LTC, School, and Sickness

Ok. So I haven't even looked at my blog in at least a week. And now as I sit here my mind is going in 100 different directions on what all has been happening around here that I want to talk about. I'm thinking maybe bullet points would be the only way to organize all of the thoughts I have going on...so here I go.

• On Easter weekend, we went with a group of 3rd through 12th graders to Dallas at a convention called LTC (leadership training for Christ), where our kids got to participate in different events that help train them to be leaders in the church. We drove up to Dallas on Friday night and met our group at the Galleria for ice skating. On Saturday, Aaron sang in the large chorus group and also did puppets for his age group. Both of those earned him a gold medal. I was so proud of all of these kids. They have been working hard since November, and all of their hard work paid off!

Aaron ice skating with his friend, Kaden

Hannah, Isabel, and Aaron

Me and my favorite boys

Our LTC chorus group

Kaden, Brian, Aaron, and CJ waiting on chorus to begin

Emily and Austin. He loves this girl to pieces.



This is the award Aaron earned!



• Spring soccer is in full swing. Aaron is on the Hornets and has Coach Jeff (who we LOVE) and Austin is on the Raptors and Robbie is coaching his team. Both of my boys really enjoy playing and I love going to the games to cheer them on!

• Over the past few weeks, I have been subbing at the elementary school several days a week. And the more I do it, the more I love it and know this is what I want to do. I met with an advisor from Texas A & M and found out that I'm only a little over a year away from getting my master's in education, so it looks like it's back to college for me! It's been almost 15 years since I graduated from college, so this should be interesting...

• The 4th - 6th graders at our church have a get-together once a month in different people's homes. We hosted it at our house a few months ago and I loved having all of those kids in my house eating, talking, singing, and praying. I'm so glad that my boys have such a good group of kids to grow up with. These are a few pics that were taken at the fellowship last night...

Pizza time!

Even though this is Aaron's age group, there are plenty of young siblings that Austin can play with

Aaron, CJ, Karriss, and Kylie with their song books

• This past Saturday our soccer games were all rained out, so we went with our friends Josh and Sara to the air show in Shreveport. I had never been to an air show before and didn't know what to expect, but we all really enjoyed it. The weather has been really nice and it was a beautiful day to be outside. I was amazed at how the planes could fly so closely to each other and not crash. It did make me a little sick to see the ones that were going straight down in a spiral free fall though. We had already seen a wreck on the way up to Shreveport that ended up killing 4 people. And our friends car over heated and had to be towed. So I did NOT want to see a plane crash and burn right in front of me. But it didn't. Apparently they do these things on purpose.

Under a wing

Picnic time!

The Thunderbirds were most impressive

• Today I subbed as the elementary art teacher and at 8:30 this morning Aaron's school nurse called to tell me that Aaron had thrown up in his classroom and needed to be picked up. The principal watched my class for me and I ran over to the middle school (it's the same parking lot, so I did literally run) and got Aaron. My conference time was at 9:15, so I was able to take him home on that break. My mom came and stayed the day with him and she lost count of how many times he threw up. His stomach is cramping and hurting so much right now. Every move he makes I'm right behind him with the Lysol and Clorox wipes trying to catch every germ he may be spreading. I'm PRAYING that none of us end up getting this from him. He is just miserable right now. I just hate seeing my kids this way...

And because I don't like to end on a bad note, we've been doing a LOT of fishing around here lately. Our pond looks better than it ever has and the fish have been biting a lot. I love just going out on the dock and sitting and overlooking the pond. It's so peaceful out there and it's one of my favorite places to be. :)

Tornado in Forney

Last Tuesday, my sister (Reva) and her family started the day like any other. The kids went to school and daycare, Reva and her husband (Chad) went to work, and everyone went with the assumption that it would also be a normal evening after everyone got home from their normal, everyday places. But what happened that day was anything BUT normal.

I received a phone call from my other sister, Melissa, and she was locked in a mall because there had been several tornadoes popping up in the Dallas area. She was in Mesquite where some tornadoes had already touched down, and she knew that tornadoes were hitting Forney as we were speaking. 

Forney is where my sister, Reva, lives with her family. Melissa had talked to Reva and knew that everyone was alive, but didn't know many details about Reva's house.

If you have ever been in a similar situation, then you can understand the feeling of being afraid for the people you love being hurt or even killed and you can't do anything at all about it. When tornadoes are touching down all over town, phone reception is horrible. You either can't get through to the people you really want to talk to (which leads you to think bad things about what they may be going through for their phone to not work) OR you're talking and your call gets dropped (which could actually be worse because you're thinking that you were on the phone with them when the tornado blew them away.) Either way, you're scared. You feel helpless. You're praying...

Reva was taking pictures of the tornado as she was trying to get home, not knowing at the time that it was actually hitting her neighborhood. When she got to her neighborhood, she didn't even recognize the place. Some houses were completely gone. Some were half gone. All of the privacy fences had been blown away. There were no swing sets or sheds left in people's yards. Cars were overturned.

 Mass destruction.

 Everywhere she looked.

This is Reva with my birth mom, Sherry, on the news.

Her house was still standing, but the windows had broken so there was glass everywhere. Their garage door had been twisted as if it were made out of paper. There was water damage. The cat was missing. Her shed in the back where she kept things stored was gone, along with everything she had in that shed. It was shocking to say the least. She had conversations with people that she doesn't even remember because of the shock of it all.

This is the inside of their house. Notice the glass everywhere.

The blinds had been forced off of the window so hard that they actually over-turned the recliner when they hit it.

We were in Dallas Saturday and went by to see them. As we drove into the neighborhood we were behind a truck that had people in the back throwing cold water bottles to those that were out working on cleaning debris. There were work trucks everywhere, and we were told that so many people have been helpful to bring food and drinks to all of those who had nothing to eat or drink at their disposal. It was really hard to even get down the road. When we went into Reva's house, there was not much left. There was a company there packing up everything that was salvageable to move it into a storage facility until they are ready to move back in. All of the carpet had been ripped up. There was nothing on the walls. The windows were boarded up and the roof was tarped. It didn't look at all like a house that people were living in just a few days before.

My sister, brother-in-law, and their 3 kids are now living in a hotel until they can get a rent house. It will be at least 3 months before the house will be ready for them to move back in, and a hotel room is not feasible for that long.

I can't imagine what all they have gone through in the last week. Not only did they have the tornado aftermath to deal with, but they've also just found out their dog is ill and needs to be put down, their son is sick, Reva's work laptop had some sort of electrical blow-up, and now Reva is sick.

When it rains, it pours.

I wanted to write this post for several different reasons. The first is that I wanted to blog about it because it has been on my mind constantly since it happened, and what I think about, I blog about.

 The second is to encourage everyone to show up and be one of the first responders when there have been tragedies like this. One of the things my sister has talked about is how there is a church close to them that combed the fields for papers, pictures, belongings, etc. and announced it to the community so that they can go in and get some of their things back. When my sister went into the church building, the first thing she saw was a picture of Caley when she was a baby. I'm sure so many of the things that the church found would have just been lost if someone didn't step up and do something.

I also wanted to put these pictures up for those who laugh at the thought of a tornado coming. Out of the almost 20 tornadoes in the Dallas area that day, there were no causalities. I think that is just amazing. There were people in houses where nothing much at all is standing, but they made it out alive. Tornadoes are no joke.

They are very real.

And they could happen to anyone.

Please take the warning systems seriously.

Chad, Reva, Karissa, Caley, and Caden... love y'all and praying for y'all...

And if you are a praying person, this sweet family could sure use some prayers right now.