What We've Been Up To for the Past 1.5 Months...

If you haven't heard, click here.  

Yep, that's us.  I guess it's our 15 minutes of fame.  

Without going into too much detail, luckily, we were awake when it happened.  We heard the boom, but didn't realize what had happened until 5-10 minutes later.  The door bell rang and when we went to answer it, there was no one there.  We turned around to go back to the family room and saw the smoke in the kitchen, so I ran into the garage with Ryan while Steven got the dogs out.  We went to our next door neighbor's house and waited there for the fire trucks to come.  It took what seems like forever for them to extinguish the fire.  The lightning hit the roof on the right hand side of the house and it caught on fire.  The roof and attic areas burned down on 75% of the house and the rest of the house suffered smoke damage and water damage from them trying to take out the fire.  Everything in Steven's parents room, study, gameroom and living room was totally damaged along with everything that we had stored in the attic like Ryan's baby toys/clothes, luggage, etc.  

We were lucky enough to find a friend of a friend who had an empty apartment that we stayed in for two weeks until we found a rental home.  The house is just up the street from where we were, so we can keep an eye on the house and we're closer to the park and pool.  We're settling in and have gotten a good routine going.  

Ryan is doing great.  He was being shuffled between different houses in my mom's group the first week, which was great because we didn't really have anywhere for him to go while we took care of the house.  The following week, he got the sickest he's ever been.  He had an ear infection, croup and bronchitis.  I felt so bad for the poor little guy.  Every time he coughed, he cried out in pain, but luckily the really bad coughing only lasted a day or so.  It took him about two weeks to fully recover, but he's been doing great ever since.  The roof and attic fell on all of his toys and books, but we've bought more to replace some of toys/books that were lost.  It's not quite what he had before, but it's enough to keep him busy for now.  

The dogs were also being shuffled around from here to Houston to College Station.  We were so excited to get them back when we moved into the rental home, but, unfortunately, Carrie stepped on something in the back yard and nearly sliced off a portion of the pad on her foot.  We kept it bandaged for a couple of weeks and it actually re-adhered on.  The dogs are now doing great and are on a doggie diet since Carrie gained 3 pounds in the two weeks that she was going to the vet!  

So, it's been a crazy 1.5 months, but things are finally settling down.  I'd like to thank everyone for their words and acts of support.  I really don't know how we could have made it through without it.  Even though we were going through this crazy experience, we felt so lucky to have such a great support network.  I'd really like to say thank you to the moms in my mom's group for taking care of Ryan.  In a time of change for Ryan, I was so happy to be able to take him to familiar places with people who I knew loved him even though he can be a bad influence sometimes!  I'd also like to say thank you to Emili, Lawrence, Melissa and Alice for taking care of the girls.  It was such a relief to not worry about being able to take the dogs with us to a hotel or apartment.  Thank you also to Jessica who did what she does best and organized the Nesties.  It's amazing how generous people can be who barely even know you.  I'm still taken aback by the support we received from this online community.  Thank you also to K Ry who found us a temporary home along with support from the EY office.  Even though it's been a year since I've been officially part of the EY office, it's nice to know that we're still in the EY family.  Thank you also to our family and friends who also supported us.  It's sad how bad things bring us together, but it also makes you realize how much you really do have and I wouldn't trade our friends for a house any day.  This sounds like an Oscar acceptance speech so I'll stop here.  :)  I can practically hear the music calling me off stage!