December 1st!

December 1st!

Where to start? It's my little girls Birthday. And typically when we get together to celebrate Elle, it's not a very nice day. The day she was born, it snowed and snowed. A blizzard! And on her blessing day, the same. We actually had to have the blessing at the end of our sacrament meeting, because my family was late, because of the storm. And then yesterday.... Probably the biggest wind storm, we've ever seen.

Our street got hit pretty bad. Almost everyone on our street had either a fence, or tree, or both down. Just this morning, I drove down the road looking for our garbage can. I found a house that had three of them lying in the front yard, and claimed one of them. Shingles from someone's house, tree limbs, wood etc... is scattered all over the backyard. And in our front yard, two tree's went down, and the cement is up. And on the side of our house, our gate has been demolished, and our trailer off it's blocks. Crazy I tell you!!! Just crazy!

I even had a brother and a sister who don't even live by me, that were affected. Tree's and fences down. This was a huge storm. I felt uneasy, and wouldn't let my husband go to work yesterday morning. I just had a feeling I shouldn't let him go. I couldn't let him go. And I wasn't about to send my baby out to the bus stop! We watched the news in the early morning hours, and found out that 10 semi's overturned and the freeway was closed, right where my husband would have been trying to drive to work. And then a little while later, found out that Bree's school had been closed. Yeah, there was a reason why I wouldn't let my family leave the house yesterday.

We watched out the window's all day, watching our tree's falling over, garbage cans, and debree rolling down the street, and wondering what the final damage would be. But I felt a calm. I told Chris, that I just felt calm. Everything would be fine. I knew my family was safe, and in those moments, that is all that really mattered. Fences can be fixed, but my family needed to be safe!! And I really felt like the damage wouldn't be too bad. That we could deal with it.

Chris told me he'd been praying all morning. He never cracks, or lets me know he is stressed. But he had a moment of weakness, or relief I should say. He had gone outside to cut some plastic off our deck that was whipping around, and when he came in, he told me that he had inspected the house, and that there was no damage, other than a couple of missing shingles. And then he broke down. Letting it go! The stress! He is the best husband and father and I am so lucky (blessed) to have him.

Anyway, back to Elle's Birthday. We were supposed to have a party last night at Chuck E Cheese. That is all Elle has been talking about for a couple of months. There are about 40 thousand people without power, and Chuck E Cheese was one of them! Ug!! So I called all over, and just couldn't come up with a last minute solution. So we decided to have everyone over to the house. We would order pizza, and have a great time. I just had to tell Elle that it was going to be great! When you're little and counting on Chuck E Cheese, staying home doesn't sound super fun. But everyone came! And WE had power!! Which is a big deal really. We were blessed to have power. 2 of my siblings and my parents, didn't have power. And Everyone came!! From North Ogden, Herriman, and everywhere in between. And we had a BLAST!! Just talking, and laughing, and hanging out together! It was fun.

You just have to see in these few pictures, that Elle was so thrilled! Happiness was bursting out of her. She had a Birthday shirt, and presents, and cousins, and a CAKE! It was perfect!

P.S. My incredible husband, spent some of the day chopping up our fallen tree's, and then came in and helped clean the kitchen, set up chairs, and got a cooler of water for everyone. He is Seriously my hero!!! I can't say it enough!