Greeting from Sunny Arroyo City Texas!

I have not blogged lately, because I have been so busy with work. I do contract work for my father's business and August is their busiest month. When they are busy, I am busy. So I loaded up the kids (plus one- our friend Sidney) and drove down to my parent's house last Sunday. I am extremely lucky to have a job that doesn't require me to be anywhere in aprticualr, as long as there is an internet connection. So I do my "real" job with Citi from 7-3, and then switch over to work for my dad. My mom has been the full time babysitter and keeps the kids out of my hair so I can concentrate. It's been extremely nice. There have been a few problems, though.

The kids can usually spend 18 hours out of this house doing something fun. Playing basketball, hunting lizards with bb guns, swimming in the river, playing in the hot tub, or plain exploring. This trip has been dampened by the a)insane amout of mosquitoes that are plague-like thanks to the hurricane that came through 2 weeks ago (all the rain is still standing in the fields- no good run off) and b) the condition of the river water thanks to the hurricane (it's real murky and muddy when usually it is a lot more clear and a good sandy bottom) and c) the hot tub is broken thanks to the hurricane, and finally d) it's about 100 every day, and the hurricane can't be blamed for that. So, the kids have spent a ton of time inside watching tv.

Hurricane Dolly was worse than a lot of people expected, but it could have been worse. My parents screened in porch lost most of the screens and they lost some shingles on their roof. In other parts of town people lost their entire roofs, or docks, or patios. I even saw a few trailer homes on their sides. There is a ton of foliage debris that people have cut off their properties and dragged to the side of the road in front of their homes so that the piles can be picked up by the county. The problem is that there is no way of knowing when those piles will be picked up. It's the ugliest part of the aftermath, in general.

Craig is flying down on Saturday night and we are driving back on Sunday with a Penske truck full of the stuff that goes in our garage. Woo hoo! This means we can mow our lawn!