Then and Now

We're still praying for our friends in Baytown and surrounding areas who are recovering from Hurricane Ike. We understand half of Baytown still has no power, and the clean-up process has a long way to go. Here are some pics our friend David Smith took of our old neighborhood:

Our old house. The blue tarp on the back corner (where Julia's room was) shows the house sustained damage in the same spot where a tree landed during Hurricane Rita in 2005.

Down the street from our house. These houses back up to what's known as "Slapout Gully" (which feeds into Burnet Bay) and sustained a lot of flooding.

A big tree down about five houses away from our old house.

A couple of blocks from our old house. I don't know how to describe how beautiful Baytown's neighborhood of Lakewood -- and our old street in particular -- used to be. We lived on North Burnet Drive, which is the last street before the bay. The houses across the street from us were waterfront houses. It was an older neighborhood with huge magnolias, vibrant azaleas and lush oleanders. We even once had wisteria that wound its way across our back fence. You can imagine what it was like for me to move from dry, drought-ridden Abilene into southeast Texas' very own Garden of Eden in 2001. I hope Baytown and Lakewood can eventually become what they once were.

And now on to Kemah. We lived about 30 minutes from the Kemah Boardwalk and we loved going there. It had restaurants, a midway, shops and a hotel.

Here's Jenna at Kemah in 2005 with a view of some of the shops over her right shoulder...





...and what the same area looks like now.











The midway area as it looked when Chad and I rode the ferris wheel on my birthday several years ago...






...and the midway now. There was also a carousel where we took some great pictures of Julia and my dad when she was a toddler. After Ike, horses from the carousel were found scattered throughout the park.







The Kemah Boardwalk entrance back in its glory days...







...and the entrance now.










The Saltgrass restaurant as it looked when our good friends Bill and Margaret Ehlig took us there a few days before we moved to Arkansas...






...and the Saltgrass now.







So please keep praying for everyone on the Gulf Coast who lost so much. The news media has basically moved on to other things, and it never gave Baytown much attention anyway, except for the refineries there. But there are still lots of people hurting and trying to figure out how to rebuild their lives.