More Ike clean up.

Saturday Chris and I drooped the girls off at a friends house at the crack of dawn. Then we headed out with another crew from church to Galveston.( In the gym were we get our shirts. The light was running off a generator.)

They still didn't have power at the Church down there so some of the pictures I took in the gym are creepy. After our first location they had the lights on and were listening to General Conference. It was a welcomed change.( a fun self portrait that of Meg and I)

I was so glad my friend Megan was on my team. She and I are... well... childish together. More like teenagers. I don't know why we are that way but it sure is fun. One game we like to play is "What Face am I Making?". When you have your have mask on you make a face and the other person has to guess. Megan always sticker her tung out, so I guessed right.

The first house we went nobody was home. So we called them and it took about an hour and twenty minutes to get there from the medical center. While waiting we helped a neighbor who was in need of tree clean up. The family arrived soon after and we got to work taking out furniture, wood floors, molding, wood paneling, drywall and appliances. It was amazing that we were able to knock it out in about two hours. But get this. Megan and I were the ones doing all the dirty work. We carried out a sleeper sofa the was super heavy, got slimed by a refrigerator, we knocked out the walls and still looked good...didn't smell great but we rocked the place.

Our second place I will never forget. Not in a million years. Just thinking of it is giving me the creeps. I really wish I had taken pictures inside this house because I don't think anyone will believe me. There was this sweet old stubborn man that had been living in his home for over 60 years. His daughter and nephew called us over to help get somethings out of his house. So we pulled up to see that his house was leaning to the north at a 50 degree angle. I don't know how that house was standing. The daughter then told us that the man was an extreme pack rat. That was an understatement. This little home had old dresses in it. But he was not married. things piled to the roof, into the hall, on the walls just about everywhere you could imagine. The thing that gets me the most is that the man stayed through the storm and hadn't left. This house had three feet of water in it and was entirely covered in mold. (Megan showing off her gear..."Ready for surgery you say?")

You couldn't breath in there without a mask and even then I'm not sure that what we had was enough. We pulled out his bed that was saturated in flood water. (Getting the bed out)

We didn't get rid of much because he really thinks that he can still use this stuff. It killed me. I finally convinced him to through out his recliner. But trying to get him to understand that his house is not save to live in was a different story. We helped with a few more things at his home before we left. There were these huge double railroad ties that had floated into his yard during the storm surge, as well as cotton bails. While digging in the back I noticed all these salsa bowls. Then plastic restaurant cups. Thats when I asked the man if there is a Mexican restaurant near by. Wouldn't you believe there was one behind his house and all the dishes ended up in his yard.

When we were done doing our service for the day Chris and I went down the Sea Wall. We drove down Stuart Beach to see what happened to Brodies. Well... all but one section of the building is gone. We kept driving down the beach and ended at another restaurant. It had been gutted. But I got a good laugh out of two things there.

1. There is a mirror beer sign still hanging on what was once a deck.
2. A keg buried in the sand.

Continuing down the Sea Wall I was looking for this cute souvenir shop I used to take Alana to all the time. It was Blue and Yellow and the owner was always so nice to us. She let me use her deck all the time for photo shoots. (This is my favorite photo of Alana there)

It's no longer there. I have some fond memories of that place. I'm sad to see it gone.
There was much more than I care to talk about at this point. But I'm so grateful that I had that chance to help out again.