Technology

We have become so used to living with the technology that we have in our day to day lives, that it is difficult to 'live' without it sometimes...

When we sent Rebekah off to college at Niagara University in Niagara, NY, we had cell phones and texting in order to keep in touch.  I have to admit we had the ability to skype, but I am not very technologically advanced and didn't 'know' how to do it, so I don't think we ever skyped with her (possibly dad did a time or two).

When we sent Amanda off to BYU-Hawaii we took advantage of this technology (we had a newer computer and it was easier for me to click on the link and use it).  We began skyping every Sunday afternoon.  We missed very few times over the two years she spent at BYU-H.  Liam definitely looked forward to it.  Because of our weekly skype dates, we didn't call quite as often.

Well, we sent Amanda off to teach English in Ukraine last week.  I drove her up to Nashville on Thursday, the night before, and we stayed at Rebekah's place that night.  It was nice to be able to wake up at 6 am, to get her to the airport by 7:45, rather than having to drive clear from home so early in the morning!!! (Thank you Rebekah for making that easier on us. :)

Friday morning we took Amanda to the Nashville airport and she was on her way.  I dropped Rebekah back at her apartment (about 15 min's away), and drove back home to Alabama, to get on with my day (picking Marissa up from school and driving to physical therapy).

Throughout the day we would see updates, Amanda no longer had telephone service and text, but she could use her phone to update on facebook when she had Wifi.  We knew she had made it to Chicago and that she'd met up with other 'teachers' that were heading to Ukraine to teach English with her.  We saw messages while she was in Frankfurt Germany at the airport waiting for their final flight.  Then we didn't get any more messages...

Saturday night when we went to bed, Bill and I were talking and it occurred to me that I had just sent my child off to a foreign country and I had absolutely NO contact information for her!* Yikes!  What were we thinking?!?!?! ;)  Bill got on facebook and looked up Amanda's 'friends' and tried to figure out who might be with the Ukraine 1 group that left two weeks before. (Amanda is with the Ukraine 2 group - they teach at different schools in different area's of Kiev, Ukraine).    He found someone based on the pictures they had posted from Ukraine and messaged them to ask if they'd heard from the 2nd group and if they'd arrived in Ukraine.  They sent a message back saying that they were sure they had arrived fine and were just getting settled in for the night.

*I'm sure if we had needed to we could have figured out information and contacted the people in charge of the program that she went with.

The next day Amanda got wifi at her place where she's living while she's in Ukraine, and she posted on Facebook that she was fine, settled, liked her room mate and liked Ukraine.  I definitely felt a whole lot better once I knew her status.

Which brings me back to the point of this post.  

                                             *****TECHNOLOGY*****   

We have become so used to being able to reach out, instantly, and get in contact with people, our kids, family, friends, etc. that it didn't even occur to me to get contact info of anyone or anything in order to be able to find out about her safety, status, etc.  

I also noticed it with Marissa Friday night as well.  She had asked to attend the high school football game.  It was a big game, the two teams from Madison City (we were all the same school until last year when we got a second high school in town, and our school split) were playing each other.  Everyone has friends at both schools.  I allowed her to attend the game, where she was going to 'meet up' with friends to hang out with.  She was supposed to call/message me from one of their phones (since she didn't have a phone of her own), and let me know a number of someone she was going to be with, so that I had contact info for her.  I didn't make plans ahead of time, for a meet up point, after the game or anything, I was counting on her calling me.  She had several different friends she 'hung out with' during the game, and the original 'friend' she got together with was going to have to leave early, so she hadn't bothered to call me from her phone since it wouldn't have been available to contact her later... Then her other friends phone battery was dying, so she didn't contact me from that phone either...

Now, I have to admit, that perhaps, if Marissa had never had the seizures, over the past year, and particularly the previous week, and she had been week and wobbily and using forearm crutches earlier in the week, I might not have had that little bit of extra fear/worry/concern about her.  I knew that ultimately both of her sisters were at the game, and there were sure to be many other many others friends and neighbors in attendance at the game as well, and IF something had happened to her while there, someone would undoubtedly see her, recognize her, etc... but my thinking needs to change!  I know Marissa just wants to be 'normal' (and posts about Marissa are a whole complete blog post that I NEED to write up!), but the reality is we do have a 'new reality' that we have to take into consideration.  I should have definitely made more concrete 'plans' or back up plans for contacting her, and we basically agreed afterward that she will not 'meet up' with friends at the game anymore, she will only get to attend a game if the friends go to the game together and stay together, etc...

Back to the technology issues again.  Years ago we all knew probably half a dozen phone numbers at least.  We knew our home phone number, our best friend's phone number, possibly grandparents phone number, the neighbor, etc... Now days, we don't NEED to remember things like phone numbers. If you're like me, we are lucky to know and remember two or three phone numbers. Our own cell, our home and our spouse's number, perhaps the office number...   What do we count on? We just look up anything we want to know on our cell phone, and we don't look it up by the number, we look it up by name or we have it on speed dial.  I know that whenever my phone battery is about to die, I panic a little bit because I will not have the ability to contact anyone for any reason, because I won't know their number!!!  I don't even have a current hard copy/paper copy of the Ward list of the people in our church congregation.  That used to be posted near the phone at all times and a list friends and family as well.

Technology is wonderful, but sometimes I think we ought to still depend on some of the old fashioned ways of doing things, like making plans, etc...

That being said, today we got to Skype with Amanda in Ukraine!  Yay!!!  She had such a big smile on her face when we signed on!  It was GOOD to see her!  She has had a very long, very busy week.  She started teaching two days after arriving in country. she leaves her apartment at 7:30 am to travel to the school, teaches until 1 pm. and then hasn't returned back home until 9-10:30 pm at night all week.  She spends the whole afternoon and evening writing up lesson plans and planning for her classes.

She told us of some of her fun adventures, like even trying to order food, in a foreign language... when you can't even read the menu. :) I can't wait to read more of her blogs.  Hopefully she'll have more time to blog this week. She has her basic lesson plan ideas written out for the next bit, so she may get a little more down time.

You can keep track of her goings on here:
http://southernbelleineurope.blogspot.com/

"Leaving your Birth Place" Waxing Nostalgic...

I just read a beautiful blog post on leaving the birth place.... http://www.anktangle.com/2012/04/dear-daniel-on-leaving-your-birthplace.html?showComment=1335798097098#c4948304106715130888

With our still very recent move to a new home, and then celebrating Liam's 6th Birthday yesterday this was a very touching post for me.

 I have moved from my child's birth place on several occasions before... the first time was from Ft. Irwin, Calif.  Our beautiful Sariah was our first baby born at home.  There, we were supported by a couple of friends and we had her birth in our large laundry room on a double bed we borrowed from another dear friend Tandy (who missed our birth as she had gone 'home' to TX to be able to have her baby due the same day but born two weeks apart, with a MW at a Beautiful Birthing Center in Dallas http://birthcenter.net/).

Our sweet Hannah was born at our home at White Sands Missile Range, NM.  My dear friend Tandy was able to come (from Maryland this time) and be with us for this birth.  She was a wonderful help, along with the other friend and Midwives that we had to assist us during this birth on a bright Saturday morning as well.

I remember it being a bittersweet moment knowing that we have 'lived' with those memories of where our baby(s) was born, in the house with us that we'd reflect on as we went throughout our days.

Yesterday morning dad was talking to Liam.  He asked him if he knew where he was born... he had to 'think' about his answer for just a moment and then said, "in the Kitchen!"  and he sort of pointed his finger. Yes we agreed, but not 'this' kitchen, the kitchen in our old house... then dad asked him further, and he said in a tub!  Yes, son, you were born in a pool of warm water, to the welcoming arms of your parents and your sisters who were so excited to see you and to know 'who' you were!

I watched your birth slide show again last night and tears ran down my face at the memories of that beautiful Spring Saturday morning, surrounded by family and friends.  Their love and support for me in that moment were wonderful.

http://www.west-point.org/users/usma1989/46946/liam_birth.zip 
(this is a large file, and it takes a bit to download.  The slide show with accompanying music were put together by Kristin at http://www.whispersphotography.com/ it is about 8 minutes long. For the more squeemish, it isn't very graphic at all.  What little you see, is under water, so very distorted, and a baby's head is covering most anything anyway in the pic's).

It's a bit hard, and like I said, bittersweet to move and leave the place that was so special to us. I somehow want to take just a bit of that place with us as a memory... of course, the beautiful pictures and of course YOU are wonderful reminders of that very special day! It's fun to remember, even if it brings tears to my eyes... they are mostly tears of joy at the memories. I LOVE you son and can not imagine what my life would be like without YOU in it!

Scuba Diving: A Blessing... Who Knew?

Scuba Diving: A Blessing… Who Knew?

Last year when we decided we were taking Amanda over to school at BYU Hawaii, Bill signed us up for a Scuba diving course.  It felt a little extravagant to me, but we all enjoyed the basic course and soon signed up for the advanced diving course. 

When we went to Hawaii we took another open water advanced diving course, and though it was sort of the end of the season, and we were heading into bad weather conditions so we missed out on one of the dives we were supposed to get go on when we visited Kauaii after we dropped Amanda off.  We did have a wonderful time diving and I was a bit spoiled, and really didn’t want to come back to Alabama and go cold water Quary diving…

Shortly after our return home we linked up with someone Bill knew from work that goes diving as a volunteer at the Space and Rocket Center.  We started diving there on a semi regular basis, so that we would be like fish in an aquarium for various tour groups and for some of the groups of kids attending Space Camp.  It’s fun, and we get to keep fresh on our diving skills. 

We’ve been able to take Flat Stanley with us for a dive at the Space and Rocket Center, and for Halloween they had a day where he volunteer divers came dressed in costumes to dive.  That was really fun… 

Bill was able to take the scouts there one night for an intro to Scuba class, and then over Christmas Break we took the girls up there for an intro to diving class as well.

Well, today it became a blessing to the local members of the Church.  The Church bought some property southeast of Huntsville, AL a few years ago to be used as a Camp site for Young women’s summer Camp and for Church Scout troops.  The first few years there were lots of work days out at the Camp to get it ready , land cleared, cabins built etc. to have it ready for Young Women’s camp that first year.  We went out one time and stayed as a family the next year in the cabins to help clean it up and get it ready another year.  The Priesthood men and young men have taken lots of trips to work and clean the camp area. 

Bill has gone Camping there with the scouts on several occasions, and last fall Liam even got to go with him on an overnight special camp out with the scouts.  The girls have all gone to Young Women’s Camp up there over the years. 

I’m sure you are wondering how all of this relates to Scuba Diving…

I’m sure you are wondering how all of this relates to Scuba Diving…

Well, somehow over the course of the past year, the dock at the little lake at the camp had become dislodged and there was a need for someone to dive down underneath and figure out what the problem was and reattach it so that the dock would stay put.

Bill was asked if he could dive and do this task today.  So, off he went.  Well, not quite that easy, he had to get a dive buddy to go with him, and had to ask to borrow oxygen tanks from the SpRocket.  The water temp wasn’t too bad today, so that was good, but the visibility was horrible.  They were able to figure out what the problem was, and then figure out how to fix the problem.  I’m grateful that Bill was able to obtain the skills he needed to accomplish this task to help the Church out and make the camp better for all those who will be able to use it.

This is the first time he’s gone Scuba Diving since we moved into this new house.  He is happy that he has plenty of room in his closet to hang his wet suit, and keep his dive bag.  However when he came home today, he was saying he needed to build some sort of a drying rack to hang our scuba gear and his wet suit on to dry out after we go Scuba diving, but in the meantime… he’ll just use the back yard swing. J

(until the birds stopped by... Oh well)

Hair today, gone tomorrow...

After a friend showed me how, I bought some clippers and started cutting Liam’s hair several years ago, and soon began cutting Bill’s hair as well.  Things were going along fine, mostly.  I didn’t always cut it exactly the way (I only really know one way to cut it – shaved, depending on how long a blade I use it is either shorter or a little bit longer, but not so much in the way of variations.  That is usually not a problem and if anything the girls want me to cut dad’s hair as short as possible…)  I don’t always fit it into our schedule as often as Bill would like, so I’m not as reliable in that way as when he would go to the barber on post, but we have certainly more than paid for our clippers over the years.

Liam would rather never get a haircut. He usually fusses and fights, cries and often has to be bribed, or even pinned down (on someone else’s lap), in order to cut his hair.

Sometime along the way, Amanda picked up the clippers and she would cut their hair instead.  She does a really good job, and even cuts her sisters hair occasionally as well. NOT with the same clippers, but with scissors… (a friend of ours showed her some basics for cutting hair awhile back). 

The other day, as I’ve been packing and unpacking at our new house, I ran across some hair (curls) of Liam’s from before we went in for his hip surgery two summers ago.  I made sure to cut his hair really short before, so we wouldn’t have to deal with it while he was in the body cast for 6 weeks and wouldn’t be able to bathe…

Well, as Amanda was getting ready to leave for college in Hawaii last fall, we made sure to get Bill and Liam haircuts, as by then, Liam mostly liked Amanda to do it more than me. Not that he still didn’t fuss and fight, but he preferred Amanda…

As fall moved on into winter his hair had grown out quite a bit, and we kept telling him he NEEDED a hair cut.  He informed me one time that, “This was not a hair cutting house, because Amanda wasn’t here” and that he would wait until December when she came home for Christmas break!  Well, he stuck to that, and refused to get a haircut until Amanda came home.  His hair would stick out all over the place and he hated to let me brush it or do anything with it!

 Back story:  when he went to preschool as a 3 yr old, there was a little boy in his class who came EVERY single day with a Mohawk! It was a source of conversation and the sisters  would want to ‘play’ with his hair to try to make it into a Mohawk on occasion but he wouldn’t hear of it!  He hated it and didn’t like anyone to ‘mess’ with his hair and if we did he was sure to remind us he did NOT want it into a Mohawk! Perhaps this is part of his reasoning behind not liking it brushed and ‘fixed’. 

Anyway, Amanda cut his hair, literally, the DAY (night) she got home from Hawaii!  So now we have moved on, winter into spring, and his hair had grown out and was beginning to look a bit unruly again… he would be teased by his sisters that he was starting to look like a girl. He HATED that! I would on occasion try to brush it with a wet brush, to have it not look so straggly and like he had bed head –which he did- when he went off to school.  He would say he wasn’t getting it cut again, until Amanda came home.  So, we’ve dealt with it, messy, sticking out hair and all…

HE had even begun to twirl it around his finger… 

 However, about two weeks ago, he came up to me one day and said, “You know what?  I’m going to get my hair cut on April 8^th.”  Well, this surprised me and I wondered at the reasoning behind it, and he went on to tell me that he wanted it cut on the 8^th because that was Easter…  I asked if he wanted to look handsome for Easter Sunday in his new suit, and he just grinned. (I had bought him a suit awhile back when it was on sale, and the shirt was a sort of aqua blue color, that is his favorite color – a story for another day – and I have saved it for Easter Sunday.  Not that he hasn’t wanted to wear it all along, but I’ve told him that is for Easter, so perhaps he decided he really wanted to look nice when he finally got to wear the new suit, and needed to have his hair cut to go with it.  I don’t know for sure, maybe I’m reading things into it, but it makes for a cute story. 

So on Easter morning after the baskets had been attacked,
candy consumed and the general craziness had finished and then we started to get ready for church, he came in, sat down on the stool in my bathroom and got his hair cut. He even picked out which cutting blade  guide he wanted. 

 Say goodbye to Alfalfa. He complained a little bit, but he did great and definitely looked a whole lot better, when we got him dressed and went off to Church.

Look at that good looking hair cut…

Now to dress him up again one day and get him to sit still for me to take pic’s of him in his Easter suit!

Tornado Pic's

This is a house I pass by daily when I take Liam to Pre-School .  I guess this tree was too Big and Heavy and needed a large crane or something to get it out of the house.  It was there for nearly 3 weeks.

one of many utility trucks and crew that worked so many hours to fix all the downed power and phone lines around the county.

This is a large tree around the corner from my house that came down during the storms.

We have a neighbor that has this little bunny lawn ornament and after the tornados, they dressed it in a little hard hat and tool belt, in honor of all the workers that are helping to clean up and put the damaged area's of the town/state back together. 

This house is just down the block/street from where I had left my van parked for the day, and when the tornado hit this house/yard, they announced on the radio that it had hit the main streets - Hwy 72 and Wall Triana… there was a chance my van was hit. It was actually one of the many tornados that day, albeit a small tornado, that hit our friends house and then, hit this corner.

This neighborhood was hit very hard.  It is only 5 1/2 miles away from our home.  There are only three houses still able to be lived in, most are ruined, many are completely gone!  So so sad and scary!  This tornado was on a path toward our house, and shifted direction. There are still clothes hanging in the closet of this house.

I am so amazed and impressed that in the face of all of the destruction, that they can still have a sense of humor, by putting out signs:

"GONE WITH THE WIND"  and "EXTREME MAKEOVER, TORNADO EDITION"

This house had already been bulldozed and the remains burned, and put into dumpsters.  Several homes are already in the process to rebuild.

One of many cars that were destroyed while sitting in driveways and garages.

What was once a front wall of this house, left in a pile of bricks.

Families are living in trailers and this one has built a tarp tent for extra room.  There is a set of bunk bed under that tarp.

The strength of the winds to tear and twist and splinter large trees and so many telephone poles into nothing but twigs, is so frighteningly amazing~

This home had some damage to the back of it and a garage ripped completely down, but the house is still standing and the lot is empty of trees! There are piles and piles of trees along the road side waiting to be hauled away.

More trees form the home above

A Church that was in the path of the tornado that has been dropped down to a pile of rubble.  The tornado took out the doppler radar at the top of the tower that was right by this church as well, before hitting down in the little neighborhood.

Tornado's and such...

Tornado’s and Such

Years ago, when we were Newly Weds, and living in Alabama for the first time, we experienced our first Tornado.

I think it should be a requirement for new people that move to Alabama or the south in general, to have a little class on what to do in case of a tornado.

On the afternoon of November 15^th, 1989, Bill had just arrived home from class (we were in Huntsville while Bill attended a Military Basic Officer Course).  He no more than walked in the door than the rain began to hammer down.  We both commented on how he had gotten ‘lucky’ to have just missed the rain.

We then heard a siren begin out side somewhere, and as was normally the case, we figured that with the first rain drops, a car had gone off the road.  This seemed to happen any time it rained, it had seemed to us, having come from up north, that southern drivers did not handle weather well.

When the siren continued, and seemed as though it was going in circles, I wondered if perhaps the police officers, could not find the vehicle involved in the accident, and were in fact driving around and around the block looking for it. 

As the rain continued, Bill and I were standing looking out our large picture window, from our apartment, watching as the storm progressed, and the sky became very dark.  The sirens continued, and I wondered at the location of this mysterious vehicle the police could still not locate.  At some point I remember making the comment that, “the sirens kind of reminded me of those old German war movies.”  Never once did it cross my mind, that the sirens in those old WWII movies, were air raid sirens and they meant Duck and Cover!

Having personally grown up in S. Calif, we had earth quake drills at school, where we would climb under the desks, and sit curled in a ball with our arms over our heads…  I no longer remember what kind of alarm or warning bell would sound to alert us to do this drill. And I had no idea that the sirens going off around me, had anything to do with a tornado, or even a bad storm.  I was VERY unprepared!

 We continued to stand at the window and watch as the storm blew through. Then, after what seemed like no time at all, the sky lightened back up the rain stopped and the sun came out and blue sky’s could be seen. At some point during the storm, the power went out, (not that we were listening to the radio or t.v. for news reports, it was just a bad rain storm as far as we knew), we weren’t concerned, and just went back to our every day cares. It wasn’t until later that evening we heard from neighbors that it had been a tornado and that power lines were down all around us.  We were without power for 4 days.  It was mid November and chilly.  One day I did go on post to one of our friend’s Shannon – one of Bill’s classmates – apartments to do some laundry.  The house mom, who took care of the building and looked out for the residents, got mad at me for using their laundry facilities.  I was too afraid to just speak up and tell her I was seeking shelter from the cold and no power back at our place and Shannon had let me spend the day and use her facilities.

It wasn’t until the next day that the reality of what we’d done began to hit us!  The storm had touched down on the corner of Redstone Arsenal and Zierdt Rd.  Then had gone over the arsenal and touched down again at South Memorial Parkway and Airport Rd.  Pretty much a straight line across post to Airport road.  We lived in an apartment on Newson Rd. south off of Drake Ave, and on the map in a direct line with where the tornado touched down on Zierdt rd and at Airport Rd. 

http://maps.google.com/maps?client=safari&rls=en&q=map+of+huntsville+al&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=Huntsville,+AL&gl=us&ei=G5i9TbvTBoiitgfKkdTUBQ&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=image&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ8gEwAA

http://blog.al.com/breaking/2009/11/photo_slideshow_1989_tornado_a.html

After seeing all of the destruction from that storm, I was very freaked out!  Some of the images that I saw (wish I’d thought to take pic’s to document it myself), were the fact that there used to be a little florist with a green house sitting right at the north corner of the parkway and Airport rd.  After the tornado, the green house covered in Plastic, was still standing just fine, but right behind it the firestone tire place got hit and then it hopped across the street and flattened the strip mall along Airport Rd. 

http://blog.al.com/breaking/2011/05/in_the_history_of_tornadoes_we.html

A few other things I remember vividly about that tornado damage were the car (I think it was a vw bug, but not sure) sitting abt. 20 feet up in the air on a power transformer box.  It was crazy! Also, the apartments up on the hill going up airport road out to Jones Valley, were just cut in half!  I remember you could see right into what had once been people’s apartments and homes!

Suffice it to say, when we moved back to Huntsville in 1993, and we heard tornado sirens, my little family and I were huddled up in the bathtub together.  We didn’t go so far as to pull a mattress over the top of us, not that we really had that as an option since the only mattress in the house was a crib mattress, (we had a water bed at that time, so no help there).

So here we are back in Alabama, for the third time… I have been grateful for the advances in technology that make Doppler radar warnings so accurate!  We usually will turn on the t.v. and watch the storm track report to see if WE really need to take cover.  So often it is just south of 565 and the Airport.  We’ve seen lots of trees and fences blown down over the years, but not really any serious damage from tornadoes near us over the past years.

I spent Wednesday April 27^th, on the road to Montgomery, Alabama.  Three other friends and I went down with many other supporters from all over the state to attend the Senate health Committee hearing on our bill to legalize Certified Professional Midwives and license them in our state.  We have been working on this bill actively since about 2002.  Each year we hope it’s our year!  I have been to Montgomery several times over the past few years.  One year it was just Liam in a sling, one year I took a few of my older children with me as well and we ‘marched’ at the state house.  It has been interesting seeing up close a bit more about how our government really works. 

Anyway, we had our bill SB 238 up before the Senate Health Committee, and so off we all went to Montgomery.  The day before, a friend told me she’d heard it was supposed to be really bad weather on Wed. but no one knew what that would really mean until after.   

(I just got this in an email a week later)

CURRENT THINKING IS THAT THE GREATEST TORNADO POTENTIAL WILL EXIST

   LATE THIS AFTERNOON AND EARLY THIS EVENING FROM COLUMBUS MS EWD TO

   BIRMINGHAM AND HUNTSVILLE AL. THIS AREA IS CURRENTLY SOUTH OF THE

   ONGOING MCS WHERE DESTABILIZATION SHOULD BE MOST FAVORABLE. AS

   SUPERCELLS INITIATE IN ERN MS AND TRACK ENEWD ACROSS THE HIGH RISK

   AREA LATE THIS AFTERNOON...A TORNADO OUTBREAK IS EXPECTED. A FEW

   LONG-TRACK STRONG TORNADOES AND POSSIBLY A VIOLENT TORNADO OR TWO

   MAY OCCUR AS THE LOW-LEVEL JET STRENGTHENS EARLY THIS EVENING. HAVE

   ADDED A 45 PERCENT SIG-TOR AREA WHERE CONFIDENCE IS THE HIGHEST

   CONCERNING THE POTENTIAL FOR LONG-TRACK TORNADOES.  LARGE HAIL AND

   WIND DAMAGE WILL ALSO BE LIKELY WITH SUPERCELLS THAT DEVELOP.

Tornado potential for the remainder of the day.

We all got up early, and went on our way to arrive in Montgomery in plenty of time.   While on the road, my husband called to let me know that highway 65 was backed up near the Jasper exit  - nearly to Birmingham) from downed trees.  Luckily we’d left early to give ourselves plenty of time.  We did sit for a few minutes and traffic was slow once it got started again. There were lots of trees that had gone down and both the north and south bound lanes had been stopped while they made a quick path through all the debris (or Derbis – as one of our friends quoted from someone in her past). 

We got through that part of the road, and rain earlier as well, to clear roads and sky.  We arrived in Montgomery, found our way to the Statehouse, and went in to ‘work’.  We spoke with our Representatives, and urged them to please support and back up SB 238 to allow for licensing of CPM’s. We then found our dear friend JCM, one of  the people/MW’s, who has worked tirelessly for the past several years on our bill.  She reported to us that a tornado had hit down in Cahaba Heights  - Birmingham, a street over from where she lives around 5:30 am… she had gotten up, and put on her brave face even in the face of storm damage to her neighbors, as well as dealing with other personal life crisis, and had gone to ‘work’ in Montgomery for the day. 

I think we were all a little shocked to hear it had hit down so close to our friend’s home somewhere we’ve all been at multiple times. And after seeing the power that had torn down all those trees along the freeway as we’d driven down it gave us a real respect for the storm that had already hit.  We heard on the radio and though family back home to expect more storms that afternoon.  Just after our Senate hearing I had heard from Amanda that they were letting schools out early and sending the kids home, before more storms hit.  So, we finished our day at the state house, got some lunch (one of the mom’s with us was pregnant and NEEDED to eat some food!), then we got back on the road to head home. 

As we drove further and further North, we began to hit some rain, and we got several phone calls from our husbands telling us of the storm updates back home.  We turned on the radio to listen to storm reports, but we couldn’t’ hear about home until much later…  we were getting Birmingham news.  As we drove further we heard more and more reports of bad damage being done from tornados across the state.  We heard about the one that hit Tuscaloosa, and I immediately texted to see if my daughter Rebekah and her husband Chris were alright.  Thankfully they were, but the tornado touched down a block from their apartment, and took out blocks and blocks of the city.  It was pretty scary to think about how close they were to it!  They had hunkered down in their apartment, but they live on the 2^nd floor, and wouldn’t have been protected if the path of the tornado was any closer to them!  Amanda told her if ever another comes through they were to go downstairs and knock on ANYONE’s door to try to help protect themselves from the storm!!!

Between phone calls from our husbands, we’d listen to the news reports and hear of tornado's or possible tornado's that had come close to Athens, Harvest, Toney, Madison and Huntsville, where we all live.  Then, as we got closer to home, we were coming up toward Cullman and heard that another tornado was approaching it as well.  We pulled off the road, along with quite a few other cars full of travelers to try to stay out of the storms path.  We were all sitting in a little rest stop welcome center pavilion.  (Exit 300) They had enough back up generator power to light the bathrooms, so that was good, but meanwhile there we all were.  When should we go?  What should we do?  We contacted our friend K in Cullman to see if perhaps we could wait out the storm at her house, but, as it turned out she and W had had to stop their car and lay down in a ditch on their way home to avoid a tornado's path on their way home and no one in Cullman had any power. 

We felt an urgency to get home to our families and homes… We each had our phones out trying to keep in contact with our families.  We were mothers fearing for our families back home, and a little bit for ourselves as well.

Lisa – had three children at home alone, who were running out of phone battery power, so unable to get in contact with her kids.  She started calling on friends and her pastor to try to go check in on her kids for her.

Jeni – who drove her new Suburban that day (thank you so much for that!!!), had her 5 children in 2 or 3 different locations, around Huntsville and Madison, with family and friends. Her husband was working in B’ham for a couple of days, so he wasn’t home either, and nervous for us and them as well. 

Hannah – our sweet pregnant momma – was actually having some contractions by this time.  She was 36 weeks, and the driving for 4 hours and the walking around the Statehouse, and the stress of the storms was not reacting very well for her.  At one point she was talking to her hubby while he drove home from work, along 53 North.  He was talking to her,  told her the sky was turning green, he said, wow that was close!, and told her he had to go…  that really put stress on poor prego momma!  Then for a long while (perhaps close to an hour) she could not get in contact with him. 

When she did get through to him I’m not sure if it helped or not since he reported that he’d been on the edge of the tornado that took out a bank, and gas station and some other things at Jeff Rd and hwy 53!  It had actually picked his car up off of the ground and shook it around and then he was back on the ground.  Very frightening experience for him and very much for his sweet prego wife as well!

As for me, I heard that my two older girls had gone to hang out with friends after they got out of school early, so my three youngest were home all alone.  This made me very nervous.  My husband was at work still since every time he thought he’d head home another storm front would come through and he’d have to stay put until the next break in the storm.  SO… my brave little children were huddled in the bathroom, coloring, and eating snacks.  Hannah had called and asked for my computer password so they could watch the news, since the power was out, and they couldn’t watch t.v. to see the storm path, and the sirens had stopped working, when the power went out at the Browns Ferry Power Nuclear plant.  Finally Bill was able to make it home in the 20 minutes between storm paths. 

Meanwhile, we had pulled off in Cullman, and then after getting back on the road, we drove further north, we watched and heard as the storm was building up again and so we pulled off the road in Priceville, just south of Decatur and watched with a lot of other people as a large wall cloud/shelf cloud, crossed the River and headed toward Huntsville,  just south of 565 again.

As we watched we listened and the reports that another large storm path was heading from the Tuscaloosa area to Birmingham and then this siren went off, and we all thought it was an odd sounding siren.  Not the regular tornado siren sound that we are all accustomed to, but a strange sound… then an announcement comes on that said there was a chemical leak and to evacuate the area immediately!  Not only do we have all of us sitting there together, but we had a prego mom and beloved Pumkin seed/baby to think about!  We couldn’t let them ingest anything from a chemical leak! 

We figured we had to get back in the car and on the road, but which direction should we go?!?!?!  If we go back south, we know there is a large mile wide cloud coming on a path through there, and we would be that much further away from our homes and loved one’s, so we headed north.  We watched as that big black cloud was hovering over 565 going toward Madison and Huntsville.  We tried to decide if we should go on 565 since Lisa’s car was parked along there, where we’d met up at this morning, and we’d already heard that a tornado had touched down at Wall Triana and 72 – Oh well, that’s where I had left my van at that morning, when I met up with to car pool.  So we decided that we’d take 65 North and exit at Hwy 72.  Somehow we’d missed some of the reports that 72 had been hit, a couple of times and we most likely wouldn’t have been able to get home going that way anyway!

So there we were driving North on 65 we made the decision to pass the exit to 565, and then we got stuck in traffic.  Shortly we heard that two 18 wheeler trucks have gone off the road, and that is why it’s all backed up. We decide we can take the Browns Ferry Exit.  Now, I’d never taken it before in my life , I’d been planning on it in the recent past, just never got around to it.  But over all Browns Ferry comes out by my house, so I figured we might have to do some twist and turns but hoped it would get us home…

We are sitting in traffic and the weather clears a bit… I remember that several of us commented on how eerily still it had gotten, then the sky begins to get dark, the wind begins to whip the trees around and the rain starts pounding us again.  At one point we hear a large clanking sound, like we’d been hit with a rock, but on the roof, and perhaps it may have been a rock, or some debris (derbis), but then we heard another one, we wondered if it was hail but never saw any other evidence of hail.  Of course in the aftermath and hearing peoples stories I hear that Hail is part of the storm front as the tornado gets ready to touch down…  So there we sit, and I start praying as we can go nowhere, we are in stopped traffic and I just feel like another tornado is about to hit us!  I was trying to not show how scared I was and keep conversation light, but I was so afraid!  I really thought that was going to be it!  Then the rain let up a bit, and the clouds passed by and it got a bit lighter, and I thought we’d be alright. 

We eventually passed one of the overturned trucks, it was an oil tanker, all twisted up, I wondered at which direction it had actually been heading in the first place.  Then we finally came up to the Browns Ferry Exit and so we took it.  Well, we took the exit but somehow didn’t’ realize how badly that area had been hit, even though we had heard while waiting in Cullman the power was out at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, and Lisa had talked with a gentleman who’d worked there for years and asked questions about it’s safety features and could it leak like the Fukashima Nuclear plant in Japan.  I don’t know exactly where the Nuclear plant is located off of the Browns Ferry road, and exit, so we just took it anyway, otherwise we were trapped on 65 N and we all just wanted to get home to our families and off the road!

Well, as we drove evening came on, and we found ourselves driving past what had once been homes and there were trees down everywhere and debris strewn about all around us and houses smashed and some completely gone down to the foundation.  We were driving through flood waters up to the bottom of the suburban.  We certainly were glad that Jeni had just bought the suburban and that she’d been willing to drive.  I had been willing to drive my van, but it certainly wouldn’t have fared as well as the suburban, and  not in Hannah’s car.  Not to mention the fatigue and stress of having been the driver in all of those storms all day long, the rain, wind and then all the debris, etc…  Thank you Jeni so much for getting us through it all and bringing us home to our families!

We’d also heard reports of flooding becoming worse and worse, throughout the evening and next day with all the rain from the storms.  I have often watched the news, and seen people who have been trapped in flood waters. They are climbing on top of their cars and having to be saved by someone in a boat, or air lifted out.  I have wondered how does this happen?  Can’t they see the deep water and avoid driving on that particular road or in that area?  I have a lot more compassion for them now! There we were, driving on what seemed our only option of roads, and suddenly we were in flood waters.  The fields were completely full and covered with brown rushing water.  I had driven part way out from home on Browns Ferry Rd recently so I knew there were several bridges along the way and all of those area’s were completely flooded.  The water was up several feet on the road, and just rushing across, and we couldn’t even see the actual road at all.  We were following other cars and following the lights of the other cars as it got darker and darker as night came on, and we just hoped they would stay on the road so that we could follow them.  I supposed it was nearby residents that had gone out and were cutting of branched from all the downed trees so that there would be at least a one lane passage and then we’d have to take turns going through that stretch of the road.  http://www.ready.gov/america/beinformed/floods.html

At that point I’d lost track of time and I have no idea how long it actually took us to get home from this point.  That drive seemed to take us forever! We still had to get people back to their homes and cars.   I had told Bill about leaving the van parked at Mc D’s on 72 and Wall Triana, so he got Amanda and they went to pick up my van.  It was fine, as was Mc D’s, but there had been a tornado that had hit the next corner south at Gooch and Wall Triana.  It had knocked out a bunch of power lines, and torn up trees!  One of our friends M, who lives on Gooch had been driving home and had been almost at the corner as it hit there and he watched as it came almost directly over his own home then hit down at that corner tearing up trees all over the place.  His house was essentially fine, (small  damages to the siding and flashing on the roof), right next door however is another friend of ours  N&A, they had been in the closet or bathroom taking cover with their 4 children, and could hear the storm outside, and hear trees snapping, and then they heard parts of their house being torn up.  Luckily for them it was just roof tiles that they lost and the storm went a bit farther before touching down completely at the corner, but they lost fence and trees and roofing tiles.  Now several days later they have flooding inside their home form the roof damage.  What an experience, and so close to home and to good friends, but all are safe.

Anyway, back to getting home and getting our friends home.  Once we arrived at our house, we decided to have Jeni take Lisa to her vehicle, since even though Jeni lives north and just up the road from Hannah, her house was empty and her small children were at a friend’s house to the south, and closer to where Lisa had parked that morning.  We sent them on their way, and they all made it home fine.  We had heard however that the road North up Old Rail Road Bed Rd was flooding and had trees and power lines down and it was nearly impassable.  Hannah had talked with her husband who said he’d come get her, but I didn’t want to make him get back out in the storm after having been in the edge of that tornado he’s experienced, and besides he has a car and we have a truck.  So Bill put his chain saw and gloves in the  back of the truck and I put my birth stuff in the back as well since Hannah was still contracting some, just to put her at ease.  Then we headed out.  The drive was definitely not a fun one.  The road was bad.  Lines were down everywhere.  Emergency crews were out cutting back the trees.  Along the way were a couple of cars here and there that had been hit and smashed by trees as they came crashing down.   The drivers had left them – I certainly hope the people of those vehicles were alright and had made it to safety from the storms.  We also saw more homes that had been smashed and destroyed as well as another or more swept from the foundations. 

We were able to get Hannah home and her husband was so happy to see her safe and well!  We went inside and we listened for baby, all seemed to be well, and once the storms were finished and she was reunited with her hubby, things seemed to calm down for her a bit, and I suggested he give her a massage and that she get some rest. We got back on the road and made it home again to our family.

 In the dark of night it’s hard to see all the destruction clearly.  I am so thankful my family was safe and that our homes are still intact.  I feel for those who are suffering from loss of homes and loss of family and friends in all of this.  They had already said that it would be days before power was up and going again, and as much as we wanted to help until they had things organized they asked that volunteers just wait.  There were going to be plenty of opportunities to help out, it might take months to clean up and recover from the storms. 

We got up on Thursday morning, and we went looking for gas.  Bill had called the gas station on post and they confirmed that yes they had gas and that their pumps were working.  So rather than clog up the already over burned communities to our North in Fayetteville, TN or over to Athens to our West, or further, we thought it would be helpful to go on post where the military could help us.  After driving there they had lost power or something and the gate guards were turning all but essential personnel away at the gate.  Still needing gas, we went ahead and drove out to Athens.  We found a station that was operational, so we got in what seemed like a short line.  Shortly after getting in that line we saw a tanker truck pull in and so we knew they would have ample supply. However, after sitting in line for a long time and we got closer to the front, we saw that they were only pumping from one gas pump and had one line coming from each direction (yes, cars had lined up going the wrong way across the highway to access the gas station).  Anyway we were just happy to be able to get gasoline.  It took us an hour and a half or a bit more, plus the drive time, but we were filled and able to go forward.

The mayor made an announcement that basically said, there were limited resources and the entire county of Madison, Alabama was without power, and some areas surrounding Madison, in an effort to conserve, water, food sources, gas, etc… if you were able to leave the area to go.  We had just the previous weekend gone to Atlanta to the Temple open house, and had spent the day at Stone mountain State Park, where we ended up buying a year pass, so we decided to go back.  We would still be paying for food (which we’d have to pretty much go in search of and eat out at home), and we’d have a hotel bill, but we could keep the kids occupied, and have plenty of water, gas, food, etc.  So once we got home from the outing to get a full take of gasoline, we packed up and got on the road.  On the one hand we felt a little guilty, and when they did get some work parties organized on Sat, we weren’t here to help out, but we had done what was asked, we left so more resources would be available to those who couldn’t leave.  If we had had only older children, or no children like we did back in 1989 when we were here for thee other tornado, we would have stayed and we would have tried to help, but this time we did what we felt was right for our family.

Poor Liam, was supposed to have his birthday party that night at Chuck E. Cheese with his friends from school.  I knew I was going to be gone and busy on Wednesday, so I had worked really hard on Monday and Tuesday to prep things in order to be able to throw his birthday cake together on Thursday.  With the storms and the change of plans, while packing clothes, I also packed up part of the cake and decorations that were already made and took it with us. 

I’m sure we will remember Liam’s 5^th birthday for a long time to come.  

After spending the day at Stone Mountain, we got back to the hotel, Sariah and I put the cake together and decorated it and we had his birthday in the hotel.  

He was very cute all day in his Birthday Boy T-Shirt. 

Not having unlimited resources, we knew we had to come back home at some point.  We thought about me and the kids heading over to visit friends of ours in N.C., and were grateful they would have been willing to put up with us, but after driving 4 hours to get home from Atlanta on Sunday, May 1, 2011 and knowing some people were starting to get power back up, we decided that driving to NC to spend only a day or less, if we had to be back for school on Wed – if power was up by then, that we ought to just stay home and work on clean up.

Monday we spent the whole day cleaning out refrigerators and freezers.  We did throw out a lot of stuff, and had lots of cleaning form the Popsicles and chicken that had defrosted in some of them, but we were also lucky that we had meat that had only begun defrosting.  We felt very blessed that our power came back on Monday afternoon, after no power in the area for 5 days.  We began the cooking in order to save some food.  We cooked chicken and froze it for future meals, we cooked up taco meat,  I pulled out my food dehydrator that I had never yet used in the 6 or more yrs I'd had it, and made some beef jerky.  – It turned out pretty good.  We ate steak, and cooked some more that we froze, we made a pork roast and ate that for dinner Tuesday night, I had frozen roll dough that had defrosted and begun to rise, so I made bread to have with dinner.


It's been a couple of weeks now, and it has been interesting to see how the storms affected us.  We've had a few cloudy and or rainy days in the past week or so, and it sort of freaks me out.  I was walking on the treadmill at the Gym at the new Y one morning and it got dark and we heard some Thunder and it was a little disconcerting how uptight I felt.  My chest got all tight and I was just gripping the handles on that treadmill very tightly…  I wonder how long I'll have this kind of reaction when a thunder storm heads my way.


It has been so sad to see all of the destruction.  I honestly can't truly imagine the massive amounts of destruction near Rebekah down in Tuscaloosa.  Around here we have lots of destruction, but it is so spread out.  Every where you look, everywhere you drive there are trees down and holes in roof's, piles of trees sitting by the roadside.  We have been able to help for a couple of weekends now, to go out and clean up trees from people's yards, some are our neighbors, in our neighborhood, others - neighbors in the community.  I have felt some survivors guilt at how our lives, once the power came back on and I cleaned out all the refrigerators and freezers, have just gone back to normal really.  There are people who have no homes or the home may still be standing, but the inside is just ruined and they have to move out while it is cleaned up and put back together.  These people are so brave and working so hard to move on with their lives.  

A friend of mine wrote this blog post about her tornado experience...  as I read it I had tears streaming down my face.  April 27th, 20011 is a day I will not soon forget.  You can read her story here -
http://mayfield-6.blogspot.com/2011/05/april-27-2011.html

I have lots of pic's too, and will be posting them some time soon.

Family History - Happy Birthday Dad

Well, here I am again.  (Surprise! I know)  I've been a lot more miss lately than hit at blogging.  I love the idea of it, and then I get too involved and then I get side tracked and never get anything in life accomplished!  I wanted to join the Love fest last month, but alas, it just never happened for me.  This month I got a message about a blog idea for the month.  I thought about it, but here it is day 4 and I have nothing to show for it.

Side note:  as I typed the date above, I realized it would be my daddy's birthday today.  He would have been 91... is that right?  He was born in 1920. wow!  My parents have been gone for over half of my life now, and sadly I don't think of them often enough.  I have a desire to have all sorts of wonderful stories and memories to pass along to my children so that they too can get to know my parents, but somehow things never work out quite like I'd like them to.  One day I just need to sit down and type all the stories I can think of!

Recently we've been watching some of the shows about genealogy on t.v.  There is one show on sunday mornings on BYU-TV after Music and the Spoken word.  I really enjoy that one.  Then we've also started watching one on regular tv - prime time I guess - that is about a STAR (t.v. star, movie star, etc) that has someone walk them through and help them find out about their own genealogical history and they love getting to know their family history, and getting to know their ancestors.  It's really neat.  I'd like for my children to be that involved and find a love of our own family history.

This past year, Amanda worked on some of our family history stories that others long ago worked on and put together but they are old mimeograph copies and somewhat difficult to read.  So, for her Young Woman in Excellence project she retyped them into the computer so we have a good file of them that is much easier to read.  (now she just needs to finish off the rest of the stories before she goes off to school next year.)  It was a fun experience for her to actually read some of the stories I had told her before, but to personalize them more.  To see our ancestors more, as real people.  To be working on this project at the same time that in Seminary she was reading and studying The Doctrine and Covenants and reading about the early Church History, was fun to also read some of this similar stuff, about people and places in our early family history as well.

Well, this is NOT where I had planned to go with this today, with my writing, but it apparently is what was on my heart today and needed to be said, or written down.  I miss my daddy, and wish my kids would have had the chance to know him here in this life too.