Almost 2 Months

In two months we have gone from this

to this...

 pretty much the same progress were ever you look. Everything was pretty well cleared away within the first day and for sure with in that first week. People are starting to repair businesses and houses. Some have come down while others only had shingles replaced. It really depends on what your insurance company wants to do for you and how hard you push to get what you are needing.

For us its been a long two months.  At this point we have hired a lawyer because the damages on our house total at the very least 75,000. But the insurance company seems to think 39,000 will get the job done. Ha. We have learned alot about insurance companies in the past two months as well as the legal system that will help you get what you need because they will not give it to you freely. Sad FACT. I feel bad for all those people only redoing their roofs. Their house have so much more damage then that! You cant be two street or in some cases 4 streets away from an EF3 tornado and only have damage to your roof.

After extensive searching to our house our main problems are
1. Had the tornado lasted 5 seconds more we would have no roof. There is a crack along the whole roof were it was being lifted off the house and you can see light from outside in the attic.
2. Most of them beams in the attic are cracked or down
3. Our North Wall bends in and out in other words our house was twisted.

But you know the insurance company says there is no way to prove that is because of the tornado...okay...?!?!

Enter our lawyer

we hope to have this taken care of within the next 4 to 6 weeks and I will be very happy to put it all in the past.

Some pics of the way things look around our area of town:

 front of our house

 heading south on what was the "loop" back in my high school days

 heading north on the "loop"

 across the street from what was Bells

 The Lot that was Bells

Facing East from what was Bells you can see the school a few blocks away

5 Minutes Before...

I had forgotten all about this picture...I took it about 5 minutes before the tornado hit. Looking at it I wonder why in the hell we were not in the basement sooner...Im not sure how we missed the freaky looking clouds above but Im pretty sure it came down to we live in IA look at that funnel...yeah it will never touch down syndrome lol! The tornado truly looked no diffrent then the cloud you see above Daniels Dads garage..just lower... 

50 Things To Do This Summer

Summer Vaca started today! Im so excited and determined not to let this be another summer that flys by with all the could have should have would have I normally feel at the end. So after clicking around on a few other blogs and searching the net for a few hours tonight I think I have come up with a pretty good list :) In no particular order here we go...

1.Go to the library often
2. Have Movie night outside with Popcorn
3. Investigate gnomes and faries
4. Have a midsummer night celebration
5. Replace and Read favorite books
6. Try to teach Paytin to knit...she asks ALL THE TIME!
7. Learn (myself) to sew
8.Have picnics
9. Garden
10. Can and store all food from the garden (sooo excited about this...does this make me an old lady?! )
11. Make smootheys for breakfast
12. Wake up before 10...we miss so much summer if we dont course it would help if I were in bed now...ugh
13. have fondue night
14. sleep in a tent
15. make an indoor fort
16. make and outdoor fort
17. go to storytime at library
18. Get to swimming lessons this year
19. Hopefully move
20. Go to church every weekend
21. make a fresh batch of playdough
22. make popsicles
23. make homemade bubbles
24. have a tea party with stuffed animals
25. paint rocks
26. go to farmers market
27. do crayon rubbings
28. make a "telephone" with sting and paper cups
29. Have a weekley game night
30. make building from cardboard boxes
31. Make an egg carton caterpillar
32. Go on a color hunt
33. Go for a walk everynight
34. make homemade noodles
35. Use the glow in the dark sidewalk chalk
36. Play in a mud puddle
37. Go fishing
38. Fly a kite
39. Host our first slumber party for the girls
40. Go to garage sales...lots of them...we all love the...dont know why we dont lol
41. Go to a Ball Game
42. Take a Family Picture
43. Go to the zoo
44. Drive in the country
45. do weekly science experiments
46. go berry-picking
47. go apple picking
48. go to a concert
49. build a sand castle
50. Watch the girls turn 7 and 5...holy cow

Pre School Graduate

 

Avary Graduated from Pre School this morning. Its amazing what a 9 months can do for a little girl. She has grown so much in that time!  

Here she is in August looking non to sure about Pre School

it brings this Mommy to tears watching my baby transitioning from toddlerhood to kidhood. Days sometimes go slow but soon you look back and wonder were the last 4 years and 11 months have gone!

Avarys class sang a few of their favorite songs after Mass this morning and then they each made it official with a diploma. The smiles on their faces said it all...way to cute!

So now on to the next step...what ever that may be...it is possible we could be making a major course correction in our lives soon...we still have some pros and cons to weigh but we are feeling a change would be good.

 some of her favorite creations from this year

A Prayer For Speed

Daniel and I have an acreage we are dreaming about...and tonight I heard someone else was heading to look at it. I think it pushed me over the edge so to say. I'm so ready to be out of here...I think its sad this was our home the place we fixed up with  one year old Paytin under our feet, the place we brought newborn Avary home to, the place we celebrated 6 Christmases, so many birthdays, happy and sad times...but now? Now it feels like an empty shell. It makes me sad to be here and the waiting is endless.  Don't get me wrong...I get we are lucky to be alive, lucky we had insurance when so many did not and lucky to have found such an experienced lawyer to help us get what we need out of the insurance company but it's still endless. We had just got back on our feet after realizing our mistake in trying to own two trucks. No more the two days before the tornado I said to Daniel there we are all caught up...figures dosnt it. haha.  Anyway the girls and I went and drove by it just cause I have to much else I should be doing but dont want to be doing it...it seemed like a welcome escape. On the way back we stopped at the church and lit a few candles for speed in our case. I seem to have a direct line with God most of the time when I pray there and Im hoping the line is still open!  Im putting this in Gods hands from now on so say a little prayer for us if you could we need all the help we can get to hopefully be out of this house and on with our lives by July...

Oh and the other person looking at it...I found out they are going to keep looking!!! YAY

Im an Auntie!!

I'm/we are not excited or anything...haha. We are VERY excited...Ive never had any little tiny squishy nieces or nephews!  I married into being an aunt of  7 but they are all older and un-squishy.  This is my first nephew directly related to me and I couldnt be prouder :)  Mr Ethan Joseph was born May 4, 2011 to my brother Eric and his wife Tiffany. They had one long day trying to get him here but everyone came out okay and in the end thats what matters most.

You will have to excuse the picture quality most of these were taken with my cell phone and are unedited as everything is still a mess from the tornado.

The pictures on top are from the night he was born and below I will leave you with some pictures of us finally getting to hold him the next day.

Congrats Eric and Tiff thanks for giving me a little squishy nephew to love :)

Famous In A Small Town

since April 9th at about 9 pm its hard to NOT find a reporter in this town. We had managed to duck out of most interviews up until this point but Alex Ronallo  finally caught up with us. She was just to nice to say no to...really.

I will not talk on camera ...nope will not be done. But Daniel will do it no problem.

Mothers Day 2011

It started out at a normal Sunday. We went to Chruch and then decided to go to the Mothers Day Breakfast and the Community Center. Not wanting to go home and sit in the house for the day we thought we might go to Sioux City and catch a movie. However when we got up there we realized there really were no movies we wanted to see. Daniel (the king of road trips) thought we should drive up to Sioux Falls for the day.  Sounded like a plan to me and the girls were up for it so I decided to go in to Walmart and grab some snacks for the trip. While I was in Walmart Daniel and the girls decided on other plans...

We made it to Sioux Falls and drove past it...

till we made it here

and then continuted to drive...

I was getting alittle mad...after all the girls had school the next day...

soon we were here....

by this point I had long since figured out he was heading for the Black Hills. With not a change of clothes or tooth brushes along...sigh...this is not the first time I have to admit it is alittle exciting ...but we hadnt done this since before Paytin was born...and doing this with kids made me alittle jumpy...but...

we made it just in time to look around for awhile and then enjoy what I think was said to be the first lighting program of the year :)  The girls were loving it and it was really nice to get away from the house. from the town, and from all the tornado stress!!

We got a room at the The Presidents View Resort and relaxed for the rest of the night.

The next day we went back up to check out Mt Rushmore in the Daylight. We walked the whole trail and that when we hit the most memorable event of the whole trip...
you see these shoes..

art they cute! I bought them for Avary like two years ago because I thought they were sooooo cute. Anyway this is the last photo that you will ever see BOTH of them in...


We were about 1/4 of the way down the trail getting some really nice pictures of Mt Rushmore

Daniel and the girls had just found this really neat little place in all the rocks

and I saw an opening for a really neat picture..

(After all George is my favorite guys!)  So as Im taking this shot and 
I hear fighting behind me but whats new.  Then crying my shoe my shoe...crap. Turn around to find Avarys shoe is now federal property on the trail about 15 feet below the trail...if u know Avary and shoes this did not go over well. Im kind of upset with myself that I didnt think to take a picture of it. Darn...


So after what seemed like hours we finally finished the trail...it is crazy long!


The girls wanted to check out  Bear Country USA next. Im so happy we did it was such a neat place! 

The Baby Bears we so stinkin cute!

We then headed to the Reptile Gardens by that point my phone was starting to go dead so I didnt get all that many pictures there.

After we toured Reptile Gardens it was getting to be late afternoon and we figured our mini vacation would have to end so we started to head back home. We took the scenic way back home though! Im happy we did the Bad Lands are for sure something to see if you never have!

Not What I Expected

I'm not really sure what I expected when we came up from the basement. I knew it was a tornado, I mean I saw it as we were running. Somehow though I was only pre paired to see damage from the regular windstorms we usually get. This picture dosnt do the damage justice...REALLY...it was tons worse and all you could smell was gas. We found out later that the BIG 100's of years old Maple Tree that had helped name our town was uprooted and had pulled a gas line as it was pulled out of the ground. 

Its still seems like a dream until you look out the window or try to drive in this town.  The first few days it was stressful to drive in this small town! Its stating to get more real though insurance adjusters call daily and you wonder how you will put it back together even though I know we will.

So far we have 10 thousand dollars in damages on the cars, 14 thousand on the semi we dont yet know about the trailor (whos had time to go look at it LOL) Hopefully we will know on the house by Monday but thoughts were in the 70 thousand dollar range.  The biggest live and learn lesson through all this has been make sure your personal property ins is good. For example make sure you can replace your grill, playset and lawn chairs LOL. We dont have to bad of a plan but it could have been way better.  Food for thought! ;)

Birds Eye View

For those of you who know our town this will give you the view from above.

It CAN happen here!

I still cant believe that it really happend. We were having such a nice day! First day in the 80's in MONTHS, outside, helping Daniel work on his truck. We saw storm warnings poping up and we were keeping an eye on it. Some of you know that we live across the way from Daniels Dad and only 2 houses down from his brother.

About the time things started heating up Daniels brother who is a firemen trained in spotting storms came out to watch the sky. We headed up to talk to him and were enjoying the lighting show along with the BIG ol balls of hail. (Golfball size most of them!) Anyway all of a sudden things got really really still, like spooky still! There were still big chuncks of hail falling out of the sky so we were thinking we were safest to stay at Chucks with no basement rather then being beat by the hail.

Reports kept saying the tornado was on the ground close to our neighboring town which is 7 miles from us heading to the Northeast. We so did not thinking it was coming our way!!!

As soon as the still hit, the air changed and all I could see was swirling air. At that moment Daniel and I both grabed a kid and ran back to our house. All the reports on the news say we had 10 mintues warning, so very wrong. When you live in the midwest the sirens sound alls summer long. Every bit of info we had said it wasnt heading here. BUT IT DID.

We made it downstairs with the dog even...she wasnt a very willing partisapent LOL.

All you could here was the house growning and air flowing over the house...Ive never prayed so hard in my life. I kept it together by saying Hail Marys with Paytin. Good thing we sent her to Catholic School huh LOL.
Anyway twords the middle of what seemed like forever you could here the outside cellar doors slaming around in the wind. The inside door then begain to suck air out of the basement. I was so sure it was going to be just like the movie Twister were it sucks her Dad right out. So we headed to the fruit cellar. After aboout 5 minutes things settled down. Daniel took off to check on his Dad the girls and I slowley made our way up to find our world changed!

I dont know what I expected but it sure wasnt all this! I thank God everyone is fine! I used to love the idea of tornados...now...not so much. It will be along road with a 4 year old and a 6 year old who cling to you everytime the wind blows, but who can blame them....

The inlaws camper:

ooofta...