Austin crashed an Easter party at the neighbor's house last night... they told him he could have some of the chocolate eggs but the jello was for the adults! And on that note... Happy Easter friends and family!
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Austin has been playing outside a lot over Spring Break! The other day he and his friends came to the door asking for popsicles. They said they wanted them because they were playing police and needed to have donuts and coffee.
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There are two times you appreciate the cost of sunscreen! The first is when Spring comes and you have to rush out to the drug store (after taking out a small loan) in order to restock you warm weather supply. The second is when you are on Spring Break and you catch your son "painting" white stripes on the street and giving your car white wall tires with a spray can of 50+.
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Wow… what a day.

April 16th 2011:

Goodbye swing set!



It is 3:00am (April 17th) and I can not sleep. I can not shut off my brain. I keep thinking about the day we had and the mild panic attacks that I have been having most of the day come rushing back. I have to focus my mind and remind myself that they are just things, everything can be fixed and how truly blessed we are.

  

Our tree from our backyard.

It all started this morning. We planned to have Sprink’s birthday party at a local park. We reserved a shelter and everything. Frank and I went back and forth about the plans and if we should have a rain plan or not. By 11:00 am I texted Frank and said that I did not want to be at the park. Even if there was no “weather” there would be too much wind and the storm was moving so fast I worried that it would come and people would be running to round up kids and get them in the car and the party would end in disaster! So… we went with our back up plan. Jumpzone! Everyone met out there. Things were fine for a while and the kids were having great fun. Then my phone rang. It was my mom calling to tell me that there was a tornado on the ground in the town where I live. She said it looked bad and that it was headed for where we were. She kept us updated and was going to call us when it was time to move. I was ready to grab my kids and take them into the bathrooms and any moment. But the storm turned.

Our Mailbox was torn right off.



One of my friends that was at the party lives by my house and she was on the phone with her husband who was hiding in their bathroom with their dog. She was very worried about him and any other storms that may come so when the storm cleared she packed up her kids and took them home. She told me she would swing by my house and let me know how things were… I was very worried about my house and my dog since she does not do well in even the littlest storm. Waiting for her call felt like eternity! When she did call she said that the house was fine and she could see my dog through the window. Then she paused and said but the swing set has been destroyed. She didn’t really say much about the neighborhood at that point but she said that we were very lucky. She said she would send me a picture of the swing set. We must have lost cell towers because there is really bad reception out here now but at the time I had no idea. So when the picture didn’t come I started to worry that maybe it was worse then she had said and she was afraid to send the picture! However, I finally go the picture and that made it real! We lost our swingset (our neighbor saw it get picked up ten feet into the air and tossed backwards) we also had a tree go fall into our fence, our mailbox and a part of the gutter were torn off and we had some shingle damage. All in all we did really well!

This house had the most damage in the whole neighborhood.

Our neighbors were at the party and they decided to go home and check their house (we followed about 20 minutes behind them once we finished cleaning up from the party.) They called my cell when we were about half way home to prepare us for what we would see. The tornado apparently touched down in our neighborhood and went along the main road. There were trees EVERYWHERE. It looked like an absolute war zone! Here are a few pictures but they do not even begin to give you a good picture of what it was like! Many people had tree limbs go through their roofs, cars in driveways had trees on top of them, every single house on the main road in our neighborhood lost at least one tree but most of them lost more than that. All we heard from the moment we came home until the sun went down was chainsaws and sirens. It reminded me of the damage we had when Hurricane Fran came through. (I think comparing my neighborhood to my old one during Fran… we have more damage now… but in a smaller area than with Fran.) We lost power at some point during the storm but since we are on the same power grid as town hall our power came on a lot sooner than I thought it would. We still have no internet, phone or cable (however now that you are reading this it must be back on…). I am dying to turn on the news and see what is going on! It is so amazing how disconnected I am right now in a time when I feel the need to be connected the most! All I know is that one touched down in our neighborhood and the police came around to do head checks last night! Must be bad!

This truck was smashed by a tree while parked in the driveway.

I pray for those that have it far worse than me! I pray that they are comforted and cared for in their time of need. And I praise God that we got by with minimal damage. My neighbor just three houses down were not so lucky… not to mention the rest of the main street here. I pray for each of those families!

1 Year Old!

Look who is a big girl now!

P.S. This picture was taken with my new video camera... I will be going back to taking still shots with my digital camera!

Teaching is ALWAYS Exciting!

We had a little visitor in my classroom on Friday. Most importantly, I caught him all by myself! I was proud...