I left home with my family the Thursday before the hurricane hit. The hurricane hit on Friday, but we left a day ahead and stayed Thursday night in Lousiana. Friday morning my family and I got up and we went to Texarkana, where we got a room at the local La Quinta. Friday night we all huddled around televisions and watched at Hurricane Rita came crashing through our area, devastating many of our homes and lives. It was a sickening feeling watching it all happen, and knowing that there was nothing you could do to stop what was unfolding. The next morning I woke up to see my family still crowded around a television set watching the news for any updates on our area. We stayed in the La Quinta for only two more days due to horrible service, and we went to New Braunfels were we stayed for two more weeks. We returned home and stayed with my aunt and uncle because they were the only ones who had power at the time. It took about 4 more days for our power to come back. Everything was different. Trees were down everywhere, powerlines were stretched across every road, things look barren and it was just really hard to cope with. My yard lost 16 trees, and our powerlines were down. We had a tree fall on our house, but thankfully it didn\'t go all the way through, it just tore off the corner of our computer room. But because of that, we had mold all over the one wall effected, and mold throughout the ceilings. Boards warped all over our house. We had left all of our animals because we had no room; three dogs, three cats, and a bird. We all assumed that something happened to them and it was definitely pretty depressing, but we returned to find that they were all okay, they all made it through safely. It\'s been a long road to recovery, and the work that we must do is still far from completion. This was definitely an experience that I\'ll never be able to forget, it impacted my life in a big way, and I know things will never be the same.