The Von Hohn's: September 2008

Since Kris was still out of town and our house still didn't have power I decided to head to Austin on Thursday and help Kirsten (Kris's sister, aka Kirby) get ready for Heath's (aka Dewey) 6th birthday party!! Dewey wanted a "Wall E" themed birthday party, which I have to admit I had never heard of "Wall E" before the weekend (for those of you who don't know what Wall E is, he's a robot in Pixar's newest animated film); I am now intimately familiar with him! Kirby discovered a "Wall E" cake online, it was so cute that we thought we would replicate it for the party. Granted, the online "Wall E" cake was made by a professional pastry chef and came with no instructions as to how to make the cake, but nevertheless, we decided, it could be done. Which we discovered it could in fact be done, it just would take about 10 hours - lol.

Here is a picture of the professional "Wall E" cake we were trying to replicate...

Here are all the supplies we decided we would need for the cake...

Here's Kirby and I at about midnight decorating the cake (oh yeah we're still going strong, we are determined to finish Wall E before the party).

The next morning we got up and frantically finished Wall E and prepped for the rest of the stuff for the party. We then headed to Hayden's football game for a little while before the party started.

Finished Wall E!!! It's not quite as good as the one on the Internet, but we're amateurs...

Hayden's football game - Go Dawgs!!!

After the football game we headed to HEB to pick up the party tray and balloons for the party (getting the balloons in the car was rather interesting, especially since the back of the Suburban was already full)

Kirby had rented a giant bouncy thing for the party (not really sure what you call those things), anyways, it was awesome! It had a part to bounce in and a basketball hoop and a slide, I'm seriously thinking about renting one for my 30th birthday! I wonder if they make those things for adults, it was greatness!?

Here's Dewey and Hayden playing it in before the party started!

The spread of food for the party - pretty impressive for a 6 year old b-day - good job Kirby!

Here's Dewey hitting the pinata (of course it's a Wall E pinata)

Apparently it also doubles as a hat...

Here are the kids scrambling to pick up the candy - wow, it was a little crazy! You would have thought they had never seen candy before - lol!

The kids getting ready to dig into the awesome Wall E cake!!

As if that wasn't enough excitement for one day, we then headed that evening to Dave and Busters to play some games! Here's Dewey in the car ride home holding his giant bear that he won! He's so cute!

It was a fun weekend, I was excited to get to be there for such a big occasion (both seeing Hayden play football and Dewey's b-day party). Plus it was just nice to hang out someplace with AC for a while! Thanks to the Howren family for having me up for the weekend!

Wow what a week! Currently I'm at a friends house and going on day 5 without power at my house - yuck. So much for the food in the fridge.

Where to begin...Thursday night we knew the storm was coming for us, so we started to pack up. We moved everything outside into the garage and then packed for the weekend. Houston residents not near coastal waters were told to hunker down and stay in their homes, however we had a wedding in Dallas so we were planning on leaving town anyways. That night we were reading the news online (Kris and I don't have TV) and an article from the Associated Press read "Stay and Face Certain Death"! Now really, that's kinda like yelling fire in a crowded place when there is no fire. They had been telling everyone all week to stay and now the press comes out with something idiotic like that to put fear in every ones minds. Anyways, since we were leaving we found it rather amusing and it became a theme of the trip. Danielle and Mike came over and ate dinner with us and spent the night - made sure to eat all the ice cream (we wouldn't want that to go to waste if we lost power).

The next morning we headed to Dallas, Mike drove his Tahoe; Kris, Danielle, Kara, Trevor and I all rode along. Vic (our dog) and Tucker (Kara's puppy) rode on the trailer up to Dallas. The drive was really not too bad, the freeway was full of evacuees, but moving much better than it did for Rita.

Here is Trevor boarding up his house (Kris and I decided to chance it and not board).

Here are the doggies on the trailer and ready to hit the road!

Preparing for certain death - Mike's really the only one that appears to be afraid.

Certain Death is nearing us!

What are we going to do?

We arrived in Dallas just in time for rehearsal - which meant by the time we all changed and then drove half way across Dallas to Fort Worth to the church we were about 45 minutes late...ooops...

Here's the gang practicing - yes that's right, 11 bridesmaids and 11 groomsmen!

We then headed to rehearsal dinner for some tasty Mexican food and good stories of Jennifer (everyone calls her Tank) and Adam. Mike, Danielle, Kris and I were staying at Kris's good friends the Harrells. They were so sweet to let us stay - and we even all had beds, which was such a blessing, the only downfall was there house was about an hour from rehearsal dinner, so we packed up and hit the rode back across town...

The next day we got up and Carri made us homemade, buttermilk, banana pancakes, we were living in style for refugees! The pancakes were amazing! After that the boys went to shoot their bows while Danielle and I went for a walk. It was raining during the walk (apparently Hurricane Ike had made it to Dallas by this time and was creating some weather), so we wore rain coats while we faced certain death. We then headed back to Fort Worth for the wedding - by this time it really was raining quite hard from Ike, which caused us to arrive at the church a little later than the itinerary suggested (about an hour late). Everyone got changed, all the pictures got taken and the bride and groom got married. It was a beautiful wedding!

The rain on the road from Ike on the way to Fort Worth for the wedding.

Kris and I before the wedding - isn't he so cute in his tux?

The bride and groom - such a cute couple!

The church was really beautiful!

Tank and Adam after the wedding - the happy couple.

After the wedding there was a 3 hour break to go get dinner (as the reception was dessert and candy bar only). We didn't really know the area that well, but were pretty jazzed to find a Luby's - nothing like some home cooking. We were pretty much the only people under 65 in the place, and were certainly overdressed for the occasion, but we enjoyed it!

After dinner we headed towards the reception, man was it far! We felt like we were on a mini road trip! I think we may have even had time for a nap - lol.

Poor Mike, behind the wheel again...

Trevor and Kara in the back along for the ride...

Danielle and I also chill'n in the back.

Finally we arrived to the reception hall, it was like a giant barn (that had been decorated in pink and brown for the wedding). It was sooo cool! The candy bar and cake were amazing!

The bride and grooms first dance!

Candy bar - yummy!

The wedding cake was amazing! But my favorite part was the cake topper...

Oh yeah, that's awesome!

This was most of the Second Baptist Gang - yeah the Houston crowd represented!

After the reception we made the hour and a half drive back to Rick and Carri's, it was so far, but we were so happy to have a place to stay. The next morning Kris left early on a flight to Washington (state not DC) to go elk hunting with his best friend growing up Rick Bush. We knew the house had not been servery damaged so we decided it was best for him to go ahead and go on the trip since it had been planned months ago (I would end up regretting that decision once I got home and saw the amount of debris in the yard and fallen fences - lol).

Mike, Danielle, Kara and I decided it was best to start heading home. We knew there was no power, but we weren't sure when we would be called into work (especially Danielle since she works for MD Anderson) so we though if we could get to Waco or College Station we would at least be a little closer, plus Mike really wanted to get back in the car and drive some more - lol.

We loaded up the trailer and headed out. Danielle ended up finding us an awesome place to stay in College Station. They were a couple that she had done a bible study with and gone to church with while she was at A&M. A place to stay was an understatement...it was more like our own mansion to stay in! They living outside of College Station in Boonville and had bought a couple acres of land and built their dream home. We staying in the pool house - it was awesome! Plus Vic and Tucker got to run around, they loved it since they had been kenneled most of the trip. Mike being out numbered by girls was forced to watch 27 Dresses against his will that evening (we know he secretly liked it).

The kitchen in the pool house.

Mike playing the coffee table...

Donna made us fresh cookies upon our arrival - they were so tasty!

The girls bedroom...

Mike's bedroom

The backside of the house (where the pool house was)

Vic and Tucker were so happy to go roam around the garden.

The next morning we decided to head home and see what the damage was, we knew we still didn't have power, but Mitchell's house did, so worse come to worse we could crash there (which is where I'm typing from right now). We were pretty sure we had dodged certain death, it was time to go see how much there was to clean up. But first we decided to stop at Freebirds for some burritos...

Driving home was sobering...as far north as Magnolia there were roofs down, trees up rooted, and debris everywhere. We knew the people in Galveston and nearby counties had to be suffering tremendous loss. Kris and I were very fortunate, we had some limbs down, one window broken and part of the fence blown in, but other than that, no real damage. Palo Pinto (one of the rent houses) lost the entire fence, but suffered no other damage. The townhome had a lot of trees fall, but as far as we know, nothing structual was damanaged. In addition to that, there's been a cold front blow in and the weather has been amazing! 80s during the day and 60s at night - it really has been such a blessing to the people in the Houston area with no power.