Tornado Video

This video was taken about 1/2 mile from the house I was at.  Right at the park we always play at.  It shows awesome footage of the hail.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOfB0eQVFu0

A walk through the neighborhood

Today I spent the morning volunteering at our new church. We were trying to organize a Free childcare for the disaster relief efforts. We made up some flyers and hand delivered them to people in the Cornerstone neighborhood. WOW, what a sight. The news pictures, and even my pictures don't do it justice.
Everyone always hears how sporadic a tornado can be, ripping walls off of a dining room while leaving all the dishes on the table in tact, or destroying one house and 10 yards away not a shingle missing. That was a lot of what I saw today. There were some houses that were piles of lumber, others looked like they had little to no damage except windows and shingles missing, yet both had huge spray painted Red "X" with the letter "C" meaning condemned. I think if I drove up to my house and saw a pile, it wouldn't be nearly as heart breaking as driving up, seeing you house in the distance, thinking... "wow it looks like it faired pretty well compared to many, at least I can go get my stuff"... only to find the dreaded Red paint. Many of those houses acted like a pressure cooker, so structurally that are some of the most unstable houses.
The amazing part as we walked through the entire neighborhood, is we couldn't find one "victim" Everyone was very upbeat. You had trouble telling who lived there and who was the relief help.
Talking with our pastor, he said he has a whole list of supplies and people willing to be donated, and yet his Tornado Needs list has been empty from the first night. Including 30 hotel rooms and two empty condos, that he can't seem to fill. What an AMAZING blessing! Many people were evening saying how they are eating better with the free food then they would have ever had at home. The Salvation Army food truck is parked in the church parking lot and serving food from Restaurants at each meal. The first night they all had Outback Steakhouse.
In March our church prayed to see 1000 people at our Easter service in the parking lot. As Pastor Dave said, "we were all a little disappointed that we didn't' have that many, yet Thur night over 1100 people were fed in our church parking lot". And yesterday all the churches in town got together for a special worship service at the High School, which was packed at more then 1800!
God's timing is always Perfect!

Shelter in the Storm!

Wow, where do I begin. I've been in too many tornado warning in MO to even count, but I've never been close to the destruction or debris, until Thursday.

The day started out with me complaining and being very upset. I arrived at Madelyn's house with Maria and Andrew, ready to start a normal Thurs. Only to find that Madelyn's 3 older siblings, Lexi 6, Kyle 9, and Cali 11, were out of school and would unexpectedly be joining us. Thinking the extra $30 was not enough to cover the headache of caring for 6 children, and wondering how I would ever get Madelyn and Andrew down for naps that afternoon, I proceeded to get online during a dull moment and complain to my mom, John and other friends. Little did I know how exciting our day would become.

It was really windy all morning, nothing unusual for this time of year in northern CO. The kids were starting to eat lunch when the power went out. Once again, no big deal. It started to rain and hail a little bit. I proceeded to go to the front door and take pics of the hail until one popped me in the leg, which hurt and left quite a bruise. Before I even made it back into the kitchen there was golf-ball size hail falling. It was quite a sight. Lexi ran to the front door and had her face pressed against the door looking at the hail. I told her 3 times to back up in case it hit the window just right and broke it, however she either couldn't hear me or chose to ignore me. So I shouted at the top of my lungs "LEXI BAHNSEN BACK AWAY FROM THAT DOOR BEFORE IT BREAKS IN YOUR FACE" Not the best choice of words, but it got her attention. She began to freak out, crying hysterically. I tried to calm her down but the sound of the hail was very un-nerving, especially to her. So I suggested that we all go down in the basement where it wouldn't be as loud and the window were small enough that we wouldn't have to worry about them breaking.

After getting all 7 of us down stairs I ran back upstairs to get a bouncy seat for Madelyn, at which time I noticed the baseball-softball size hail and that it was an erry gray color outside preventing me from seeing even six feet out the back door. I quickly went back downstairs where Cali was complaining that her ears were popping. I noticed it too so I asked everyone to go into the laundry room where there were no windows at all. We stayed in there for about 5 mins or so singing songs to try to calm down Lexi. The sound of the hail was unbelievable. When it sounded like things had calmed down, I told the kids to stay downstairs while I went upstairs to get a bottle for Maria. Upon which I found glass all over the floor where hail had busted out a living room window, right above where the two babies had been sitting about 10 mins earlier. I went back down stairs and told them the storm was over but I needed them to stay down there until I couldn't figure out what was going on and try to pick up the glass. I put Cali in charge of feeding 7 month old Madelyn and keeping an eye on Andrew, Lexi and Kyle, while I took little Maria with me outside to scope things out. Several neighbors were looking around in amazement trying to figure out if it was a bad storm or really a tornado. One neighbor that I talked to said she saw the storm and it couldn't have been a tornado because it wasn't funneled. It was just a giant black wall cloud moving across. Little did she know it was a 3/4-1 mile wide tornado moving across land at 45-50 mph with winds around 150-165mph. I then started trying to reach any of the parents and John. Of course phone lines were being bombarded so it took forever, luckily a neighbor got a hold of Meagan and said she was headed home. By the time she and Travis got there most of us had looked across the field and saw piles of 2x4's; that's when it hit us, it really was a tornado.

Someone came down the street saying if you could help go to the daycare across the street, they've see legs under some of the debris. Luckily it was only a doll that had been spotted. All the teachers managed to get about 150 kids into the gym and bathrooms and proceeded to throw them selves on top of the children to protect them from the flying debris. After the storm they smelt gas so they took the kids over to the bank and put them in the vault. There where a few minor cuts and bruises but all the children were accounted for.

It took about 2 hours before I could reach John, once I did, I fell apart. I am terrified of storms, but God gave me the strength to hold it together for the children. Once they were all safe with their parents, all the stress came flooding out! My legs went out from under me and I melted to the floor for about 5 mins. The windshield of my car was busted in three places but was still drivable, so John came and took Andrew and I home. ( I was too shaky to drive) We quickly checked on a few friends and then proceeded to our house, about 5 mile away, to find not even a single blade of grass touched! Just no power for about 45 mins.

After calling back about 15 people that had called and left messages we tried to just have a "relaxing" evening at home. However it broke my heart when I put Andrew to bed and he woke up 3 times shaking and crying, saying he was scared the "big snowballs would break his windows".

The following day I thought everything is fine now. I've been able to process everything and life is back to normal... WRONG! I managed to sneak in a nap at about 1pm on Friday. I suddenly woke up, shaking, to massive winds outside, some of the gust were clocked at up to 75 and 90mph. John already had the news on and they said there was another tornado but it was 20 miles or so east of us, so I tried to calm down a little. Then they announced that funnel clouds had been spotted in Johnstown and Windsor. I freaked. I ran outside screaming for John, to find a sudden calm. Which of course freaked me out even more. He came inside and said our area is completely clear of any clouds, we're safe. That flood of emotion was unbelievable. Later that night I heard sirens and my heart started pounding and I started shaking again. Floods of sound memories came rushing back. Last night I woke up three time because the power went off. I would normally sleep through that but instead I was panicked. I'm sure in time I will not be so sensitive to all those simple sounds, but for now John will just have to put up with my mini freak outs!

Our church sits on the back side of the neighborhood that was destroyed. We had several broken windows and some roof damage, but they got it cleaned up and we held our 3 services as usual. In the 2nd service there were 2 families that lost their houses. But each family member was fine and they were just thankful to be standing there today praise the God that protected them.

I'm attaching some photos of both the house that I nanny in and some taken today and the neighborhood that was hit hardest. Oddly enough when we bought this house almost 4 years ago we had to decided between two houses, this one and one on Kenosha Ct in Windsor. One of the pics is of that other house. Most of the houses on Kenosha Ct are now uninhabitable. Again I praise God for those little things!

The window that broke leaving glass in the living room floor

Back yard damage. That is an approx 600lbs bbq grill that

took 3 adult men to set upright.

As you can see there used to be 6ft privacy fences between everyone's houses

Aprox. 2 blocks away from the house I was in.

The beginning of the hail. This is what hit my knee and left a nice bruise.

Like I said... this was just the beginning.

Random pictures of the houses and other buildings aprrox 3 blocks from where we were.

The house on Kenosha Ct, that we almost bought 4 years ago.

2 house down from the house we almost bought on Kenosha Ct.

The damage to my car! If you look closely you can see the hail dents on the top. It's hard to see in pics on a white car. A neighbor said my car looked like a golf ball. And we only have liability. Hopefully Meagan and Travis homeowners ins will cover it since I was on their property!

Life with twins and a singleton

Well, I offically know what it's like to have twins and a singleton! For the next 3 weeks I'm taking care of Maria (6 weeks) and Madelyn (5 months) plus Andrew. Yesterday we decided to venture out to the park. Boy am I glad a got a double stroller. However Andrew got jealouse that only "the dirls (girls)" got to ride in the new stroller. So I ended up puting Maria in the baby bejorn, and put Madelyn and Andrew in the stroller and proceeded to walk 1/2+ miles to the park. Beside for the stroller being hard to turn when Andrew is in the front, it was actaully kind of fun. And if was funny to see everyones faces as they watched me menuvor doen the sidewalk.

Andrew loves Maria. He even asked if we could take her home and I could be her moomy and he owuld be her daddy! It was so sweet. He's always asking for us to get a baby for his home. He says he wants a boy baby, but you should see how adorable he is with the girls. He helps pick out their clothes and tells them how pretty they are. He will make an excellent big brother some day.

Maria is so much easier the Madelyn. Madelyn is quite the little Diva. Maria is very laid back. She never fusses, will sleep anywhere and take her bottle at any temp. Plus her parents are so much easier to get along with! :o)

Well, speaking of the little diva... she is starting to wake up. I promise to get more pics posted within the next week!

Answered Prayer!

WOW! God is Awesome! So as you could tell I've been alittle frustrated with my current Nanny position. Monday night I got a call from Glen (the orig pople I was going to nanny for that was adopting). They got a baby!!!! Little Maria was 4 weeks old on Mon. He wanted to know if I could start with them on the 12th! :o) YEAH!!!!!!!! I told Madelyn's parents on Wed. They took it pretty well, but obviously they weren't happy! It looks like I'll watch both girls for the month of May and then a friend of a friend will take over in June. I'm not going to be responsible for 2 infants, a 3yr, 6yr, 8yr, and 11yr old in the summer. SOme poeple are cut out to parent 6 kids, but I'm not one of them!

So in the end, it looks like everything is working out for the best! Why do I ever doubt?

Rantings of a mad women!

Ok so I don't know how much everyone knows about my vurrent work situation, so I'll give you a little back story so this all makes since!
When we moved out here 4 years ago, I had a horrible time finding a job that would pay enough. Our pastor of out new church, at the time, told me they were starting a daycare and if I enjoyed children I should talk to them. So I did... best and worst mistake of my life! After 4 yrs of a roller coaster ride, which I will go into some other time, the daycare closed it's door on May 14th (after 3 weeks of us volunteering our time with no pay) But I was excited. A wonderful new door had just opened, and I could wait to start this new venture. I had been asked to be a nanny for a friend of mine's boss. After meeting with Glen and Teresa, I found them to be rather odd people, but they would be awesome to work for. They were adopting a little girl and said they wanted me to treat her as if she were an extention of my family. I could come and go through out the day as I pleased, go shopping, take her to my house if I needed to get anything done, what ever! YEE-HAW I wouldn't have to be confined to a house with no one to talk to except a baby and a 3yrs old. This was a little to no risk adoption so everything should be fine. The baby was born on a Tues... daycare closed Friday... I went out to celebrate with some friends, only to wake up Sat with a call from Glen saying things had gone horribly wrong and the birth grandmother decided she wanted the baby so birth dad was contesting the adoption. SUddenly I had no job. But instead of mourning the loss of this child, Glen made it his mission to find me another nanny position. His friend Travis had a 4m little girl, but had just hired a nanny, but he'd keep looking. Low and behold I get a call on Tue. Travis nanny fell through at the last min. I interview with them that night and started on Thurs. What a whirlwind.

Now lets talk about Travis and his wife Meghan for a little while! Madelyn is 4m old. Travis also has a 6ys, 8yr, and 11yr old from a previous mariage. I would also be watching them every other week during the summer. BUt not to worry beucase they just want to spend those weeks in the pool, so it should be fairly easy! *WAIT* did he just say I would be in charge of 5 children at a swimming pool by myself? Oh but the two oldest can swim just fine, and the 5yr old needs little to no helP! Oh thank goodness. *WHAT? NO KIDDIE POOL ("but it's only a 4ft deep")* So now I'm trying to keep an eye on 2 that can touch just fine, one semi-ok swimmer that is two inches to short to touch and a three year old and an infant. WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING! And on top of all of this, Meghan, doesn't want me to leave the house with Madelyn. "The park, pool and libary and only a short walk away!" SHort for who? The closet thing is 1.5 miles away. I don't know about you, but how many 3 yr olds can walk 3 miles, not counting the play time in between. So basically I feel TRAPPED most of the day.

Then to top it all off, they are supposed to get home between 5 and 5:30. I get a call on yesterday at 5:30 from Meghan saying her meeting ran really late she's on her way but it will probalby be alittle after 6pm. Ok I understand, I can deal with that. 6:10 Travis comes home, in a strangly great mood, saying Meg just pulle din the drive so she'll be right in. Good, beucase my son has been beggin for dinner since 4:45pm. Travis comes over to get Madelyn... he reeks of BEER! Nice so he decided to hit happy hour on his way home. Oh no, it gets better. As I'm leaving I could tell Meg was really upset with Traivs and she starts to chew him out. I hear that he had been home for almost an hour he was just next door have a couple of beers with his neighbor. "Well I didn't know she was still here" "Travis houw could you not, her can was parked right in front of our house" On that note I walked to my car in quite a rage myself. Maybe I wanted to go home and have a beer with my neighbor, or just simply cook dinner for my son! And even knowing what he had just done, he still had the guts to make slight jabs about how "expensive kids are" and "if the only way we can get that new house is if you take a pay cut..." What the hell, I should be charging you some type of over time! I already work 4 10+hr days for you people. Yeah kids are expensive, of course your make way over 150k a year, but heck if you hadn't had that affair which led to your devorce you wouldn't be paying over $35k a year in child support so money wouldn't be so tight, Mr. I have a 5br 3.5bath house with two brand new cars, a boat, 2 snow mobiles, 4 laptops, 2 plasma tv's, and I take vacations every other month for 2weeks! I feel so sorry that he has to pay me $240 a week.

Ok so can you tell I'm not excatly happy about my job? I do feel better ranting about it a little!

On a better note, many of you knew one of my best friends last year went into pre-term labor and delivered her little boy at 26 weeks. Well I'm very happy to say that we just go home from celebrating his 1 yr birthday. ANd he just graduated from PT 3 weeks ago! He's even starting to pull up on things! We looked back at the pics from his birth and it's unbeleiveable to see him now. He didnt' even have finger nails and you could see striahgt through his skin. What a beautiful miracle!

Well, I'm hoping to steal John's memory stick on Mon so I can add the more recent pics of Andrew. We'll see how that goes.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend! We miss you all! Keep praying us "home"!

Ok so Jess has been requesting that I get this thing up and going. So now I'm trying to keep up with myspace, facebook and blogger. Yikes. It's a good thing I have a lot of time on my hands right now. I'll start by back posting. Since Jess has never seen hardly any pics of Andrew, I'll get you all up to date. From the begining, 3 yrs ago. My how time flies! :o)


Andrew at the hospital 1 day old

Andrew and Daddy at the hospital. 3 days old

1st Sunday at church

Daily ritual for daddy when he got home from work!


1st family photo out of the hospital. Baby dedication at church

He had daddy's temper and mommy's lungs! 1 month old

His legs were like little springs. If you tried to uncross them
they would spring back to this position.

His "best friend" When he could talk he called

it "RaaRaa"

1st smile. I was just taking pics one and and when i went back to view them,

I realized I got his first smile!

Just an adorable pic! :o) One of my favs.

My fav outfit. it costs a small fortune, but it sure was adorable

If you compare this pic to the past one, it

only took about 20 days for him to really started chunking out!

My little reader!

1st hiking trip. Bear Lake in Estes Park, CO

Getting ready for his first Rockies Cardinal Baseball game

1st veggies. Carrots. As you can tell it didn't

go so well. He was a picky eater.

1st halloween. The smallest outfit I could find (that I could afford)

was this gorilla outfit, but it was a 2T (he was only 8m old)

1st Christmas

1st birthday. He reminded us of Ms. Wilson's blue berry outfit!

1st Rock climb. June 10, 2006

Christmas 2006


He LOVES painting. This time he even managed

to keep the paper clean!

Ok so I will work on posting more recent pics soon!