So Thankful for Our Tornado Story

Yesterday was a day we won't soon forget. Partially because it was memorable and partially because our boys will not stop talking about it. Yesterday we hunkered down in our church worship center and weathered the storms that seemed to cover our state. I have never been so close to a tornado. I'd be ok if I am never that close again.

We had just finished up selecting a child's name from the angel tree and were gathering up the boys to head out of church. As we were gathering the power went out- we started for the door. Just as we got to the exit we heard people telling everyone to get into the worship center or another safe place. I wasn't sure why. Paul and I looked at each other, both thinking we should just keep walking and get to the van. A little bad weather wasn't going to scare us off and we wanted to get to lunch, not be stuck at church. As we looked at each other and had a silent conversation between us we heard that there was a tornado warning. We still wanted to head home. But then we saw that the church greeters and security and parking team members were ushering everyone that was outside, back into the building. Even if we tried, I'm not sure we would have been allowed to leave. For this we are praising God. We estimate that we would have been directly in the path of the tornado had we got in our van and drove away. Instead we complied and took the boys into the dark worship center. I have no concept of time after this. But shortly after we sat down you could hear the wind. Then our ears popped and people started saying to get down. As we pushed our kids onto the floor under the seats and put ourselves over them we could here debris pounding on the building and what sounded like a train go through. It was so fast. It was so scary and despite my best efforts I started crying. All during this time our church was amazing. I can't recall all the timing but during the worst of the storm there was prayer by our pastor, corporate prayer by those of us huddled together. We were praying, our children were praying. There was worship. I wish my pictures would have turned out. Hundreds of us gathered together lifting our hands as we sang to our King, our protector. After the worst seemed to have passed Paul went out to survey. When he came in and told me our van's windows had been blown in, I sat down and started crying again. I don't know why. It's a van, no big deal. But I think that was when we realized how close we were. That tornado went right through our parking lot. Cars had been pushed into each other. Metal from a nearby storage place was piercing cars, windows blown in, trees down, fences mangled. Those in our church who saw the most say the tornado came right to the edge of our sidewalk, blowing the doors to the church open and blowing debris in, but harming no one. Our God was with us. He was protecting us. Had that tornado scooted over and hit our building, there's no telling what would have happened but almost certain injury and probably death. I think this is what has me so shaken, even today. We are so grateful for God's protection yesterday. And we are so thankful for our church staff, volunteers and body. They handled the situation beautifully, without panic, with complete faith and trust in God. They reached out to highway passerbys who had minor injuries, they reached into their closets and pulled out what food they had for people who had no way home. Those whose cars were not damaged gave rides. We were one body, for Christ working together, sacrificially to meet the needs of those around us. I'm excited to see how we as a church can work together to help those more severely affected by yesterday's tornadoes.

I'm grateful this all there is to our story. Our family is all safe, our kids are
unharmed, and our house lost power, one shingle, our flag and a wreath. As I told our boys sitting in the dark yesterday, it is merely an inconvenience that our van was damaged. It's just a van. It can be fixed or replaced. So much of what people lost yesterday cannot be. So while I still feel shook up and I still keep tearing up, I am thankful for our situation and so prayerful for our neighboring towns.

Kindergarten!

It's been a big week here at the Friend house. Yesterday I accompanied Jack to his first, very short day of kindergarten and today he went for his first regular day, a half day in the afternoon. I am usually the type to be excited as my kids embark on new adventures and this was no exception. However, I was am extremely nervous and apparently a bit emotional. For the first day I kept reading and rereading all my school papers to make sure I had all the right supplies and did't forget any details like what time to arrive and where to go. I was so nervous and Jack thought it was just any other day. He said he was a little excited, not worried or nervous about anything, thought it was cool that Mason was in his class and was pretty much accepting of Silas not being in his class. Meanwhile I was practically biting my nails off! Day 1 was uneventful. Day 2 was today and I spent all morning watching the clock, ticking off the minutes until it was time to leave. We got their a few minutes early and although Jack was really excited to go in by himself he did ask if I would stand outside and wait with him while he waited for his teacher to start their line. It was so sweet of him and as I walked back to the van, waving good bye I started to tear up. I was so shocked at my emotions and honestly it took me a bit to recover. I couldn't even really tell you specifically why there were tears. I suppose it's just emotional seeing your kids grow up and take big steps like going to kindergarten. Probably safe to say I'll be a bawling mess when they go to college. Despite my continued nerves about this coming year I am so excited to seeing Jack learn and grow. Between him being in kindergarten and the twins starting preschool soon, I predict lots of change/growing up this year. Should be an exciting ride!

First day as a Lincoln Lion. All ready to go with his really heavy backpack full of supplies and his gift for his teacher.

Jack with his teacher, Mrs. Parkinson, at the end of his first full day of school. Hopefully he'll learn/remember her name soon!

Cabin in the Woods

This past weekend we enjoyed a long weekend in The-Middle-Of-Nowhere, Wisconsin with two other families for some fun and relaxation on Big Hills Lake. The Oxley Cabin has been our host before and it never disappoints. Somehow a lake setting is always so peaceful to me even with 7 kids running around. We enjoyed riding in the fast boat, tubing, walks, bike rides, wakeboarding, playing games and swimming at the beach. The kids had fun trying new things and playing with friends we don't see very often. The weekend almost took a terrible turn for the worse when Paul had a bad tubing accident.  Thankfully, he survived with not much more than rope burns, soarness and bruises. Although I didn't see what happened because I too was being thrown into the water, from the looks and sounds of it the accident could have been A LOT worse than it was. We are so grafetful for God's protection and that Paul's head is still attached. The kids have been asking to go back since before we even left and Jack has proclaimed that he would like to live there instead of our home in Morton.

All the kiddos.

Within our first hour on the boat our fearless captain (Nate) ran over the rop to the tube getting it tangled in the motor. We spent the next hour and a half trying to flag someone down to tow us which is difficult when there is no one else out on the lake. Finally, Tanya caught the attention of these fisherpeople and they graciously pulled us home.

 

Paul tubing with the boys and wakeboarding.

The Oxley beach. Much fun had here.

Chanda and I tubing. She laughed the whole time and I screamed the whole time. Much fun was had here too.

Garden Harvest

Our garden has done quite well, despite our best efforts to let the weeds take over. I spent hours and days weeding in the spring and hardly made a dent. The task was so great that I pretty much just gave up. A few of our plantings did not reep a harvest due to the weeds but so much of the garden has done well, perhaps better than I expected. We've had radishes, peas, carrots, lettuce, onions and a few tomatoes. In July Dad picked our first round of corn which was perhaps not the prettiest, but was really delicious. Our second crop of corn yielded well over 15 dozen ears of corn and was good but we liked the first round better (we had tried two different types). The kids had fun running through the corn "forest" with their papa though I'm not sure they were ever too helpful with the harvesting. We've also had more cucumbers than I can handle from our one or two cucumber plants and it's not even done. We have had two watermelons from the garden which have been small and very seedy in my opinion but pretty tasty. We still have potoatoes left to dig up and our pumpkins are still growing. We have one (or maybe it's two) plants that have really gotten large and seem to have over a dozen pumpkins growing. We will see if it continues to do well. The kids would really enjoy picking pumpkins this fall.

 

Sweet Friends

We had the opportunity last week to have an end of summer bash with several of my good mommy friends and many of the kids good friends. It was a busy, chaotic but wonderful time spent together. One thing I've noticed over the summer and have mentioned to Brittany is how our twins have started realizing that they "go together". Instead of being four kids the same age that are playing at the same house they have begun to identify as friends. This has been so sweet to watch. I love the little friendships my children have formed. As we talked a bit that day we realize that our seasons of life are in transition. The kids are getting older and school schedules don't always line up. Our days of frequent playdates are on hiatus until next summer which means we will have to be more inentional about finding time to connect with each other and time, for the older kids especially, to hang out together. So grateful for these little friends and their moms.

Tunnels in Town

The fact that I'm even bloggin about this tells you how corny I can be. But hey every small town probably has some tradition that most people hold on to but no one knows why. In Morton it was the tunnels. There is only one set of tunnels which is actually a lot, most towns don't have any. And you can ask almost anyone in town about them and they will tell you....you honk when you drive through. For many of us this is something our parents did for us when we were kids and now we do it for our our children. There was just something special about driving through those tunnels. But last week we said good bye. We had a whole tunnel parade of cars and everything. Our kids are sad to lose the excitement and childlike joy that driving through a tunnel brings. As our way of saying good bye we joined the parade and drove through no less than four time (honking each time) on the last night they were open.

Galactic Voyage VBS

The week after the twin's birthdays we had VBS at church.  The theme was Galactic Voyage and was very Star Warsy which went over well with our kids. There was a lot of learning about how big God is and just how far he would go to save us. This was the first year that all five of us got involved and though it was exhausting I think we pretty much loved every  minute of it. I really love when we get the opportunity to be involved with our church as a family. Paul was able to rush home from work every day to serve as a parking and security guy. I was lucky enough to be a leader in the 4th grade class. They were fun and challenging and I enjoyed engaging with kids that were not the same age as my own children. Jack was in the kindergarten class and though I didn't get to see him much during each evening he was excited every night about the things he got to do. He was especially excited about the nights his class got to go to worship twice and that he was selected to slime our Jr. High Pastor, Kevin. Schaeffer and Logan got to be in the preschool class which was lucky enough to get to participate in pretty much all the same things as the older kids. They really loved it and I'm hoping it's a sign of good things to come in preschool.

VBS exhaustion. VBS got done at 8:30 and by the time we got home it was after 9 every night. Our kids are used to a 7 o'clock bedtime! Needless to say they were exhausted by the end of the week and actually started sleeping in quite a bit. Here Schaeffer is clinging to his jet pack.

Happy Birthday to Schaeffer! Happy Birthday to Logan!

A few weeks ago we had the privelage of celebrating two birthdays in our family. Schaeffer and Logan turned 3 years old which I'm still finding hard to believe. They were so excited for their birthdays this year. Logan especially want to grow up so bad, I think he would have rather turned 5 than 3 but he was still plenty excited. They know at least a little that 3 year olds get to do more stuff, like preschool and tumbling and chewing gum. We told them months ago that they had to be 3 to chew gum. Thankfully, they have only had a few pieces and the novelty has worn off. 

Their birthday this year was sponsored by Monster's University. We took them to see the movie in the theater which they loved and they earned Sully and Mike stuffies for various potty training successes. And they were quite thrilled with my suggestion to make Sully and Mike cakes. Logan talked about eating Mike's eye for weeks before his birthday.

On their actual birthday we were excited to spend the day with the Winkelman cousins. Breakfast at Judy's followed by some swimming at the pool and then more swimming that evening at Grandma and Papa's house. The next day was their party and we had a backyard full of family and friends. There was lots of swimming and jumping. We are so thankful for such a wonderful group of people for our boys to grow up with.

Our Little Athlete

This was the summer of sports for Jack. With Schaeffer and Logan being too young to participate yet, we let Jack try a bunch of sports to see if maybe one or two would emerge as a favorite. As it turns out Jack just loves playing, being with friends and running around (shocking, I know). He's content to do those things via whatever sport is going that day. Early in the summer Jack did a two week, individual skills basketball camp. The high school coach and team run the camp and I thought they did an excellent job. I love that they focused much more on character building than skills. Despite making only one basket in two weeks, Jack had a really great time learning a little about dribbling, shooting and defending. I loved it when he would excitedly tell me how some of his shots didn't go in, but "they hit the net, Mom!". He was thrilled that two of his preschool buddies were there with him and as is usual he made fast friends of the coaches and other kids.

Jack also participated in his final year of the park distric T-Ball/Soccer program. I would have personally prefered to sign him up for MYBA t-ball but I dropped the ball and missed sign ups by a long shot. I know Jack didn't even know the difference. I think one of the funniest things about Jack was on t-ball day. When it was his turn to hit he would step up to the plate, pound home plate with his bat a few times, hit the ball and then carefully set his bat down and gently remove his helmet and set it on the ground before he would take off running. The helmet was just too cumbersome for him to run in.

Jack got to try one other new sport this year (besides basketball). We signed him up for tennis class which he was super excited about. He had a great time with that as they worked on learning forehand and backhand skills.

Grandma and Papa Friend took us for ice cream after Jack's final tennis. Since all of his sports are wrapped up for now, I asked him what his favorite was, what he enjoyed the most. He instantly replied all of them but then gave it some more thought and said basketball and tennis. When I asked him if that was because he got to play those sports with friends he grinned and said yes. So that's my Jack, loves to play, no matter the game and especially with friends. 

Rain, Rain Go Away

Anyone living in the midwest right now knows, we have had A LOT of rain! It makes enjoying the spring and warmer weather a little difficult when it's soggy and storming most of the time. We've been trying to make the best of it though and the kids have enjoyed getting to wear their rain boots and rain coats and being allowed to stomp in puddles. Two weekends ago Jack got to go fishing with Papa in the rain while my mom and I took the twins out for some errands. We ended up at a nursery during the rainiest part of the day. The twins had a blast and got completely drenched. They look so cute in their rain coats! Then this weekend with more rain but slightly higher temperatures Paul gave the boys each an umbrella and sent them out to run in the gutters while we watched from the mostly dry porch. They had an absolute blast.

Radishes!

We have been spending quite a bit of our free time at my parent's house tending to the garden. I should take a picture of the whole thing so you can see just how big it's gotten (and we aren't done planting yet!) and just how many weeds their are. Turns out I am the slowest but most thorough weeder in the family. My perfectionist tendancies are not meant for gardening! I have spent hours upon hours digging up weeds and yet have not even finished more than 2 rows. In an effort to help keep the weeds at bay we put down a bunch of straw. The boys actually were helpful with this, though perhaps a bit too zealous! 

We reaped our first (small) harvest the other week. Our first planting of radishes was ready to be picked. Turns out Jack really likes radishes, Logan says he does but only takes on bite each time and Schaeffer does not like radishes. Also turns out we didn't plant enough the first time. It's fun to have even a little bit of success, though I have perhaps let it go to my head and now think I can grow anything. We shall see if I kill the hostas I purchased this weekend. 

 

Indy

We had our second annual girls weekend getaway over Mother's Day weekend. We spent the weekend in and around Indianapolis perusing antique shops and shopping our legs off at the outlet mall. We had a small tag-a-long this year, Charlie joined the girls and though he did exceptionally well I don't think he knew what he was getting himself into with all that shopping! I'm so glad we decided to make these getaways a yearly thing. It's wonderful to get away with my mom and sisters and spend some quality time together.