Thanksgiving

We truly have a lot to be grateful for this Thanksgiving! We are blessed to have fared the tornado so well. We are blessed with a great church, family, friends and community to support us. We are blessed to be together as a family this holiday. And we are especially blessed to have Maryn, Kreg, Kamryn, Kenzi, Emersyn, Edyn, Casey, Lindsey, Carly and Holland here to celebrate with us!!

Our rental house has a tiny oven, so I didn't think I could make a turkey big enough for all of us, let alone all of the other traditional foods. So we decided to go to Golden Corral and let them cook for us :) It was actually a pretty good meal and there was no work in the kitchen cooking and cleaning! Being with family and not having to work...this was the perfect Thanksgiving!!

Everyone really wanted to help out at our house. So after our black friday shopping, which included the guys and kids buying and setting up a Christmas tree, we headed to our broken house. Luckily the basement has very little damage, just one broken window. So the guys vacuumed and barricaded the area that had glass, turned on a space heater, and voila we had a play room for all of the kids. The adults spent the evening cleaning and packing the upstairs so that I could start inventory of all the damaged belongings.

I'm very grateful for our amazing family who has done so much for us! It was awesome to have Maryn and Casey and their families here to celebrate with us and help us forget about our worries for a bit. The rest of our family has been very supportive and generous from afar as well. We are truly blessed with amazing families!!

Chicago

Maryn and family were planning on coming for Thanksgiving and spending a few days in Chicago. They weren't afraid of a tornado I guess because they decided to still come! Kreg rented a car and drove 3 hours to pick up Cole, Ellie and Dax and take them back to Chicago. The kids spent the weekend in Chicago with the Edgmons while Ben and I worked on our broken house. 

Maryn and Kreg received a lot of funny looks and comments walking around a big city with 7 kids :)

 They played at the Children's Museum,

 Looked over the city on the Chicago Sky Deck,

 Visited the aquarium,

 And saw the dinosaur at the Field Museum!

 The kids had a blast with their cousins!!

 The city shut down access to our neighborhood for a few days, so Monday night Ben and I drove to Chicago to meet them and take a little break from our tornado mess.

Tuesday we rode the metro to the Museum of Science and Industry:

 Cole's favorite part of the museum was the transportation part with the airplanes and trains so we spent the majority of our time there:

  

 The kids also really liked watching the baby chicks hatch:

Dax was uncharacteristically ornery, so he was banished to the stroller while we there. He eventually fell asleep, which cured his orneriness :)

Ellie was also pretty tired and managed to get someone to hold her for most of the time :)

 

 

We also visited the farm part of the museum. The kids loved the tractors, as usual:

Last stop was to see the submarine:

It was a great day where we were able to forget about our worries and just have fun!

Unfortunately, we had to get back home to our worries. Maryn and crew stayed an extra day though, and lucky Cole got to stay with them. They went to the American Girl Doll Store and the Lego store. Maryn said Cole had fun at the AG store :) He found Saige, his favorite American Girl, and helped pick out a doll for Ellie: Caroline. Maryn was super sweet and got a doll for Ellie since she couldn't stay...and Kam had her for cousin Christmas gift :)

This was such a great trip for us! We really needed it after all of the tornado stress we have been under. The tornado has been more fun than bad for the kids, getting to play with friends every day and then go on a trip with cousins. I have such an amazing sister! Maryn and Kreg were so great to take on 3 extra kids during their vacation, and Kam and Kenz were awesome to take care of our kids for us when were there. The Edgmon girls are the best!! :) Thanks for letting us join you in Chicago!

Tornado Alley

Sunday, November 17, 2013 about 11:15 am a 200 mph tornado about an eighth of a mile wide tore through Washington, Illinois...including our neighborhood. Luckily, Ben was at the hospital and the kids and I were at church so no one was home. We were huddled in the bathroom at church, so I was aware there was a tornado in the area, but I had no idea it hit our neighborhood. The traffic on the way home should have clued me in, not being able to get to my house should have told me it hit home, but I guess I was in denial because I really wasn't worried about our home...until I got a phone call from a ward member asking if there was anything valuable we wanted them to get out of our house. A short while later Tom Muraski and Matt Hancock from our ward picked me up in an ATV and took me to my house.

 At first sight it looks ok:

If you walk to the west side of the house you will notice that we are missing walls, and anyone can walk right into our house. I was in shock as I saw all of the damage:

 There were pieces of wood sticking out of every surface, like someone had stabbed our house and fence and shed:

 The inside was a huge mess. There was glass and insulation covering every surface. Our belongings were strewn about the rooms, some in a different room than where we left them, and many in the yard or strewn down the street in our neighbors yards.

  

 I thought it was pretty funny that the bananas were still hanging on the table, yet everything else was thrown about. It was like someone ransacked our house, but didn't bother with the bananas.

 The window in the front of the house didn't break, but the blinds were sucked out the top of the frame:

We must have been on the edge of the tornado. As you look across the street and down the street it gets progressively worse: 

 A few houses down everything is just piles of rubble. No standing structures at all.

 This is the view looking down our street from the other end. 

 And this is the view looking to the north of our street. Nothing but debris.

It's inspiring to see the flags peppered throughout the devastation. It's a reminder that we are strong. We will support each other. We will survive.

The kids and I stayed at Craig and Heidi Johnson's house after church the day of the tornado. I was still in shock, just going through the motions. Ben was having a hard time getting to us because the city had been blocked off by the police. Craig went on his motorcycle and ignored all of the police to get to Ben and get him to us. When he finally got to us we went to Mike and Kristen Miller's house because they had a generator. The whole city was without power and water, so a generator was a big deal. The Miller's took care of us for the whole week; housing us, feeding us, helping at the house and helping with the kids. They were amazing! 

After that first day the shock wore off, and then the tears started. It was devastating to go back to our house and see it in shambles. We didn't really have anything I was worried about losing, besides personal documents. It wasn't that things were broken or missing that was devastating, it was the reminder that we were homeless and our life was in shambles. It's all really overwhelming. Our kids have been great and handled it all really well, just gone along with the flow. Ben has been amazing, and his residency very supportive, giving him the whole week off. We have had so much support from friends and our ward, securing and cleaning up our home and neighborhood. Our family and friends who live away have also been very loving and supportive. We have received so many offers of help and monetary donations. It has been inspiring, overwhelming, and heartening all in one. 

Maryn and Casey even brought their families out for Thanksgiving and helped a ton! They were planning on coming before the tornado, and decided to still come and help us out. Maryn and Kreg flew into Chicago, Kreg rented a car and picked up our kids, and then took them back to Chicago and they kept  the kids so Ben and I could get things done without worrying about them. It was a huge help. Then Ben and I took a day off from Tornado stresses and met them in Chicago. It was a much needed break! When we came back home Casey and Lindsey met us and we celebrated Thanksgiving together. We have amazing family and I'm so grateful for them!

 It's devastating to see the mess in the city and to know that there are some who lost everything. I know that we are blessed to not have lost much, and to have insurance to replace what we did lose. We were also blessed to have a real estate agent who found us a rental as soon as she heard about the tornado. Our ward and our stake were amazing and brought in food and supplies. The community came together and provided food and supplies for all the tornado victims as well. It seemed like everywhere we turned someone was wanting to give us something to help. It was humbling to be in need and to receive so much. I wish that I could have been on the other end giving instead of receiving. But it was inspiring to see everyone come together and take care of each other. We live in an amazing city, state and country. It's nice to know that there are good people out there who follow the example of Christ and take care of others. 

This EF4 tornado that devastated our community didn't destroy our community. We have become stronger. We have become more charitable. We have become closer. And personally I have seen so many blessings amidst this trial. The Lord has strengthened me to be able to endure this trial. I have seen so many blessings through this that I am actually grateful that we get this trial. I know it's true that trials bring blessings, because I have seen it in an extraordinary way. Trials make us stronger, better, more Christlike...if we let them.