Our New Family Pet

We lost our wonderful pet, Popcorn the Fish, to Hurricane Gustav. He was a wonderful fish! He would chase his reflection around his bowl 24 hours a day and would try to eat his air bubbles as though they were food. Crazy Popcorn, you will be missed!



So, we needed to find a replacement pet. We thought it would be fun to try something new and exciting. A tad more difficult than a fish. We figured that living in Louisiana gives us a great opportunity to try something we would never have a chance to have as a pet anywhere else in the world.

A pet alligator! Here is our new friend about to take a bath with William. Babies have no teeth so he will try to bite you (it is way too ingrained in their brains or something) but it won't hurt. He'll even try to "death roll" your finger. What a great pet!

We let him swim around in the sink, too. That is William's hand in the picture trying to pick up the gator. We haven't come up with a good name yet, but Chomper, Bitey, and Justin are all in the running.

Another update

Today was the first day that people could return to the Parish. Up until now, Terrebonne Parish has been on lockdown. The National Guard was blocking all roads into the Parish and there was a curfew. But today people were allowed back in, but an 8pm purfew is still in effect. We decided to stay put until Monday. My neighbor Alonna and her family did return today and I had her check on our house (she has a key so she even checked inside.)

The Run-Down:

-backyard fence is down

-shingles ripped off; roof damage

-water damage to the ceiling in kitchen (from roof damage)

She went on to say that it is just a mess there. No power (could be up to three weeks to get it back on) and debris is everywhere. Said it took two hours to clean up their front yard, and it's not that big!

So it looks like we will have a big mess when we get back. Fortunately, Tom can get a heavy duty generator through Lincoln so we will have some power when we get back and we won't have to live completely like the Amish! Ugh...the hot Louisiana summer is still going strong!

Any further questions? Check it out on www.houmatoday.com! Have a good one!

The O'Briens are Refugees

This is just a quick post to let anyone who was curious know that we are safe. We evacuated Houma well ahead of the storm on Saturday Morning. We can't get ahold of any friends or neighbors who stayed back yet, but it doesn't seem the destruction was nearly as bad as predicted. We are just looking forward to the all clear signal so we can go home and start cleaning up debris! Anyway, the most important thing is that we are safe and well cared for right now. More posts later!

All Eyes on Gustav!!

Hello all! Well, if you haven't been hiding under a rock for the past few days, you probably know that there is a hurricane threatening to slam into the gulf coast. Especially interesting is that tomorrow is the 3rd anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, so that just adds more emotion to it. Here is the current picture of the projected path of Hurricane Gustav and where it is expected to make landfall (current as of 2:20 pm central time on August 28th, 2008!).

See that little end dot right on the Louisiana coast? Yeah, that dot pretty much signifies our house! How nice to make it onto the map, huh?

Evacuation plans are being made, and since we are pretty darn close to the gulf, we'll be among some of the first waves of evacuations. Those right on the gulf would be first, of course, but we'd be soon thereafter. We are north of the Intracoastal Waterway, so that's good news as far a flooding probabilities go!

As for preparations, we are pretty set. We aren't planning on staying, but we still have to prepare the house. It's interesting to be taking part in this because it's not like a tornado where you have but a few minutes to grab some things and get to shelter. We know where the storm is, we know how fast it is coming, and we know when it will hit. So there is that degree of uneasiness, but not all out panic because it's not going to come out of nowhere!

So, on a funny note, yesterday I gave Tom some instructions to pick up a few extra gas cans at Lowes so that we could bring extra gas with us during the evacuation. I went out with some friends to see a movie, and when I got home later that night, I saw no gas cans, but I did see a fog machine. So, I asked what exactly we needed a fog machine for!?! (I'm pretty sure I've never seen "fog machine" on a list of emergency essentials!) He said it looked like fun. Yes, perhaps if we weren't preparing for a potential disaster I could see the fun in a fog machine. Actually, thinking about it, I still don't see much fun in a fog machine... I picture Tom standing in line at Lowes with everyone around him loaded up with batteries, plywood, bottled water...and he's in line purchasing a fog machine which will be pretty useless once the power goes out, mind you! I just don't understand my husband and his impulse buys sometime!

All that aside, never fear, we are prepared and I will update everyone on the situation when I get a chance!

Tropical Storm Edouard

We moved to the gulf coast about nine months after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit this area. As expected, there was always that fear in the back of our minds that something that devestating could happen again. But the longer we lived here and learned more, the less nervous I became. According to our FEMA printouts, this house has never flooded, and until recently was listed as a floodplain level C, which meant that it was least likely to flood. (Since we purchased our house, everything has been raised to a level A, making flood insurance extremely expensive, but, fortunately, we got grandfathered in.)


All this aside, we have always been very good about keeping emergency essentials up to date and having our 72-hour kits at the ready. We haven't ever desperately needed them, except for a few times when the power went out for a few hours. The boys were disappointed without the Wii, but we got some good s'mores out of it, so not a total loss! In the two and a half years we have been here, not one tropical storm has come our way.


Well, Tropical Storm Edouard is brewing off the coast of Louisiana as we speak! The natives tell me that tropical storms, though lacking the wind speed of a hurricane, actually drop much more precipitation. Also, it's not really headed directly at us. (The projected path actually shows it headed right for Los Shephitos of Houston, but we are currently in a tropical storm warning as well.) So, as Edouard brews over the warm waters of the Gulf, keep an eye on the weather map and think of us down here in the swamps of Louisiana!

School Shopping!

So, William officially starts Kindergarten in a few days! Hooray! He's so excited and can't wait to be in school all day Monday through Friday. (I think Natalie feels the same way about him!)

This being the weekend before school starts, the fine state of Louisiana's powers that be have proclaimed it "tax free weekend" (insert applause). Of course, that's only the 4.5% state tax that we're not paying. We still have to fork over the 4.5% parish tax, but I'm not sure everyone gets that besides me. Either way, eveyone-myself included-waits until this weekend to purchase school supplies. Keep in mind that it is also mandated in this very fine state that all public school children will be outfitted in school uniforms. Fortunately I had already purchased William's school uniforms when we were visiting Kirk and Jackie in Houston in the beginning of the month, so we're not looking at any major purchases. Just a short list of kindergarten supplies, right?

Yeah, not quite as easy as it sounds. And it wasn't the 50 trillion people all trying to get into the same two school supply aisles as me that was annoying. It was the incredibly specific school list from William's school that really got to me! Good luck finding a two-pocket plastic folder with no prongs or pictures on the outside of it. I had no problem finding two-pocket plastic folders, but they all had prongs in them. Then I found some of the prongless variety, but they were not plastic, although I'm not entirely sure what material they were. Tom got so frustrated looking through stacks of folders he finally said he'd just remove the d@*n prongs himself! But then, we finally found one, that's right just one, in a stack of prong-filled plastic folders there was one lonely two pocket plastic folder sans prongs. Never mind the fact that it is the color orange that will eventually burn your retinas if you stare at it too long. It is plastic. It has two pockets. It has no prongs. It is perfect.

(Let's not get into the non-plastic HEAVY DUTY zipper flat rectangular pencil bags we had to find next.)

Mamma Mia!

While visiting my brother and sister-in-law in Houston a few weeks ago, it was brought to my attention that I haven't blogged in a while. "Since April" is what I was told (and they were right!) I actually have alot to put out there, but just haven't had the time. We did just get back from our annual trip to Ohio, but more about that later. I haven't even downloaded the pictures off the camera yet, so that will be for another day.

But I did want to jot a quick post about the movie Mamma Mia! I just got back from watching it with a group of friends and it was so much fun! Ok, it wasn't the best acting in the world and I read in many reviews of the movie that the choreography was terrible, but honestly, I didn't even notice. It was just so much fun singing and dancing throughout the whole movie (yeah, the movie was at 10:30 pm and we were pretty much the only people there...) Oh, and on the way home we were laughing way too much and decided to do chinese firedrills. (I've suddenly become a 14 year-old again...) So, if you're looking for a good time and you love ABBA, then you must see this movie, preferably with a group of wild and crazy girls!