Pictures of the Storms

Hello everyone, here are just a few pictures from our trip to Ulysses. It's normally a 15-20 minute drive, but it took us 45-60 minutes to get there today! Every road into town was blocked with downed power lines, uprooted trees, or flooding. The main road into town was the only clear road, but even getting to that road was a challange!

The picture below is of a power pole that was snaped in half. The rest of the pictures pretty much speak for themselves. Everone please keep us in your prayers again tonight. From the sound of it it's supposed to be even worse tonight. Kendol is here, and it's been pretty good! :)

Counting My Blessings

Can anyone tell me what these cute little children are doing looking so cute? I give you just one guess, and you can't look at our past blogs....cause it gives the answers!!

If you guessed sitting in the basement, waiting out ANOTHER tornado. . . . . . . .You are totally right!!!!

This was the view, before the storms started. Thankgoodness, we had Aunt Lindsey over to help mommy earlier in the day. She stayed with the chillins while DH and I went to the West side of town (see we live on the East side, and you can't see anything!). When we went out before the rain and such came, this was our view. We went out about 10 minutes later, and you could see a vortex of a tornado start on it's way down. That was enough for me, and I told Joel to high tail it home, I wanted to be with the kids! The whole 5 block drive home (our town is about 7 blocks long!) I was praying to God that things would be okay, and that he would keep our family safe.

I'm now counting my blessings because not only are we safe, but that Tornado didn't touch down until it was a few miles outside of town. We were lucky, but from the sounds of it DH's sister, and her family, wern't so lucky. The tornado that tuched down, hit thier town, and there is no power, and such. We will be keeping little Kendol tomarrow, so mommy and daddy can assess the damage. (check back for those pictures later!!! I promise I won't forget my camera this time!) When I talked with Jennifer tonight, she was shaken up, but strong! So tomarrow will be a fun day! Kendol is about 6 weeks younger than Kaitlynn!

This is about all the damage we recieved, was just a ton of water!!! Our local gas station in town had water inside the store. My step sister, Jess, the one that was here for the last storm, works nights at the gas station, and called me to come with some fans. I ended up helping out with the water situation there!

All I know is that I'm counting my blessings, and thanking God for protecting us, and watching over us. He works in wonderful and mysterious ways, sometimes not always wonderful for us, or our families, but everything has a reason. We don't always see the reason to begin with, but in the end we understand all that he has done, to make us stronger, make us understand and grow within ourselves.

Ode to: The Dairy Wife

So this is an ode to you, Oh Dairy Wife. Not only to you but to my MIL also!

I don't think I could do

what you do every day.

The children,

the chores

they all have their way.

I'd go crazy I say

if I had to do it all day.

Okay so not really the greatest poem, but then again no one said I was a writter! What brings me to TRY and write poems? The family farm....dairy farm that is. I wrote about the storms, but that was before yesterday. Before I knew that my inlaws "got a g*d d*mn mess down here" (quoting FIL). They'd gotten hit with the storms also and ended up loosing a hay shed that decided it was best put on the Feeding shed, which caused quite a bit of damage to that shed also! Yesterday morning we headed down there to help the clean up process. By the time the kids and I arrived the menly men had gotten the Hay shed off the Feed shed and were starting to take it apart. I think they saved a total of 10 pieces of tin, the rest ended up on a flat bed headed to the local place that takes scrap metal. They were able to salvage a few 2 x 4's to help fix the Feed shed.

We were able to get it pretty much cleaned up lastnight, and it was a late night getting home. Joel's mom and dad had a wedding to go to today, so Joel was feeding. With grandma gone, it left 31 baby holstiens hungry and needing to be fed. Along with the kids that were there and Joel's two sisters, we got them done. But I have to say I don't know how MIL does it alone!!! I had at least 22 hands helping me, and I'm super sore tonight! So here's to you The Dairy Wife, and to MIL!! How you do it, and keep your sanity? You both have your hands full, and have raised more kids than I have, and I'm about ready to loose my mind some days!

What do you do with a rainy day?

We make MONSTER COOKIES!!! Yummy. With rainy weather we ususally make some sort of cookies, and a few weeks back we got to make Monster cookies! The kids loved doing it, but didn't get the concept that we wern't putting Monsters in it, and there weren't Monsters coming to eat them! But my little monsters LOVED them! :)

You also head out to Grandpa's (my dad's) house to check cows before the BIG storms come in! Which is just what we were headed to do, it was lightning and thundering, and the kids couldn't help watching for the "thunders". Which is just what we did tonight before the big storm, tornados and all!

(okay mom I know what you're thinking....why aren't those kids buckled!?!? They usually are when we go to dad's but yeah right they were too into looking at the storms!!!!!!!! It's about 5 miles round trip from our house to dad's!)

And what do you find when you come back from helping your grandparents get to the basement??? This is what I found!

They were sitting under the stairs, taking shelter from the Tornados that came through the state! It was a scary time, but everyone is okay, and we didn't get much but a bunch of rain, and some pea sized hail!

And then there is Dahrran aka MR WEATHER MAN! He loved looking at the radar on the computer, and kept saying "it's okay, we're okay". MacKenzie on the other hand kept asking where Texas was....um....(she still wants to go back to the Ocean!)..we'll get there before you know it!

Now that you've seen what we do with our rainy days, what do you do with yours?

Awesome Store, with Awesome Signs!!!!

So I really love the old painted signs and homemade things made from Barnwood. I call it country wood working, but come to find out it's called Primitave work! I never knew there was a style for it. I've been comming along it piece by piece through friends and family when I came across this. I love all of her work, and best of all she's from Nebraska, just like me! So hopefully I'll find her at a craft show soon......but until then I have to go here. Check her out, and see the cute things she's got for sale!!!!!

*****THANKS SO MUCH Ashley!!!! I get it, I don't know why I didn't think of doing it that way, I could always get the links in, but didn't even think of doing it that way!!!!

Here it is, finally I know!

Here is the slideshow of the pics! I know, I know, it's taken me a while.....but if you haven't noticed, I've changed our blog title. Well because that's what it feels like anymore! Summer has shown it's face, and our house has got pushed to the back. I'm lucky if I can walk through the living room and NOT step on something other than the carpet! I know what you're thinking, just get off your butt quit blogging, and get it cleaned. Because that's just what every mom of three wants to do when the babes are in bed, and the house is quiet, and I can finally catch up on Jon & Kate plus 8. I just don't know how she does it!!!! Then again, I know there is a LOT they don't show, and I'd almost bet that woman has help! There is NO way you can have a house that clean with children of that age.

Anywho enough with the rambelings, and here are the pics from our trip!!! The slide show is a bit long, but if you really want to see the pics from our trip you'll be willing to wait through it! :) Enjoy!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Wordless Wednesday

Teasing you I know, I"ll get them up soon, I promise!!!!!