made into a chalkboard.  It gets even better as the magnetic primer allows the kids to put magnets directly on the black area.  A friend at work pointed out that the challenge now will be making sure that the boundary is clearly understood by our aspiring artists.  "No, don't draw on mommy & daddy's bedroom walls!"

The organization bins provide for an orderly configuration of everything from coloring books to fake food.  I think Angel used the dewey decimal system combined with her own color coding scheme to get the rules in place.  The 4 foot hardwood strip provides a nice place to stand an easel, put together a puzzle, or lay down a race track.  Finally, the sheet metal strip provides an additional space to post up the kids' work for all to see.

Right next to the play room you'll find my favorite spot in the house: the media room.  I like to use the term media room since home theatre leans too heavily on the movie function of the room.  Currently, the HD projector has logged more hours displaying Spiderman taking down bad guys on the Wii than it has showing movies.  We did get to watch some of Michael Phelps awesome heats in the newly configured retreat. 

Wrapping up my thoughts quickly, here is a shot of the kids playing on the built in desks (won't be whitewashed like that for long :) ) and the front of the house. 

Well, that is it for this post.  Going to get the kids to bed...

Florida Road Trip - 2008

For this year's summer vacation, we decided to spit in the face of high gas prices and embark on a 2500+ mile road trip. A crew of 14 launched the voyage from San Antonio in the wee hours of the morning, Saturday, July 5th.

After a few breakfast tacos, the 3 car fleet headed east on interstate 10 for a summer adventure that included a relaxing 3 night stay in a beach house in Destin and another action packed 3 nights in Orlando, Florida.  The return trip saw a brief stint in New Orleans to break up the drive.

You can check out all of the pictures from the entire vacation here: SnapFish Album - Florida 2008

Day 1 - The I-10 Boogie

Most of the first day was spent driving from San Antonio to Destin.  The kids were surprisingly tolerant of the long drive and they especially loved going over the big bridges.  Most of the drive was pleasant greenery-packed views like the photo below.  We arrived around dinner time on Sunday and quickly settled into our new digs.  We stayed at the "Green Parrot" which was a 6 bedroom 3-story townhome style beach house a couple of blocks from the beach.  Pizza delivery was the first night's fare, we were ready to be out of the cars!

 

Day 2 - Straight to the Beach

Jackson and Emily both approached the mysterious gulf waters with cautious enthusiasm having never seen these "waves" that seemed to be more of a nuisance than a source of excitement.  A face full of sea water dampened Emily's perception of the ocean and Jackson was a bit hesitant after the possibility of jellyfish was explained.  Nonetheless, they both seemed to enjoy spotting fish in the crystal clear waters (safely perched upon Mommy or Daddy).

In addition to the beach, we had lots of fun at the beach-side amusement park riding go-carts.  Some of the adults in the group took part in bungee jumping and that gigantic human swing thingie.

Jackson and Emily couldn't get enough of the go-carts and other fun rides they had.

Day 3 - Pool & Ocean

The next morning saw some nice sleeping in and a lazy meander over to the pool. 

After swimming and some lunch back at the room, it was time for more excitement -- this time in the form of wave runners.  Emily was extremely brave for a 2 year old out on the speedy marine vessel.  She didn't like getting sprayed with the sea water, but as soon as she got to drive there was a whole new rush of baby adrenaline.  Jackson and Emily were laughing hysterically as Emily would pull on the accelerator (governed by Dad's finger).

After the days activity, it was time for some shopping.  Destin has some great outlets with Nike, Coach, Ralph Lauren, and other great stores.

Day 4 - Destin to Orlando

Our last day in Destin started with breakfast a la Bateman with some of my soon to be famous french toast.  Some improvised condiments with the help of the nearby waffle house helped augment our limited kitchen supplies.  With full bellies we were ready for the road to Orlando, but not without a final stop at the outlets in Miramar Beach.  Not many photo-worthy events happened on day 4, but the kids did look pretty dang cute in this picutre, so I'll just drop it in here.

 

Day 5 - The Magic Kingdom

The kids could not have been more excited as we drove through the gigantic archway entering into Walt Disney World.  Mickey and Minnie statues were there to great us as we drove into this parallel city with it's own freeway system.  Day 1 was to be spent exclusively at the most well-known sector of the park: Disney's Magic Kingdom.

We started off the day with a classic: It's a Small World After All

Flying in Dumbo was a hit

Emily and Jackson loved meeting all of the characters they read and watch

Now Jackson and Emily have always been especially fond of the characters from Toy Story, so when we saw them leading a parade through the streets of Frontierland, we knew they were going to be excited.  What we did not know is that they would stop and pull Jackson and Emily out of their stroller for some interactive fun. 

Check out this video to see how the fun unfolded:

 Day 6 - Royal Lunch & Hollywood Disney

A slightly earlier start allowed us to get in rides on Aladdin's magic carpet and Pirates of the Caribbean before our lunch date with the princesses in the Disney castle.  Emily was giddy with excitement as she kept commenting that she wanted to "Eat lettuce with the princesses."

 

 

Day 7 - Leaving Florida

Tennis lessons for Jackson and Emily went surprisingly well given the lack of skill possessed by the instructor (dad).

Of course, no road trip segment would be complete without a schedule-shifting stop at... you guessed it... more outlet stores.  I think Florida has to have a record for outlet store malls with Orlando leading the pack.

Day 8 - The Big Easy

New Orleans was the perfect stop on the drive home, and we got to catch up with Jules, a good college & Houston friend.  After meeting 3 month old Catherine Lawson, we all headed to the insectarium inside the old customs house on Canal street.

Construction is Going... But not fast enough

The past few weeks have been rough.  A lot of driving, being away from the kids, sleeping wherever we can impost upon the kindness of others.  You might think I have taken up a new job as a cross-country truck driver or something like that, but it is much worse -- The Texas Batemans are homeless.

Since closing on our house May 30th, we have been house-hopping in an effort to survive until our house is completed... on July 18th.  So that is 7 weeks that we needed to figure out a place to live.  No problem, we originally thought.  Get a cheap apartment for 2 months, then we'll have plenty of time to move in/out.  Little did we know 3 months is the shortest lease any apartment seemed willing to do.  Not only was rent anywhere near what we expected, they also tack on an extra $150 or so per month since it is short term.  This was starting to get unpleasant.  What happened to being able to rent an entire house for $850 like I did in college?  Adios 214 Ira, those rent prices are long gone.

So what to do now?  Extended stay hotels?  Not too bad.  I've stayed in similar type joints when traveling for work and they are livable... without children!  As we continued to complain about our predicament, the weeks began to fill themselves in.  We remembered that one of the weeks we'll be on vacation in Destin & DisneyWorld!  Then people started generously noting that they would be out of town certain weeks and we could housesit for them.  Before we knew it, we had filled in all of our "gaps" with specific help from Mamo and Pampo in San Antonio.  They would let the kids stay with them and let us call San Antonio home base between houses.

And now here we are -- traveling to Katy/Houston each week to work and then back to San Antonio to be with the kids and the rest of Angel's family.  It ain't Ozzie and Harriet, but it will sure make it that much sweeter when we finally get to move into our new place.  In addition to a tremendous THANK YOU to the Beals, we would also like to thank the Gryparis, Spier, and Ertan families for helping us to keep a roof over our heads.  We'll have to say that it hasn't exactly been roughing it in 3+ bedroom houses :)

To the right you would be able see the first part of a time-lapse series I am putting together to show our house being built.  There is quite a bit more progress on the house today, but apparently the addition of "Saturday In The Park" by Chicago as an audio backdrop was enough to make this video a copyright violation according to Microsoft - go figure.

The good news...

Being away from the kids has made us realize the importance of weekends as a time to do fun stuff and get out and see what is out there.  To that end, we have been making the most of our weekends recently.  Last weekend it was Brazos Bend State Park for a day of learning and gator watching.  We saw 2 in just a brief 20-30 minute walk!  One was a mama guarding a nest (didn't get too close to her :)) and the other was staring at us from the water below the boardwalk.  It couldn't have been more than 5 feet away and 1 foot below us.  I thought is was a bit odd, but everyone seemed to think it wasn't too dangerous and we still have all of our kids so I guess it wasn't that bad.  We've also stepped up the moviegoing with Kung Fu Panda and Wall-E under our belts this June.

This weekend it was a hill country excursion to learn about the many wonders of the Texas hill country.  We started at Aquarena Springs - the source of 100% of San Antonio's drinking water. 

 

While the glass-bottom boat tours were awesome we were sad that Ralph the swimming pig has retired.  Jackson is becoming quite the photographer - here are 2 pictures he took on the trip:

Next it was on to Wonderworld which is a tourist trap plopped down on top of a pretty awesome cave.  This dry-formed cave was less stuffy than most because you can touch anything and everything in the cave including some 35 million year old sea clam fossils. 

The tour also included a ride to the top of a tower, a trip through the anti-gravity room, and the animal train to feed the deer our of our hands (the clear favorite among the kids). 

 

 

Emily said the goat above looked like me which is why he made the album.  If you want a good laugh, just check out these adorable videos of the kids feeding the deer!

 

Although the fun is plentiful, tomorrow it will be back to Houston for a short week.  Very excited though, because it is only 4 more days of work and then we are Florida bound!  WooHoo!