Hurricane Havoc ( again)!

Louisianians will find ANY reason to party....we don't mind working but as soon as we can find a good excuse to get off work early, shut down businesses and schools, we're stocking up on drinks and chips and dip and candy and hunkering down for a party! Louisiana is already one of the most "partying" states as we shut down businesses early for Mardi Gras celebrations and City events and we even voted some of our parishes to have a four day school week...see EVEN the teachers want to get out early for the weekend! Anyway, Once again, we're making the best of a bad situation with Hurricane Ike estimated to make Landfall a little to our west, sometime this evening and into tonight. The stores were packed yesterday and buggies were piled high with, not only flashlights, TP, water and canned goods, but most people had a good supply of beer, chips, cookies, candy, cokes, and board games. People were buzzing with nervousness and excitement and the clerks were working faster than ever. Kroger was out of bread, of all things...and you had to wait in line for a while to fill up the gas tank or get ice.

As always, when things are looking bad, a Louisiana girl turns to her kitchen. I started cooking early yesterday and went through almost all of my pots and pans. I cooked from mid morning to about 4 3opm then headed out to moms where she had been cooking gumbo and rice and bread and cake...we combined our feasts and settled in for a night of chatting , laughing, eating, monopoly, tv, and relaxing. We had every kind of candy stacked up on the table ( thanks to chris: ) and stayed up well past midnight. We were also waiting on miss Kalleigh to make her grand entrance into the world and we kept in touch with Jason and Kim by blog and got hour by hour updates. Finally around 2:30am we got a picture of our beautiful new little addition to the big family...It was definitely worth waiting all night for. We all sang Happy birthday to her on a telephone recording and sent flowers and love to Missouri.

Right now, I'm pretty relaxed. We were pretty well prepared and have everything clean and organised and boarded up around here. I'll have updates as often as possible until the power goes out...after that, it's all notepad blogging : ) Check back for more later!

Heading straight toward South Louisiana and may turn even more North East to hit us right on. Either way, it'll be a mess...But we're praying for the best outcome!

You can never have enough cheap TP in times like these. You never know how long the stores will be shut down or if the roads will be blocked so you HAVE to stock up on the "essentials" : )Jason and FINALLY baby Kalleigh! Born at 2am July 12th..weighing 8 lbs 1oz and beautiful as they come! This is Gabe and Kimberlys fourth kiddo!!! They are a RICH RICH family!!!What a blessing those kids are! A few of us are looking forward to making a trip to Missouri sometime after the chaos with Hurricane Ike ends...we cant wait to met Kalleigh!