Gone with the Wind....

It all started at 2:00am. I woke with a start to knocking on our front door. I was so startled and nervous, especially since Chris wasn't home. I just sat in bed wondering what to do....then I realized it wasn't knocking, it was banging...and the more I listened and the more I woke up, I soon realized it wasn't knocking at all, it was the Christmas ornament on my front door being blown around.

That was a relief, but it still meant I had to open the door to the darkness to get it. I hate doing that when I'm alone! I thought once I took care of that I'd be able to sleep...but that was just the beginning. The wind really started to pick up about 3:00am. I was awakened many times by the noise of something rolling down the street or hitting the windows, or just the trees being blown around. Abby climbed in bed with me around 4am. She was scared. I was happy to have her come in with me, I was scared too. Together we watched the neighbors in the back scramble to get their trampoline taken down in the dark, and other tie down items they didn't want to blow away.

I was so grateful when it was finally day...6am. But then we lost all power - it was Gone with the wind... The wind kept getting stronger and stronger... We all huddled around the windows watching shingles, siding, garbage cans and even a trampoline fly away. The kids were scared. Abby especially was scared! I tried to take Abby to school with my mom, but we only got half way there before a police man turned us around and told us that school was cancelled! Who's ever heard of a Wind Day? That's how crazy the wind was!!!

We watched our Aspen trees get blown over. We really thought our front tree was going to go down too - but luckily it stayed upright. (although now it is leaning about 4-6 feet towards the street...not sure what to do about that, and we wonder if it is safe??)

Here's our aspen trees....


we lost quite a few shingles - making a nice hole on our roof. We got it covered with plastic until the roofers can get to us... I'm sure they have a request list about a mile long!

Here is some damage that happened to our neighbors - they lost a lot of their roof, siding, their entire fence, and we also watched their trampoline get blown down the canal. I felt bad for them!Abby and Eric huddled in bed using the last of the battery power in the laptop computer to watch a movie. It was a long day entertaining them without power. I'm amazed at how much I am dependent on power. Andrew was the most affected. He didn't know what was going on, and why we were sitting in the dark, and why he couldn't have his milk warmed up instantly!
After the storm died down, I went out to start cutting up the tree with my hand saw. Soon, there were neighbors helping me. We got them all in to a pile in the front. Another nice neighbor used his chain saw to cut the trunks up.
Here's our pile of tree....

Andrew enjoyed being outside helping.
Thursday night the power still wasn't on. I got a fire going (without setting off the fire alarm...that's a first!) We were all nice and toasty in the basement. I set up everyone's bed, because we didn't know if the power would come back on. We toasted marshmallows, and read stories to pass the time. The kids loved it!
Here's abby's bed all made up - I put Eric's next to it...I wish I would have gotten a shot of that too, but I didn't.
Andrew even joined in the fun in his pack n play. Before he went to bed, I put his down coat on so he would stay warm. We got to bed about 8pm, since there wasn't too much to entertain us in the dark. The kids went down pretty easy actually, all snug in their beds. I was downstairs sleeping on the beds with them, until about 10pm, when the power came back on and the lights came on in the basement. That was a little bit of a shock to be woken up by. But - a good shock! After the power came back on, I put Andrew in his own bed, and went and slept in my own bed too - BLISS!!!

Friday the school district cancelled school again so we could have time to clean up ( I think). It was a nice day to get some stuff back in order, call the insurance and start the clean up process.

Here's the spot on our roof without shingles - not nearly as bad as some in the neighborhood.
Today (Saturday) we had a ward breakfast and instead of having the program, they declared it a ward clean up day. They came to our house first ....thank you very much!! Our tree was the first to go. It's sad to see trees go! Chris spent most of the day helping others in the ward get their trees taken care of. There's so much clean up still left, but at least we got a lot down to the dump.
It was quite an adventure. The craziest part of the whole thing was watching this tree in the front yard. If you watch the ground around the tree, you will see what I mean - it was totally crazy. I thought for sure it would come out. I'm grateful it didn't, but I guess I'm a little nervous that it will be like a loose tooth now, and is just waiting for the right time to fall! We'll call ya'll when it comes down someday!!

Enjoy the videos....