TOO CLOSE

Forgive me if you have already seen this, this is more for my records than for others to see. Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at around 8:30pm we received a phone call from our friend and neighbor Shauna. She wanted to make sure we were'nt upstairs packing (which we were) because there was a Tornado warning. So we went downstairs. Honestly, I didn't think much of it. Ohio has had several warnings and nothing ever came of it. And I cannot ever remember which is worse, warnings or watch....Regardless, we went downstairs and started to pack their instead.

And then we heard it.

The wind picked up. The thunder wasn't loud but it just kept going and going. And then I heard the thunderous scream of the Tornado. I will never forget that sound. It sounds like a train braking coming into a station. I have never seen Jacob's eyes so wide in my life. " Get in the bathroom!" he yelled. We dove in the bathroom and grabbed the dogs. And then the power went out. We could hear things hitting our house. It didn't last very long, and when it did we opened our front door to see leaves and branches all over the road. "Wow, something hit really close." is what my thought was.

We called family and those we visit and home taught and everyone was ok. We still had a Tornado watch until 2am so we stayed downstairs and tried to sleep in the mugginess of it all. at 12:30am my sister in law called me to tell me that no one could get a hold of a certain family in our ward, and I offered to go check it out. I woke Jacob and we headed outside just as our friends and neighbors walked out. Their husband and Jacob went to go check it out and we stayed.

Shauna was on the phone with her mom purporting all the damages in Alabama. It was quite a night.

The boys got back with wide unbelievable eyes, describing powerlines and buildings, houses demolished. There were more families to check on so we girls jumped in the car with Jacob and went to go check. There was already police blocking off any route to downtown Ringgold. But not even a mile from our house the Grovery store, Ace Hardware, the china Restaurant, Dominos ( where we had JUST been getting boxes for our move and picking up a pizza at 7:30pm) all very badly damaged. The Shell station was shredded. ( thankfully it was out of business) We saw power POLES snapped in half dangling, powerlines down EVERYWHERE, and places we even had to drive underlines hanging low. i saw a tree that had been ripped out of the ground and was hanging upside down in the power lines. Houses, just wiped off their foundations.

Unbelievable. I just can't believe it still. To little old Ringgold.

We came back home and prayed in gratitude again for our safety. It took awhile to sleep that night.

The next morning our power was still out. Our hearts longed to go help, but they had too many volunteers and no power tools. I went in to work to get to some internet and charge my phone. That is when I got on facebook and saw all the pictures of Ringgold pictured below. My boss came in for 45 minutes. And then we both went home.

Jacob went into work and didn't get home until nearly 11:00pm because everyone wanted to donated blood since they could not do anything else. Someone todl him a story of a family who heard of the storm too late and the father grabbed a mattress to protect his family and got on top of them. He was blown away in the Tornado. And then his entire family was too. In the end they ALL found each other and everyone was ok. WOW. He said he saw some really amazing pictures.

Some people in our ward own some rental duplexes that have just been completely wiped off the map and a tenant is missing.

My neice and her husband were in the MIDDLE of it. They live downtown Ringgold. I am so grateful that they and there house are ok. I cannot even imagine what their experience was like.

I went home from work and tried to find ice to keep my fridge cool so my food would'nt ruin. No ice .. anywhere. I came home and gratefully my neighbor has a friend that brought over a generator. And I get the news. We aren't allowed to drink the water, the treatment plant has been hit. And that our power will not be on for at least 5 days. And school is out for 2 weeks. ( which is huge because they arleady had to take 2 weeks for the huge snowstorm we had in January)

So now th generator is hooked up to our fridge, and two neighbors. Last night we had cereal for dinner, and I packed our boxes by candle and emergency lights. Downtown Ringgold will be blocked for quite sometime.

This morning I woke up, Jacob took a cold shower. I had showered while the water was warm the day before and decided I could go one day surely without a shower. I plugged my straitener in the generator plug and did my hair. Then I plugged in a crock pot and started some soup for dinner, and then went to work.

We plan on coming home every night and packing until dark, and then going 30 minutes away to my in laws to sleep, shower, do laundry, and have a hot meal. At least through the weekend.

On a side note President Monson flew in yesterday to Atlanta for the Atlanta Temple Dedication. Our stake is the first to perform on BYU TV tonight for the prophet in celebration for the temple. Everything is going to continue as planned. We will got to the church for the dedication.

That is all for now. We are safe and grateful and aching to help.

Here are some pictures, I didnt take most of them. Most of them were from a news website that people put up their pictures on, and a professional photographer, and some facebook. Thanks to all for posting pictures.

Signing off - Thankful.

(My cell pic - Siding in the wires)

Ringgold High School - a wing totally gone.

(My Cell Pic - the Gas Station near our house)

The Ringgold, GA Tornado

Downtown Ringgold

The McDonalds near my house - I had just picked up moving boxes from them.

Houses - just gone.

My cell pic - a house not to far away from us

This is the most shocking to me.

WOW

A hotel - not sure which one it was.

Cherokee Valley Road where someone in our ward owned Duplex's

This is Actually of Atlanta the night of the storm.

They redirected me and I tried to go home a different way....the whole street was blocked. can you see the line hanging down? And the trees fallen blocking the end of the road? (My cell pic)

Downtown Ringgold

A tree up in the wires.

Like I said - Signing off - Thankful.

"Holidays, Oh Holidays, the best time of the year"

So there hasn't been a post in awhile...and I probably won't be making any promises to be posting again soon, but every three months isnt too bad right?

In August we moved out of our house and next door to some friends. Literally..we share a wall to the townhouse. It has been quite the blessing for us ( I won't speak for them :) ) . It has been such a blessing to share in the love of their family. The parents, Shauna and Sam are good friends and let us "borrow" their kids for adventures. And it seems during the Holidays we borrowed them a lot!

Shortly before Halloween we took them to Jacob's parents place where the oldest boys ( sometimes with Jacob's assistance ) got to drive around the lawnmower.

Then wel built a big bonfire and roasted those mini smokies instead of hot dogs, and of course made smores. Some of Jacobs family came out for it, and Jacobs brother let Jacob take us all on midnight rides on his four wheeler.

It really was a beautiful clear full moon night, and just the right temperature!

Somehow I don't have a single picture of Thanksgiving...I'm not sure how that happened! Because it was wonderful! We went to my parents and spent it with My mom, Dad, Tim, Becky, and her Fiancee', Hyrum. we sure missed Peter, Melanie, and Zach though!

A week later I flew up and spent the week with my mom shopping for her dress for Becky's wedding. It is always so good to spend time with just her and I, we have so much fun together. The older I get the more I realize how much we are alike.

After I got back we took our friends children out to cut a Christmas tree at the local tree farm. We try to support them every year. However this year not only had their prices gone up but also their selections were terrible. We ended up buying a 20 foot tree and cutting and trimming it down to 8 feet. We still loved it though because of the memory we have with our friends.



Here is Kordin making the first cut on the tree.

See how GIANT it is? ( Chayson, Jayden, Abby)

Never a dull moment!

While Jacob and Kordin cut the tree down Abby wanted to take pictures with my camera, and Chayson wanted to try out his fighting styles :)

And then Jayden gets in on the action.

Jacob and Kordin take the tree down to the trimmer and the needle shaker.

Chayson Jumped on the back of the tree for a ride...the extra weight made Jacob turn around in suprise...and gave me a good laugh.

Good memories.

The next three pictures are contributions from Abby Hatch.

I liked this old Tractor.

And when I walked to the back of the Tractor I saw Jayden laying down. I said, " What are you doing?" " Snowangels" was her reply. Too cute.

And here is Chayson using the bottom half of the tree we cut off as a machine gun....Sure loves these kids.

Sweet little angels all on their own.

And this brings us to Christmas Eve. That afternoon we spent it with the Hatch's and another family the Winder's The food was amazing, and so was the company.

We then went home and finished decorating our treats and took them around to people we felt might have been forgotten on Christmas Eve.

When we got home we found out that our neighboor had an emergency and the two parents left while we were able to go over and take care of their last minute Christmas stuff and serve our neighbors. It really was a wonderful gift to us to be able to do that for someone else that night. The forcast called for some snow..but at 4:30am when we went back to our house. There was DEFINITLY no snow. And not a cloud in the clear blue sky.

So when I woke up and looked outside to THIS

It was quite a suprise...and 10:00am.

And this was how the rest of our Christmas looked.


Our stockings left full by Santa.

The Dogs and their Christmas sweaters :)

Christmas Crepes and a Breakfast casserole. ( The cookies we took to his parents house later)

( Here on the far left is the carmel I reheated in the microwave the next day and burned my hand so badly with)

Jacob and his gifts
Leisa and hers.

And then we went on our usual 2 mile walk...but this time in 6 inches of snow. It's the first time that the dogs really had been in snow and they sure loved it.

It was so beautiful and quiet. We loved this walk this morning.

I decided to shake a tree....

Ella

Luck

And that was pretty much our wonderful white Christmas. Later we spent the afternoon with his family too. We sure are looking forward to 2011!

Inside out

I love this new workout series.. to see my review skim to the end...to see why I started working out with them..read on.

Recently ( and I'm not sure how we came to this) Jacob and I sat down and kind of assessed ourselves and how we could improve ourselves. It's interesting to look back together and watch our progress of our lives. There has always kind of been this feeling of, well if I just find out what commandment or what lesson I'm supposed to learn, maybe we will finally be blessed with children! As if trying to get a fraction to come to a complete number. The problem with that is we both kind of have unintentionally tried to hold of taking off with our lives until children are involved, feeling held back until our family is "completed" this probably makes no sense.

Anyways, we decided together to give ourselves a 90 day challenge, to elevate ourselves within all regions of our life to "purify ourselves" in order to be able to come to the Lord and really seek for what direction we are to move in, my career, Jacob's career and schooling, and other parts of life, including our health. There were many more personal and spiritual moments to that talk together that I won't share, but I can say this, that it has already been a growing experience.

Funny enoughat the same time our Stake Presidencey has asked us to read the book of Mormon before stake conference, so we are reading 11 pages a day to get there. I wasn't sure how much I would get out of it, because I am such a methodical studier, but I have had such anamazing experience with reading 11 pages a day I thought I would share some of my blessings.

- An amazing feeling of tolerance with little things that usually bother or change my mood

- A higher level of peace

- An ability to feel and see solutions to larger problems

- I'm able to stay positive when others moods directed towards me are angry and irritated

- I'm not offended

- A greater love for those around me

Emotionally this journey already ( 3 weeks in) has put extra thought on the infertility issue, and I'm realizing that I haven't dealt with a lot of emotions that I thought I had. That like the parable of the 10 talents, I had buried my trials with my grief and pain instead of taking the and developing myself 2 and 3 fold. So my heart is very tender again dealing with these feelings, but I do feel different this time in dealing with it perhaps because of my High level of Book of Mormon reading, prayers, thoughts, and Physical excercise.

The physical excercise and eating properly is part of our 90 day challenge. I do believe that a healthier body is a healthier spirit. That more control over appetites physical endurance gives the spirit greater control over the body and then is in a place to recieve more of the spirit. Almost like a glass full of junk can only recieve so much water.. but if it's empty it can recieve so much more. Well HAVE I GOT A WORKOUT FOR YOU! I have started several DVD's lately and have been so impressed I wanted to write this whole blog out to share it!

I recently sold all my workout DVD's so that I could buy new ones. And I have bought Bob Haper's ( Biggest Loser Trainer) INSIDE OUT METHOD. It is four DVD's:

Yoga for the Warrior

Cardio Pure Burn

Strength Training

Bob's Workout

and have been following his workout schedule with the DVD's on

http://www.mytrainerbob.com/

I started with the strength training for beginers, and found it too easy ( Iv'e been doing other Dvd's lately and walking/ jogging every day)

So the next day I attempted to do the full 60 minute cardio. .... I could only make it through 20 minutes and then watched the rest..and it REALLY intimidated me! He has some intense stuff going on!

The next day I did the yoga one...I made it through 40 minutes.

And my muscles are KILLING ME to day, I could barely walk down my stairs.

Today is my day of Rest. I am taking before and after pictures, recording what I eat and my calorie burn, and measuring myself so I can give a full report when I'm finished with the series.

But I highly recommend it for an intense 60 minute workout. It -

- Has a timer at the bottom so I know how much further I have to go

- the people in the background are sweating and straining and crying and falling like a normal person and not some smiling girl with perfect makeup

- challenges you

- I like the way it is filmed

- I find the music really pumps me up

- I like the way he explains how to effectively do the move to get the most out of it. I have been doing several things wrong for years, until I saw this video.

It is really tough because he stays with something for a long time while alternating parts of it: For example for 20 minutes of Pure Burn Cardio you do 20 minutes of squats with deadlifts, kettle bell swings, and other upper arm workouts. ( My lower back started to hurt until I realized I needed to fire up more with the outer portion of my thighs AND with the kettle bell swings lean back slightly when I come up) * THE DVD RECOMMENDS 1-2 lb weights to gain lean muscle instead of big muscles.

I ALSO recommend

This 20 minute workout is TOUGH and gives you results. She moves onto new things quickly so you aren't in super pain, but she keeps your heart rate up and your muscles pushed to the limit. I just got her 30 day kettle bell shred too. So we will see. I didn't take her 30 day challenge, but it is an award wining workout for the difference it can make in 30 days. And if you only have 20 minutes... try it!

Amazon has both for great prices, but if you buy all four of Bob's DVD's it's a better price at his website.

Also if you have blockbuster at home rental you can rent jillian's and 2 of bob's workout dvd's.

***I need to add that I just tried " Bob's workout" and as nice as it sounds, it's full of impossible moves and continual cardio. There are PUDDLES of sweat on my floor and a lot of " You got to be joking's" floating around in the air. Maybe ONE day I will be able to do the whole thing..***