This is Halloween...

It's the end of October already. That was quick. At least there's time for Trick or Treating! The boys got dressed up (of course), got candy (of course), and ate too much of it (of course). I did the same, minus the getting dressed up part. The weather has been surprisingly fantastic for Halloween. Normally we're swimming in the air and the boys are sweating in their costumes, but this year October has been incredibly cool. We had a Minecraft Steve, a Halo Master Chief, and a Green Power Ranger this year. The costumes seem to be a lot more extensive now than they were when I was a kid. And they had more than just Halloween night to use them, as they went to the Boo Bash the city puts on, checked out the aquarium's Halloween event, and wore them to class today for the book parade. Now it's time for a few weeks of sugar overload!

You go in the cage? Cage goes in the water? Shark is in the water. Our shark. Farewell and adieu... Adam ain't afraid of no shark!

The Boy is Five

Son #3 turned the big 5 years old this month. Where does the time go? Wherever that is, it's going too fast. He's sprouting up before our eyes, outgrowing his clothes and holding his own with his big brothers. This kid is always happy, always easy going. He's a quick learner, easily focused, always laid back, generally thoughtful, but rowdy and tough when he has to be. He's in his final year of freedom, just hanging out with mom most days, as this time next year he'll be in kindergarten. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Please. Here he is... just Nolan...

Making his own birthday cake... only to find out the oven was broken... at least HEB sells birthday cakes!

He may be a big kid now, but he still can sleep like a baby...

Count 'em, five...

Uh, say cheese?

They built it, so I guess we'll be going...

A while back the city voted to approve a bond issue to fund two new sports complexes, including new baseball and softball fields, new football practice fields, a covered basketball court, running track, playgrounds, and splash parks. The old baseball fields were just that, getting old, but they still got the job done. These new fields are something else. The city had a grand opening (before closing again to actually finish the job) and we got a chance to check them out. It was impressive. Going to be a good fall baseball season (though winter ball would be a more appropriate name at this point). And lucky me, the league needed coaches, so Adam and I will be taking the field together for the first time in a few weeks!

Free apple pies for everyone!

And Dr. Pepper! 

You mean to tell me the sugar is free and practically unlimited?!?!

New dugouts.

Turf everywhere. Everything is turf. Not sure how that will be, but it feels nice.

The hurricane was here...

It could have been much worse. For a lot of people, it was, unfortunately. Somehow we managed to escape the highest winds, as they came to shore about 30 miles north of us. Corpus Christi avoided almost all of it, save a few knocked out traffic lights and road signs. Rockport and Port Aransas suffered the worst of it, with the winds hitting more than 130 miles per hour and tearing everything apart. The devastation was unbelievable. Portland looks like a different town too, with so many trees gone, shingles scattered everywhere, and fences down in almost every yard around town. The piles of tree branches line the streets and make it feel like you're driving through tunnels. The power of the wind can be unbelievable. I was honestly hoping to stay and weather the storm, but on Thursday the city issued a mandatory evacuation and we had to pack it up and get out. We boarded up the house, packed what we could into the van, and drove to Austin. It was a surreal weekend, not knowing whether our house was still going to be here whenever we were allowed to come back. Had the storm come in a little farther south, that might have been the case. On Sunday, a friend of ours went back and sent us pictures, then we found out the power came back on for our house that evening. As I write this a full week later, there are still houses in Portland without power, and in the other towns, it may be several more weeks. I have to give credit to the power companies, because there were dozens of trucks all over town putting up power lines and trying to get people back up all last week. People from all over the country have come to help out the communities around here and in Houston. We've been through tropical storms before, but one thing is for sure, we won't forget Hurricane Harvey.

Thankfully, whoever owned this house before us knew there was a need for plywood. I didn't know why there was so much in the garage when we moved in, but it definitely came in handy, and it was already pre-cut to fit all the windows and doors.

The boys helped put it up, but the evening was so nice it didn't really seem like there was any need for it.

So much for my double gate. I just put this all up about a year or so ago.

I think if we hadn't taken the mat off the trampoline it would have ended up on our roof or in someone else's yard. I saw one tangled up in someone's tree.

It almost didn't make sense how the wind decided to hit. Some things were destroyed that you wouldn't expect, while some fences that were already falling down somehow survived.

But the storm went away finally, as we knew it would. There was another beautiful sunset over South Texas by Monday.

We're also very thankful we're a little higher above sea level and the city is set up in a way that flooding isn't normally an issue. The people in Houston haven't been as lucky with this storm.

We survived. The house survived. There's nothing more we could ask for than that. If you live down here, you know it's only a matter of time before the next one comes, but since they said this was the worst storm in the last 50 years down here, we're hopeful we won't see another one like it for a while.

School Again..?? Kind of.

It's that time of year again. Or it was, for a minute. The boys started school a couple of weeks ago, only to have it cut short after only a couple of days. They were supposed to be in school last week too, but we had some storm come in that destroyed the Texas coast and forced us to evacuate. Hurricane Harvey literally tore the roofs off of houses and schools in Rockport and Aransas Pass, but thankfully Portland didn't get it as bad as it could have. School was cancelled last week, but the boys will be back at it on Tuesday. So here they are... as second and fifth graders.

We also hit up the new addition to the Texas State Aquarium and got to "literally" hang out with this friendly sloth.

And these two strange, unclassified creatures...

Carlsbad Caverns Coming Home...

We may have gone a little overboard on National Parks this summer... if there could be such a thing. But the good thing for Becky and the boys is I bought a book of all the parks across the United States and discovered there are like 40 more I've never been to, so we'll have something to do next summer too! On the way back from Montana, we spent a day with Uncle Andy and Aunt Theresa and then started the long journey back home. We took half a day to visit Carlsbad Caverns on the southern border of New Mexico. I have to say, taking the natural entrance was pretty impressive. You really feel like you're descending into a massive open mouth and it just keeps getting deeper and deeper. All three of the boys did pretty well, given we hiked 2.5 miles and went down more than 700 feet. We didn't get to see any bats or mythical creatures in the underground caverns, but we saw some pretty cool stalactites and stalagmites and other incredible formations. Plus, the gift shop was pretty nice.

Before taking the drive to New Mexico, we went to the Natural History Museum in Salt Lake with Uncle Andy and Grandpa Bill. Nothing like checking out some dinosaurs and other old stuff...