Back to Baby Stuff!!

Okay, I've given you nearly every detail concerning Hurricane Wilma. In the past month, I've only had one entry that actually dealt with the topic at hand: Amanda and I headed down the path to parenthood for the first time. We strayed from the path, but now it's time to return to the path.

So what's been going on in the past month? Well, the biggest news was revealed during the ultrasound when we found out we're having a girl. That means I will be outnumbered 4 to 1 in my house...Amanda, the two female dogs, and now a baby girl on the way. Yikes...too much estrogen! I better be ready to get in touch with my feminine side. I know I'm in trouble already...she's going to be "daddy's little girl" which means I don't stand a chance. She already has me wrapped around her little finger and she's not even born yet!

Something else that has changed is Amanda's appearance...more specifically, the growth of the belly. I know I haven't posted any pictures of Amanda recently and I apologize for that. I'll do my best to make up for that now. Here's how she looked at 19 Weeks:
So very cute and a well-defined belly showing. Now onto the 20th week:
Not too much of a change from week 19. One thing that just amazes me is the glow Amanda has being pregnant. She just radiates incredible beauty! Well, she does that everyday, but it's even more pronounced now that she's pregnant. Here's week 21:
She really didn't want me to take a picture on that day...yet being the trooper that she is, she put down the meat cleaver she was going to kill me with and smiled for a picture (I'm just kidding about the meat cleaver...it was more along the lines of a steak knife.) This next picture was taken this past Saturday (the 26th), so this is the most recent one at 23 weeks:

Doesn't she look simply fabulous?? As you can probably guess, she likes that purple shirt (both in week 20 and 23). The problem is there just aren't many clothing options out there for "vertically challenged" pregnant women. Being 5 foot and pregnant isn't an easy shopping experience.

The other big thing to pass along is that Amanda is feeling our little girl kicking and punching, moving and grooving. I have felt her moving around too...it's an amazing experience...I gently press down on Amanda's stomach and "Little Miss Thing" pokes back. Very cool stuff!

We've got the back room cleared out (well, mostly cleared out with the only items left in there being books that were going to put on a soon-to-be-bought bookshelf), but we haven't decided on a theme for the baby room yet. We also haven't decided on a name yet because Amanda hasn't gotten through all the baby name books yet. That's right...I'm calling her out! That's okay though...I want her to take her time and come up with names she really likes so we can decide together on a name. I have come up with my top six names and I'll share them with you in a minute. My original top choice is a name we unfortunately can't use. Allow me to explain...I really like the name Autumn Skye but we can't use it because her full name would be Autumn Skye Swiatowy giving her the initials A.S.S. and that would make her childhood and teen years a living hell. So that one had to go by the wayside and I was bummed about that...but I've come back strong with other possibilities. Here is my top six in no particular order:

• Autumn Raine
• Alexia Mackenzie
• Bayleigh Victoria
• Autumn Mackenzie
• Sierra Skye
• Amber Mackenzie

Well, there they are...but you have to remember these are coming from a guy and what guy in his right mind would be able to come up with a good girl's name, right? Feel free to give your feedback if you dare! Once Amanda comes up with her list, I'll be sure to post it.

Our next ObGyn appointment is next Tuesday (the 6th). If anything of interest happens, I'll be sure to pass it along. Until the next post, y'all take care!

The Epilogue

Okay, now that Thanksgiving is done and the nasty little winter storm has left the area, I now have the time to complete this final entry. It's obvious when I say our trip to Cancun did not go the way we had wanted. It was not a restful vacation, but it was very educational. We learned so much while we were down there...and it wasn't a few "learn and forget" tidbits, the things we learned down there will probably stick with us the rest of our lives. For those of you who travel (whether it's every once in a while, occasionally, or frequently), there are some items we will never leave behind again: First, we will always carry a pocket-sized multi-use tool (kind of like a swiss army knife, but with more than just a knife...it will have the pliers, screwdriver, etc.). I know they're not allowed on the plane, but pack it in your checked baggage then pocket it once you get to your destination. Also, a batteryless flashlight. I think the cost around 25 bucks, but I think it's well worth the investment. Lastly, if you're staying in the states, buy a calling card. If you're going out of the country, buy an international calling card. Our cell phones died within a day and a half. No electricity meant no charging (I even bought a hand-held wind-up charger for my cell phone, but that didn't work so well).

We also learned a lot about Mexican culture, how it differs from our own, and how it is similar. It was a real eye-opener to see how an average Mexican family lives and how lucky we are to have everything that we do here in the United States. This was a family with two incomes and they still lived in a very small house with only a few extra amenities. They get by with very little and are just happy to have what they do have.

If I had to narrow down the single reason we made it through Hurricane Wilma, it would be because of the people of Cancun. These people, who had to deal with one of the worst natural disasters to ever hit Cancun, realize how important tourism is to their economy. Despite all the terrible things they have to go through in terms of getting their own lives back on track, they made us (the tourists) their priority. They know that if we leave Cancun with a bad taste in our mouth, we will tell people about our experience and advise them not to go. The people of Cancun know how critical it is for us to leave there with the feeling of being cared for and to realize that despite all the chaos and trouble, that Cancun is a nice place with friendly, helpful people...and most importantly, the desire to want to back to Cancun for a future vacation. So, they took care of us before taking care of themselves. One of our FunJet representatives had three feet of water in his house...basically his house was a total loss, but he was at the shelter everyday making sure the evacuees were okay and helping us get on a plane and get back home. They had a commitment to us and they stuck by that commitment. It wasn't the people from the hotel, it wasn't the police or civil protection, it was the citizens of Cancun who helped us get through this ordeal in one piece.

Last but certainly not least, I learned how well Amanda and I work as team. Through all the stress and chaos, we worked so well together. We talked out problems and solutions, and with the exception of the airport, we stayed pretty close to each other. I give Amanda all the credit in the world too. She was strong and tough when she needed to be and kind, caring, and helpful when it was needed. That's why I love her so much and why I'm so glad she's my wife.

I guess the final question is will we ever go back to Cancun. I think we might. Will we go during hurricane season? No way in hell!!! This final picture is how I would like to remember Cancun. It was a picture I took the evening we arrived: Back to baby stuff (including pics of Amanda) later this week!

The Conclusion to the Cancun Experience

This entry begins with me and Amanda spending our last night in the Haro Diaz house sound asleep in one of the bedrooms on the second floor. I woke up and felt as though something was different. I lifted my head off the pillow and looked out the window...there was something different indeed...the streetlights were on! I guess that's one advantage to living on the same street as a hospital...that's one of the streets that gets power back first. I went back to sleep, but it was a little more difficult now that the glow of the the streetlights was coming into the room.

Josefina acted as our alarm clock Tuesday morning (the 25th) and woke us up at 6:00. We ate our breakfast (one more nice spread of fresh fruit) and then it was time for us to go back over to the school and find out what was going to happen next. Josefina had to go to work, so Jose needed to take her to the bus stop. That meant this was the time for us to say goodbye. It's hard to say an adequate "thank you" to a family who has opened their home and their hearts to complete strangers. They didn't have to...they could have stayed at their house and Amanda and I would have made it through this tough time with the rest of the evacuees at the school. They didn't do that though. They went out looking for people to help. They fed us, they gave us a comfortable bed to sleep on, they did everything they could to make it through this incredible ordeal. How do you thank someone for doing so much? Amanda and I did our best with some hugs and a few tears. We tried to give them money and initially they wouldn't accept it. We told them that if they wouldn't accept it for themselves, then at least put it in a college fund for Coral and Ambar (which they were trying to save for anyway). We said goodbye and walked over to the school where all the other FunJet people had gathered. About an hour later, a bus pulled up and we all got on board. I snapped one last picture of Ambar and Coral as they were there to see us off.

While on the bus, we talked with two other couples that were from the Dallas area, Joe & Jennifer and Jesse & Erin. They were all really friendly and we chatted all the way to our next destination...which turned out to be a school across the street from the original shelter (the gymnasium) we stayed at for the first day. As we were getting off the bus, the six of us decided we would stick together as best we could since we were all trying to get back to Texas. After waiting at the school for about half an hour, they had us get into groups of ten and board a travel van. The six of us and two other couples got on the first van not knowing if we were going to another shelter or if we were going to Merida, the nearest town with an operational airport. Thankfully, Joe speaks Spanish very well and he asked the driver where we were going next. The driver responded we were headed to Merida! A roar of cheers erupted on the bus. We were so happy that we were finally taking that next big step toward getting home.

Take a look at this map of the Yucatan Peninsula:

You can see Cancun in the upper right corner. You can also see the road going west out of Cancun that would take us straight to Merida. There's a problem with that, however. Wilma apparently did some pretty extensive damage to that road, so we had to take an alternate route. We had to take the road going south all the way down to Felipe Carillo Puerto then go west/northwest back toward Merida. The road going straight to Merida would have taken four hours. This trip would end up taking us nine hours! A large chunk of that time was eaten up right off the bat as we ran into a traffic jam just south of Cancun airport. The picture below shows the problem:

There was still a lot of water covering this road and only one lane was passable. Traffic was backed up as we all tried to squeeze down to one lane. This added about an hour to our trip. Once we got through the water, the roads were clear. We drove through Playa del Carmen, which got hit pretty bad as well, but nothing bad enough to slow us down. We kept driving south stopping at Tulum and at Felipe Carillo Puerto for potty breaks and a chance to get some snacks. We passed the time on the van by talking to Joe, Jennifer, Erin, and Jesse. It was really interesting to go though the heart of the Yucatan Peninsula and see all the small Mexican towns and villages.

It was dark by the time we arrived in Merida. I had brought with us a small map book that we had received back in the hotel just in case...and it's a good thing I did because we quickly found out that our van driver had no idea where the airport was in Merida. He pulled over a couple times and asked locals where the airport was, but no one seemed capable of giving us a decent response. We finally came across a group of police and they initially gave us directions. Then they offered to give us an escort right to the airport! All the people who had traveled with FunJet were being grouped together outside well away from the terminal. We unloaded the bus and sat around with the rest of the people waiting to see what would be coming up next.

It was 9:30 when we started talking about trying to get some food for all of us. I was especially concerned for Amanda...it had been quite a while since our last decent meal (breakfast then only snacks on the trip). There was a Burger King up in the terminal, so "the guys" from our van decided we would go up there and get some food for the girls and bring it back. We walked up to the terminal and when we got there, I simply couldn't believe the number of people! It was a sea of stranded travelers with barely any room to move at all! We make our way to the end of the Burger King line and it's incredibly long as well. We stand there for just a couple of minutes and decide it would take too long to get anything from there, so we start heading back out of the terminal and toward the girls when we see our van driver. He offers to drive us someplace to get food! We had heard any FunJet flights were going to be delayed for quite some time, so we decided to hop in the van and go get food. We drive around and finally find a Domino's Pizza as our best option. We order some pizzas and wait while they're being made. They had a TV on and we watched some of the video out of Cancun. The shots of the damage they were showing was incredible...especially Cancun airport. In hindsight, I'm so glad we didn't try to stay in Cancun and wait for a flight from that airport. It would have taken us several more days to get home. We get our pizzas, hop back in the van, and go back to the airport. Traffic is bad driving around the front of the airport, so we get out of the van and walk over to where the girls were. At this point, we had been gone about an hour and a half. As we're walking up, one of the other girls on our van says, "You guys better hurry up or you're going to miss your plane." At first I thought she was kidding. Then she says to me, "Hurry up, your wife is right up there." I get this really deep sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I see Amanda running toward the terminal and I call out to her. She whips around and yells, "BRIAN???" I said yes and she says something to me I can't repeat here, but trust me, she was pissed. I found out later that about 10 minutes after we got in the van, the people from FunJet went up and down the row telling everyone who needed to go to Dallas that the plane was ready to board. Amanda, Erin, and Jennifer collected our things and made their way to the terminal to get us thinking that we were in line at Burger King. Of course, we weren't there and when they couldn't find us, they started freaking out. Amanda told me later that at one point, the FunJet representative told her to get on the plane without me because with her being pregnant, it was more important for her to get on that plane. Amanda had all the bags including my birth certificate and if she had gotten on that plane, I would only have my driver's license as an ID. Because of that. she firmly told them she was not getting on that plane without me.

Jesse, Joe, and I gathered around the girls and our pile of luggage. I don't know how many times I apologized to Amanda for what happened. All we wanted to do was get some food for the girls and us...and now it looked as though it may have cost us our best chance to get home. I went up to the ticket counter to see if there were any seats available and the FunJet rep said no. I went back to where we had our stuff and apologized to Amanda again...at least she was chewing on a piece of pizza. Just as I bit into a piece myself, the FunJet rep I had just spoken with comes up to us and says, "There are seats still available on this flight. Get you things and come with me." Amanda and I drop our pizza, get our stuff, and follow the FunJet rep through the packed terminal. Initially, I thought Amanda and I were the only ones who were going to make it on this plane, but there were four more seats so Joe, Jennifer, Jesse, and Erin were going to get on this flight too! Talk about luck!! We all got up to the ticket counter, check our luggage, got our boarding passes, and made our way to the plane. We sat in the plane for about 45 minutes while some paperwork was being completed. We finally took off somewhere around midnight and we were finally headed back to the United States. The flight was going to stop in Houston before continuing on to Dallas, and since our original flight took us from Amarillo to Houston to Cancun, I figured we'd have an easier time getting back to Amarillo from Houston.

We landed in Houston, got off the plane, went through customs, got our luggage, then waited in the terminal for the Continental ticket counter to open up. Once it did, we got tickets for a 9:00am flight to Amarillo. We got some breakfast from McDonald's then slept at our gate area until it was time to go back to Amarillo. The flight from Houston to Amarillo was a quiet one...we both slept a little. After landing in Amarillo and getting our luggage, we stopped at Cracker Barrel for a decent meal then went home and went to sleep...thus concluding our amazing vacation-turned-survival-adventure in Cancun. I will have a few final thoughts...an epilogue, if you will...for my next posting. I hope those of you who took the time to read this got a sense of what Amanda and I went through. If you have any questions about it, feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer. After my epilogue, it's back to pure baby stuff...including potential names for our little girl!

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

After starting Monday with yet another wonderful fresh fruit breakfast, we all piled into the car to take Josefina to the bus stop so she could go to work. There was a problem with that though...most busses in town were being used for a variety of other tasks like moving evacuees to other locations and getting disaster clean-up crews to the areas that need the most attention...which meant there wasn't a bus available to take her to work. Jose and Josefina decided it would be best to drive her to work. The Moon Palace was on the other side of the airport, so it took quite a while to navigate still-blocked roads to get over there. We dropped her off and started driving back toward downtown Cancun. As we drove by the airport, we saw a plane take off...the first plane we had seen since Wednesday evening (very reminiscent of 9/11 when no planes were in the air for a couple days). The plane had no commercial airline markings, so it was more than likely a government plane. It was our first sign of hope that maybe the airport was getting to the point of reopening. As we continued to drive, we saw several "Greyhound-type" busses filled with tourists headed out of town. We didn't know if they were just being shuttled to a new shelter...or headed to Cancun airport...or being transported out of Cancun to a location that had a functioning airport. At that point, we simply didn't know.

We got back into town and made our way through the maze of water-covered (yes, some still had water over them) and debris-filled roads when we drove by Costco and saw a Coca Cola delivery truck parked in parking lot with several people around it. One thing rapidly came to mind...water! Jose had an empty five gallon water jug in the trunk of the car and once we realized what was available, Jose parked the car, and we all jumped out of the car and ran across the parking lot. Thankfully there was still plenty of water to buy when we got there. We got our jug refilled and made our way back to the car. It didn't take long for a mob to grow around that delivery truck and we were fortunate we got our water and got out of there.

It was early in the afternoon by the time we made it back to the house. With the sight of the airplane and the tour busses, Amanda and I thought it would be a good time to go back to the school and see if anyone there knew anything new. We walked over to the school and were greeted with an incredible sight: Evacuees with their luggage! To anyone else, that wouldn't be that big of a deal, but remember...we all had to leave most of our luggage at the hotel when we evacuated. This meant several things: One, the road to the hotel was open! Two, the hotel was open! Three, everyone we talked to said the hotel was in good shape and the rooms (and the contents of the rooms) were just fine! We found out later that some people paid taxi drivers as much as 80 U.S. dollars one way to get their luggage! We went back to the house to let Jose know that the road to the hotels was now open. But before we could go, there was some unfinished business to attend to. The family had a turkey in the freezer prior to the hurricane and now that it was completely defrosted, they decided to cook it for the people at the school. The turkey had been cooking since mid morning and was done by the time Amanda and I came back from the school. Jose said he would take us to the hotel once we had given the turkey to the evacuees at the school (See what I mean about Jose being a really generous guy!). All of us (Jose, Coral, Ambar, Amanda, and I)went over to the school with bucket full of turkey and gave it to the people who hadn't had much to eat recently (evacuees from other schools were now being bussed over to this one and they didn't get much food while over there). While at the school one of the FunJet representatives told me that a bus was going back to the hotels in just a little while so people could get their luggage and it was leaving really soon. Amanda and I were ecstatic! We were finally going to get the rest of our clothes and money!

We jumped on the bus and made our way toward the Hotel Zone. The damage we saw was in many instances worse than what we had seen in downtown Cancun. Here's a picture of Fat Tuesday, a popular club/bar in Cancun...as you can probably guess, the water covering half the building is not normally there:

Down the road, we came upon a business that was very near our hotel. The business didn't quite make it through the hurricane very well

Here's a picture of the exterior of our hotel. As you can see, it made it through pretty well with only a few blown-out windows:

We exited the bus and let the people at the front counter know who we were. They told us to go up to our rooms, get our stuff, come back down, and turn in our keys. We climbed eight flights of stairs and walked down the hall to our room. We turned the key (thank God they had manual keys and not those electronic key cards) and entered our room. For the most part, the room was in pretty good shape. There was about a quarter of an inch of water on the floor, but the sliding door to the balcony was totally fine. We stepped out onto the balcony and got an eyeful from the hotel next to us. See for yourself:

I did my best to do a "Before and After" shot of the coast. A few things to notice as you compare the two pictures...check out the lighthouse in the middle of the picture, notice what happened to the two piers, and also see what happened to the straw umbrellas in the lower right corner.
We gathered up all our belongings, made our way back down the stairs, and boarded the bus. The bus stopped at one of the other hotels before we headed back to the school. At the school, our FunJet representative told us to be back at the school at 7:30 the next morning (Tuesday morning) and we would be boarding a bus to go to Merida, a town with a functioning airport about 4 hours due west of Cancun. Amanda and I took our luggage back to the Haro Diaz household, had dinner with them, and laid down to sleep for our last night in Cancun. The next day would be our day to get out of Cancun and Mexico, but it didn't end without a few more tense moments. The story of our final day in Mexico is next. Stay tuned...

Wilma Finally Leaves...

When we woke up Sunday morning (the 23nd), things had finally quieted down as Wilma moved off the Yucatan Peninsula and back into the Gulf of Mexico. For Cancun, that meant the cleanup could begin. Amanda and I had breakfast with Jose, Coral, and Ambar with a wonderful and tasty assortment of fresh fruit. Jose then asked me and Amanda if we would like to join him in a walk around the neighborhood. He wanted to see if any of his neighbors needed help cleaning up. Here are a few pictures of some of the damage in this neighborhood:
Jose and I helped a few people move some debris from the roads and their yards then eventually made our way back to the family's house to clean up there. Later that morning, Josefina came home after being at work for 3 days straight. She works at the Moon Palace resort in the communications (telephone) department. The Moon Palace is not on the small strip of land where most of the hotels are, so the workers were able to get home by bus using different roads. It was quite emotional when she came home with the girls running out to hug their mom with tears flowing all around. Jose explained to Josefina who we were and what we were doing in her house. She spoke English the best out of everyone in the family, so Amanda and I were able to communicate with her very easily. After Josefina changed clothes, the family wanted to go check on the laundromat they own and offered us the opportunity to go with them...with the hope that maybe we could get back to the hotel and get the rest of our luggage. We all piled into their car and slowly made our way toward the laundromat dodging downed trees and creeping across water-covered roadways. The laundromat was in very good condition with only a few puddles of water on the floor. From there, we made our way toward downtown Cancun. The damage was widespread and unbelievable! Many businesses had structural damage to the point you could see inside. Any trees still standing were stripped of all their leaves and bark. Here is a picture of one business we drove by with a gas station in the foreground. The gas station would normally have an awning, but it was no longer there:
This scene was repeated over and over again as we got closer to downtown Cancun. We came to the road that would lead us to the hotel zone, but it was blocked by police indicating it was still impassable. But all was not lost on our trip into town, we were able to finally get our U.S.-based calling card to work. Who gave us the insider tip? Josefina of course! Since she handles the telephones at her resort, she knew exactly how to get it to work. Amanda called her mom which really made both Amanda and her mom feel much better about our situation. I gave Steve a call to update him on what was taking place so he could pass it along to my family. We made our way back to their house and they prepared another wonderful meal. It didn't take long for us to get tired after the meal...and with the power still out, it gets very dark very quickly...so we went to bed for a rather quiet night of sleep. It's a good thing we got that sleep because Monday would turn out to be a rather busy day. That's ahead in the next installment...

Wima's Wrath Continues...

We slept on the floor Friday night with the only thing between us and the hard, brick surface was a doubled-up hotel blanket. My pillow was a couple pieces of clothing and Amanda's was our duffle bag. A little side note here...Amanda has been sleeping with earplugs in for few years now because I snore a little too often and a little too loudly. Amanda very wisely brought the earplugs with us to the shelter and if we didn't have them with us in the school that night, I really don't think either one of us would have gotten a wink of sleep. It was difficult enough to sleep as it was. Amanda told me later that she woke up every 15 minutes shifting her position from one hip to the other (you're not supposed to sleep on your back when you're pregnant). By Saturday morning, the hurricane was now over land and we were smack dab in the heart of this hurricane...we were in Wilma's eye. It wasn't as clear as I would have expected...the reason for that is once a hurricane moves over land, it rapidly starts to deteriorate and the first thing to go is the eye...it quickly fills in. It was relatively quiet and dry in the eye of the hurricane with only an occasional gust of wind to around 20 mph. It was at this time that a large chunk of the evacuees further surveyed our surroundings to see if there was anything else we could put to good use. We found some buckets to start collecting rain water to assist in toilet flushing (no power means no operational water pumps which means the toilets at the schools didn't flush without extra water). Amanda and I also tried to use a calling card that she wisely brought with us from the States, but we couldn't get it to work. There was a trick to using a U.S.-based calling card that we would find out about until Saturday. One of the evacuees, Joe, was extremely kind and let me borrow one of his international calling cards and I made a quick call to Steve Kersh, the Chief Meteorologist at my TV station. He quickly updated me on where Wilma was and I quickly told him we had moved locations and to call our families to let everyone know we were still doing okay. A HUGE thank you goes to Steve for being such a wonderful (and calm) messenger to our families. Thank you so much, Steve!! We went back up to the classrooms and I told everyone what was going on with the storm...the good news being that the storm was over land and weakening and the bad news being that we were only half way done with the storm.

Amanda and I were sitting in the classroom organizing our stuff and taking inventory when Carlos, one of the evacuees who could speak some spanish, comes into the room with someone I had not seen before. The gentleman's name was Jose and he lived just one street over. He had come to the school with his two daughters (Coral, 16 and Ambar, 13) to see if there was anything they could do to help. He told Carlos that if there was a couple that needed extra care, he would taken them back to his house to be more comfortable and for better care. Thankfully, no one in our group was injured, so the next consideration was for pregnant women. Carlos came to Amanda and me and told us what Jose was offering. As you can probably imagine, our initial thought was to say, "Thanks but no thanks." But then we talked a little more about it. Amanda was down to only half a protein bar and after that very rough night of sleep, we decided it was worth the risk. We gathered up our things and walked over to Jose's house. The house was a very small two-story concrete dwelling and was part of a long row of homes and business all tightly packed together. Here is a picture of the front of the house with Coral at the door:

Here is a picture of Amanda with the whole family, from left to right, Jose, Coral, Ambar, and Josefina (Jose's wife and mother of Coral and Ambar...more on Josefina later):

Jose could speak just enough English so that we could get the gist of what he was trying to say. Amanda and I both took Spanish in high school and that helped a little. Overall, we were able to communicate well enough to get the point across and even crack a few jokes here and there.

As soon as we got to the house, Jose offered to make us some food and we graciously accepted his offer. They cooked us each a chicken breast and we split a fried egg (yea protein!). That was the first warm meal we had eaten since breakfast on Thursday. After eating, Jose offered us a bed upstairs for a nap. Again, we took him up on his offer and we upstairs and slept very well for a couple hours. When we woke up, we went back downstairs where Jose and the girls were preparing dinner. After another wonderful meal, the five of us sat around for a little while and talked on a variety of topics. Amanda then asked Jose his reason for going over to school and offer to help. His answer was two-fold, simple, and straightforward: First, Jose wanted to do whatever he could to help because he is a genuine, kind-hearted individual who believes in helping others in need. Secondly, Jose knows how important tourism is to Cancun. After Wilma leaves, it will take quite a bit of time for Cancun to rebuild, but it's critical for the tourists who go through this incredible experience to leave Cancun feeling as good as possible. If the tourists leave Cancun with a completely bad experience, they will tell their friends and family not to go...and word will spread. But if they go through such a horrid experience but are helped through it by the people of Cancun, they'll be much more likely to tell their friends it's okay to go and may even go back themselves.

After that discussion, Jose offered us the opportunity to take a rainwater "sponge bath". It wasn't much, but after not showering since Thursday morning, that sponge bath felt so wonderful! Jose then offered the bed to us again and after a half-hearted attempt to let us just sleep on their couch and loveseat, we climbed the stairs and went to bed. Outside, the backside of Wilma was raging. It wasn't quite as bad as the front side because the storm had spent most of the day over land and had weaken a little, but it was still going strong as the wind rattled the boarded-up windows and whistled through cracks in the walls. With earplugs in, Amanda and I slept very well that night. The next day would bring the first day of calm after the storm. The story will pick up there with the next installment.

It's a...

I need to step away from the hurricane story so that I can announce that Amanda and I found out yesterday that we're having a girl!! Baby and momma are doing just fine...no ill effects from going through the ordeal in Cancun. And before you even ask, the answer is NO...we are NOT naming her "Wilma", "Katrina", "Rita", or any other name associated with a hurricane! It's too bad though...because we both liked the name "Katrina"...mainly because we both like the Disney Halloween cartoon The Legend of Sleepy Hollow with Ichabod Crane and Katrina Van Tassel. We will be comparing our lists of girl names and once we decide on one, we will be sure to let y'all know. One other cute thing we found out through the ultra sound is that the baby already has one of my traits...my second toe is longer than my big toe and Amanda's big toe is longer than her second toe. As you can see in the ultrasound, the baby's second toe is longer! LOL!
We also got a little "sample" of some 3D images of our little girl. Check out the one unlabeled first and see if you can pick out some of her features!
We have our next appointment with the ObGyn this Tuesday (the 8th) at which time we will likely just go over the results of the ultrasound and of the quad test. I will continue with the hurricane story in the next couple of days (sorry it's taken so long...but there's a lot to type and I don't have much free time during the day). Until then, y'all take care!

The Details...Continued

Okay, back to the story...so it's Friday and we're being battered by sustained winds around 75 to 100 mph and wind gusts around 110 to 120 mph. Every gust of wind is causing a good deal of noise up on the roof as the consistency of the roof is becoming compromised...in other words, the roof is starting to give way. Word starts spreading throughout the gym that we are going to be moved to a safer shelter and people start gathering up their belongings in preparation of the potential move. Early in the afternoon, one small section of the roof finally gave in to the howling wind and peeled away opening up an unexpected skylight over the second basketball court. Here's what that looked like:
At this point, the hotel staff is no longer in control of the gymnasium. Military personnel (yes, guys with semi-automatic rifles) and "Civil Protection" (I think it was a combination of Civil Protection and the police) were going through the gym letting people know that we needed to get in line to get on a bus to be taken to another shelter. So Amanda and I got in line and waited. We had gathered our bags, the blanket and pillows, and I also carried an additional mat that Amanda could use to hopefully be more comfortable at the next shelter. Well, as we got to the front of the line, the people trying to control this fiasco said that we needed to leave the blankets, mats, and pillows behind. We put the pillows and mat with the rest of the discarded items by the door (I convinced them to let us keep the blanket because Amanda was pregnant...right before we left, they said we could take the pillows too but we couldn't find them before we were sent out into the hurricane). In hindsight, we should have taken the time to find those pillows because where we were going didn't have anything for us to sleep on. More on that later.

So, we're at the front of the line to get on the bus...which means we have to go out in the peak of this hurricane to get there! They had a path to the bus lined on either side by military personnel in rain ponchos. As we headed toward the bus, the people lining the path made sure we kept our footing, but at the same time kept pushing us forward to get on the bus. We were on the bus with about 40 other people and in that strong wind, that bus was just rockin' back and forth. Once the bus was loaded, we headed out but it didn't take long to run into a spot of minor trouble. A tree had fallen across the road that the bus driver wanted to take, so we had to back up, turn around, and go another way. From a meteorologist's standpoint it was fascinating being out in the middle of a category 3 hurricane. From a safety standpoint, being on the road was about the worst place for us to be. Thankfully, we weren't on the road for too long. Numerous trees had been pushed over...many of those were large trees with trunk diameters greater than 10 inches. The heavy rain had led to widespread street flooding with about a foot to foot and a half of water covering most roads. Here's a few pictures of what we saw while we were in the bus:

Our first stop was at a school that was apparently already full of evacuees. We sat in the bus for about 20 minutes while the Civil Protection people decided where to take us. They finally made their decision and we headed to a second school. This school was empty, so they had to take a few minutes to make sure it was safe enough for us to stay in. We got "okay" to exit the bus and head to one of three classrooms on the second floor. The classrooms were just that...classrooms with desks and a few tables. No mats, no blankets, no pillows. The rooms were also wet because the windows were not windows in the sense that they did not have any glass (which in one respect, that was actually a good thing). They were nothing more than wooden blinds that could either be open or closed. When they were open, they were open. When they were closed, they were still kind of open...which is why the rooms were wet. Here is a picture of one of the classrooms taken several days after we stayed in it:

It was now late Friday afternoon and the rooms had to be prepared quickly because it would be getting dark soon. There was a custodian at the school and he was the only person there besides the 80 or so evacuees. He had a squeegee for us to use and that was it. The Civil Protection people simply dropped us off and left. We had no idea if we were going to get food or water sent to us or not. At this point, we were pretty much on our own. One of our saving graces was on the first floor of the school, there was a small store with some snack foods and soda. That would end up being our food supply once we came to the conclusion that no one was coming back to bring us anything. Here is a picture of the store a few days after the storm:

While our fellow evacuees were preparing the classrooms on the second floor, I was looking at the store on the first floor as a possible place for Amanda and me to sleep thinking that maybe we could make it a little more comfortable for Amanda. So Amanda and I did our best to make it cozy putting flattened cardboard boxes down on the ground and putting our blanket on top of that. As the picture of the store shows, there was one wall of windows that we could close the blinds on, so we tried to stay away from that side of the room as the wind blew some rain into the room on that side. By the time we got things arranged, it was dark. We laid down to sleep for just a few minutes when one of the evacuees from upstairs came down to check on us. We told him we were doing fine, but as he left, Amanda and I saw the water level in the store increasing. There were these plastic tables (about 9 of them), so we made the quick decision to put all our stuff on the table to keep from getting soaking wet. We did it as quickly as we could using my cell phone as a source of light. We fashioned our bed on top of the tables and tried to go back to sleep. Now that we were higher off the floor, that meant we were also more open to getting wind and rain on us. Imagine someone dipping their fingers in water and flicking them on you while you're trying to sleep. That's exactly what it was like for us...so after about 10 minutes of being on the table, we decided we'd try moving the tables away from the open windows. When we got on top of the tables, the water in the room was just a thin layer. When I got back down to move the table (no more than 10 to 15 minutes), the water was up to my ankles! In light of this rising-water issue, Amanda and I again made a quick decision to abandon this room and go back up to the second floor. We gathered our belongings and headed to higher ground. We went back into the classroom, set up our blanket on the tile floor, and did our best to get some sleep. It was uncomfortable and difficult to sleep for me...so you can just imagine how difficult it would be for Amanda to try to sleep. Overall, it was about the worst night of sleep I've ever had...but things were going to get better for us the next day. That's where I will pick things up for the next installment. Stay tuned...