Choosing joy daily in my life full of topknot buns, baby kisses, and flour on the floor. I wouldn’t have it any other way! Oh, and I photograph the SWEETEST people!
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Mama, taking photos of your littles can be tough, so let’s make editing EASY! Create frame-worthy photos in one tap with our Cotton Mobile Presets!
{Beautiful calligraphy above by talented @joyfulinkcalligraphy}
Friends, neighbors, Texans, we love you more than words. With heavy hearts, we watched as hurricane Harvey devastated our state. From Corpus Christi to Beaumont, this horrible storm rattled every inch of Texas. If you’ve turned on the news, logged on Instagram or checked out Facebook then you’ve seen the catastrophe Harvey caused all over our state.
Alongside my best friends, we watched the storm hit while we were in Florida for a bachelorette party. Kellan and our sweet little Elli dog rode out the storm in Houston at my mother-in-law’s in Memorial. Since she has a second story, I requested he stay there just in case.
As the storm got closer, my calls to Kellan became more frequent. “Is everything put up high enough? Is it raining yet? Do you have enough food, water, etc?” Ya know, the usual worried wife stuff. I hated not being there with him. It was surreal to be sitting in the Florida sunshine knowing your hometown is baring down for quite possibly the worst storm in history.
Thankfully, Kellan took great care of our home while I was gone. Here’s a little iPhone photo of our living room he sent me while getting everything ready for the storm. LOL!
This is our living room on stilts! LOL. I’d say he prepared our home as best he could! : ) #besthusbandever!
After Saturday’s horrific downpour over the Houston area, Harvey’s true devastation came to light. Since we drove to Florida, we realized that with the storm’s direction, we had to leave Florida and drive up through the top of Louisiana first thing Sunday morning or we might be stuck in Florida until Harvey was gone for good around Friday.
The storm was moving towards Beaumont & southern Louisiana slowly but the last thing we wanted was to be driving through Harvey rain. Plus, we were pretty positive I-10 would have major flooding at some point so we headed up to Dallas. We stayed together in Dallas from Sunday to Wednesday morning, when finally the freeways were back open! Hallelujah!
Thankfully, my mother-in-law’s street faired well, they only lost power twice for very short periods of time and didn’t see much flooding at all, which was surreal since everything we watched on the news in Dallas terrified us. Knowing Kellan weathered the storm in a safe place was a huge blessing!
On Tuesday, Kellan finally made it back to our home in Garden Oaks/Oak Forest. Unfortunately, we did have water inside. Once we made it back, we realized we needed to cut about two feet of wall all around our home. Our amazing friends and family came to help and got it knocked out in just a few days! We are so grateful for all of their help!
Once we opened up the walls, the smell hit us right in the face! We couldn’t stay there with all the walls open. Also it looks like a nightmare, so we are grateful to have a place to stay at my mother-in-laws until further notice.
Thankfully, we have flood insurance and our adjuster should be coming over in two weeks. Once that’s over, we can begin to rebuild. In the grand scheme of things, we are incredibly lucky to not have multiple feet of water in our home. So many friends are just now able to get to their homes since they had 4 to 5 feet of water sitting in there since the storm.
The prayers, the help, the texts, the calls, we are grateful for all of them! We know Texas will rebuild stronger and what a blessing it’s been to see how beautifully kind people can be. We have seen the absolute best in people over the last few weeks and we are so proud of our Houston community!
We have about 5 clients that we know of that lost everything. If you lost albums we’ve made for you, please email us (hello@thecottoncollective.com) so we can make sure to have you on our list. We are going to replace every single album that was ruined by mean ol’ Harvey!
We love you guys so much! We are continuing to pray for our community and hope you will too!
XO,
Michelle, Kellan & Alyssa
Choosing joy daily in my life full of topknot buns, baby kisses, and flour on the floor. I wouldn’t have it any other way! Oh, and I photograph the SWEETEST people!
Get 50% off Honeybook with this link!
Mama, taking photos of your littles can be tough, so let’s make editing EASY! Create frame-worthy photos in one tap with our Cotton Mobile Presets!
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