Hurricane Harvey

It’s been three weeks now since hurricane Harvey hit Houston (I never realized how alliterative that is). We were very lucky to get through just fine; our street didn’t flood, our house only had one small leak, we even had power. We feel very blessed. We know there are so many who have had it so much worse, and seeing it so close to home, our hearts really go out to them.

It was a strange thing to live through, to be here, watching so much horrible flooding on the news, listening to the nonstop rain outside and wondering if you were going to be next. For about five days we stayed inside, trying to entertain the kids and not go crazy, checking the water level of the creek by our house (it never overflowed, thank goodness). Our street was dry but our neighborhood was flooded in so we couldn’t drive anywhere.

Here’s some pictures of the hurricane, kind of in random order. (Sorry.)

Here’s the creek by our house, all filled up. This was about as high as it got. Usually there’s only a trickle of water at the bottom (probably about 10 feet down).

A couple more shots of the creek from the bridge that crosses it:

This is a picture that Annelise drew. It was only day 1:

This is the swollen creek in the day time. It overflowed onto the sidewalk:

Any time there was a break in the rain we took advantage of it and went on short walks. This is Josh, Grace, and Annelise in front of the swollen creek.

A pretty good representation of how Josh and I felt:

This is my mom’s backyard when the flooding was at its worst, taken from the fort. There’s a creek behind their house. The creek filled half their yard. Crazy right?!

Flooded street outside our neighborhood:

At one point, when the water in the creek was rising super quickly, Josh and I did get nervous enough to go through our house and move things off the ground, just in case we did flood.

And, finally, a pretty great picture Carson drew. He and Josh are both really into weather reports and tracking the storm. Carson drew this picture of himself as a weather man. “So the floods are rising to the 80s.” And an alligator.

Again, we feel very very blessed to have gotten through so safely.

 

Family!

We love our Ellsworth family! This was taken at the tail end of a family reunion to Mo Ranch, one of our family’s favorite vacation spots. Shout out to Gabi, our newest sister! We’re so happy that she and Cole are married and that Gabi’s part of our family now. Also shout out to Griff, who is sadly not pictured. Medical school. We sure missed him!