The evacuation

Chris and I woke up bright and early this morning to get a start on getting things ready to go. Things sure do change fast when a hurricane is on its way we are learning. When we went to bed everyone was talking about where Ike might be heading but still talked with a lot of uncertainty then, this morning schools were closed in our county until Monday and there was a voluntary evacuation. A little while later there was a mandatory evacuation for some of the towns right on the coast. Rather than wait for the crowd Chris and I decided that I should leave as soon as we could get everything together. The thought of being stuck in traffic with 3 little ones and 2 dogs was just not appealing. I left around 12:30pm. On my way to my brother and sister-in-law's home (about 1 hour 15 min. away) I got a call from Chris that they had issued a mandatory evacuation for our town. Good thing we left when we did!
So far, they are thinking Ike will be up to a Category 4 storm when it makes land and unfortunately that is still predicted to be uncomfortably close to our neck of woods. I guess even it if doesn't hit us directly but falls in the area a little further down the coast things could still be pretty bad for us since we'd be on the "dirty" side of the storm - not sure I understand exactly what this means but I'm pretty sure I'd rather not find out! Things change a little every time I watch the news so we'll see what they have to say in the morning. For now we are all safe and sound (and dry!). We are thankful to have a comfortable place to stay and hope this will all be over soon. Please pray for Chris who is a "necessary" staff and also part of the hurricane crew. I'm sure the company will take all the precautions to ensure everyone is safe but I'd still rather him be here with us. We'll give you another update tomorrow :)
Oh and "Happy Birthday Mom!" Wish we were there. Really!