When we bought our home in Crystal Beach...



The roof was replaced, the missing deck was rebuilt, and we replaced all the windows plus the slider...and painted it...these pics were taken mid-paint job



After IKE...the yellow arrow points to our lot...the pink arrow pointed to a roof that looked like ours, and it turns out we were right...it was about 2/3 of our roof...





What did we hope to salvage when we were allowed back finally after 2 weeks?

• the Bible my hubby's mom gave him before she died
  
• the Bible I received when I was baptized
  
• my grandfather's rolltop desk
  
• the quilts my mother made from clothes I wore as a child (FOUND one mangled quilt on 9/26 - given to Michael)
  
• the blanket we wrapped our baby in 25 years ago to come home from the hospital, his birthday is September 13
  
• the pictures our son drew that graced our fridge
  
• the ashes of our beloved dog, Chi-Chi (FOUND on 9/26)

Pictures of the house & lot are 45-139 or so. I used my sister's camera - she loaded them on her picasaweb.

Insurance will replace other stuff, but we are anxious to see if any of our irreplaceable things survived... the sooner we can access the peninsula the sooner we can see if there is anything salvageable.... Almost NOTHING survived to be salvaged.

This was our primary home that was destroyed...Had we ANY clue IKE would be this bad, we'd have rented a moving van & packed up the weekend prior... our home survived Carla so we thought it would stand up to IKE and left with the bare minimum for the evacuation...

How can you help? Pray for survivors & pray for the families of those still missing. Make a donation of time and/or money to the Red Cross.

The pictures of IKE's destruction speak for themselves: Jake & Abby's Crystal beach page