Newest BOP member...

As the newest member to the Bureau of Prison family what more could you expect than for Emily to be equipped with her very own "Home Monitor". You know that kind they put on your ankle so they can track persons of interest, so they can monitor that they are staying home. Yes! She's on house arrest.

Are those not the cutest toes, and she has fingers to match. But she was hungry and decided we were only allowed two photos. See how her little toe bends over, she has her Daddy's toes.

Tracking "IKE"...

These are other weather radars where you can watch the hurricane pass over our house.

http://www.ksla.com/global/Category.asp?c=125589

This one is from Shreveport, LA. KSLA Channel 12

http://www.intellicast.com/Storm/Severe/OneKM.aspx?location=USTX1383&animate=true

From Intellicast you can track the path of the storms.

Its going to be an interesting day. I am a weather freak. I guess it come from my early memories of my mother making us "pallets" under the bed to sleep at night when the weather was bad and her staying up all hours of the night watching out for the severe weather.

I have seen that we are in the 6" rainfall possible area on the maps and wind to 40 - 60 mph. I don't think we should actually have any damage at home, especially since we cut down all the huge pine trees that used to be around the house. The only problem would be from power outages, but I think as long as its back within 24 hrs the freezer stuff will still be OK.

If anybody from home reads this please let us know anything major going on, Thanks.
We will keep you all updated from this end as to what Charles and Amanda get.

She's here...

09/11/2008...Amanda called at 3:30 am to tell us her water had broken, we were on the road by 3:50 am. For once I was ready to go. We got to the hospital at about 9:00 am.


Amanda taking a look at the "Room Service" Menu. 11:00 am...Her contractions aren't too bad yet.

4:00 pm....OK, we had some major contractions, they were giving her "Pit" to move the labor along, but it caused some distress to the baby so they had to back it off. They then gave her an epidural to relieve some of the contraction pain. She's feeling much better now.

Family and friends came to visit...

10:00 pm...They tried to start increasing the "Pit" again, but it wasn't going to work...every time they tried to increase her contractions to see if she would dilate it would cause the babies heart rate to decrease, so they decided to go with a Cesarean section.

Waiting for them to get Amanda ready... Charles in what they called a "bunny suit".

Here we go...

She was born at 10:35 p.m.

For very first pictures of Dad and baby check out Charles and Amanda's blog.

09/12/2008...I spoke with them this morning and everyone had some rest last night. No name yet...more to come later.

Here we go again...

A little humor in dealing with stressful times is always helpful...

As a coworkers friend said on her blog "I hope Ike doesn't do to us what he did to Tina."
(thank you Melanie for the email)

The Hobbit House...

I came across this web blog and it looks like a "Hobbit House" to me. Read about it at this link.

http://www.simondale.net/house/index.htm

Learn about building your own "Natural Home" here.

http://naturalhomes.org/house.htm

Take a look at the homes built in the USA.

http://naturalhomes.org/homesmap.htm

Baby Update...

Amanda went to the Dr. yesterday and we're still waiting. She's on weekly visits now and her next appointment is next Thursday. The Dr. is very proud of her keeping her weight down. They toured the hospital last week and got a look at the rooms. There rooms have mini frig's and microwaves. Her original due date is September 17th, so we still have a couple of weeks. We'll keep you posted.
UPDATE: Amanda has posted pics.

Labor Day 2008...

Of course we took Dusty and Curlie with us when we went camping at Wetumka Lake, in Oklahoma.

they seemed to grasp the "its a time to relax" part of the trip.

I guess Dusty thought Curlie might be cold.

Ok, enough with the pictures.

We went to Wetumka Lake for the weekend and visited family. They have a new place, 5 acres with a trailer just 3 miles from the lake.

We visited their horses, the dark one in front is actually a mule. Although it looks like a horse to me.

Pee Wee got a new pontoon boat pulled by a Dodge pickup.

We're going for a ride. OK back it up.

The "Captain" and his first mate Brennen. This is Sue's great grandson who they have now adopted. He's lived with them off and on almost all his life and started first grade this year.
Waiting to fish.

This boat came by, they had to show off the little flathead catfish they caught. Of course this pretty much decided for the guys that they needed to put some jug lines out for the night. That's how they said they caught this 45 lb. cat.


Pee Wee grilled out for supper.

Are the flames supposed to be coming out the bottom and sides of the grill?



squash, corn, fried okra, burgers...

carrots, fried onion and potatoes, fresh tomatoes, we ate very well.

Eugene Pollock and Delmer Lewis, Kenneth's cousins.

PeeWee, Eugene, Brennen and Kenneth. That's our trailer in the back.

Sue and their 5th wheel trailer.

No luck with the jug lines. Maybe next time.

Delmer and Sue Lewis

a lesson learned...never leave anything on the trailer floor...even for just a minute.

Hurricane "Gustav"...

We ended up getting about 3" of rain in the last 2 days. We didn't have any damage. Only steady rain and a little wind.

Mushrooms...

We woke up last Wednesday to the beginning of a mushroom village. This was due to all the rain we've had in the days before.

Curlie looks on...

Thursday morning we woke up to them open and growing,

Kenneth went out and cut them down since we don't have any idea what type they are. We didn't want to atke the chance that if the dogs eat them they might make them sick.