Sun. - Mon., Jun. 7-8

When my alarm went off yesterday morning the house was silent and DARK. I walked around the house looking at a few clocks, expecting to learn that somehow my clock had been set incorrectly and it was still 4am. That was not to be. It was, indeed, 7am. The cloud cover was so thick it allowed almost no light through. Wow, it was hard to get moving. I took the camera to the church building hoping to capture a picture of how W-E-T it has been.



No wonder it was raining so heavily. A tornado had hit Omaha just a few hours previously. It was only an F-2, but it hit just a few blocks from Travis's/our friend Kristen's house. On Sunday afternoon, Travis (aka "weather freak") was able to shoot some pictures. I'll post two of them here. What I want to point out about this first picture is the bunk beds you can see through the upstairs, far right window. Because of the freak-storm nature of this storm there were no sirens for this one, and the entire family was sleeping in their upstairs bedrooms at the moment the tornado lifted the roof off their house.




A couple of things about this picture: in the center, behind the tree (that got blown apart, and looks like a stick poking out of the ground), the remaining level of the house behind the tree is the ground level; the night before there had been another level on top. Second, the house on the left...? There is something sticking out to the right from its chimney. That's part of the roof from the house next door.




Since I had the camera handy, I decided to take this picture.




I spent all afternoon in the kitchen. I did take one 20-minute break, but we were having COMPANY! :) I made a potato salad, salsa, and Chocolate Truffle Cake. N helped a lot with the potato salad!!



Jeremy and Justus were doing "Man Work".



[Oh! That reminds me! On Saturday Jeremy asked Justus to come help him downstairs. Justus asked, "Should I finish my woman's work first?" Jeremy said, "WHAT 'woman's work'??" Justus said, "Making my bed and picking up my room." Jeremy said, "That is NOT 'woman's work', and YES, you *should* finish it first!" lol Sy & I were laughing (tongue in cheek, of course) because maybe Justus said that b/c he never sees Jeremy picking up or making the bed. When I recounted it to Jeremy, he reminded me of numerous occasions when he and Justus have actually done picking up of the house and made bed/s together! True. :) ]

The Morts (the family that hosted Jeremy in their home during the weeks he was here before we were) were late to evening services because the tornado sirens were going off when it was time for them to go. (sigh) We're thankful they got to come, tho', because it was tricky to figure out a time when all seven of them could come over for dinner, what with two of theirs living on their own now ('Jess'ica is 21, Wes is 19). The guys were able to grill the burgers on the back porch since the storms for the day were past. Everyone had a great time; they stayed 'til after 10!! lol "No school tomorrow," and all. What fun we had with them!! We told stories and laughed and ate and laughed some more.


Justus (and N, later) spent a bunch of time this morning stenciling!! Thanks to the Reeveses for passing down these stencils their children used!! :)



What was sitting on the floor below Justus, though, was too cute not to shoot:




N & J played with the shapes this morning. They played it for a remarkably long time, I thought, especially considering it's mildly 'below their level' ... if anyone's counting. ;) Not surprisingly, toward the end N seems to have gotten bored with the pre-printed designs and (blows my MIND!!) used the shapes to create a scene from Egypt, including the Sphinx. (blink, blink)











Five minutes after I told Justus to pick up the shapes, this is what was going on in the living room.




Next picture: N & J helping me (so much!) clear the garden. Tomorrow I'll take pictures of it so you can see what we have been accomplishing. Suffice it to say that my elbow is KILLING me, and has been bothering me for the last week, most noticeable when pulling heavy, large items out of the washing machine (bath towels, Jeremy's & my jeans). This thought passed through my mind tonight, with an eye roll and a giggle at the preposterousness: "What do I have, "tennis elbow"??" When I googled, "elbow pain pulling", tennis elbow came up immediately. It described my symptoms and then said, "Other common causes", and the first word was: gardening. HA! Who'd have ever thought I'd get *tennis elbow*??? lol argh Thankfully I'm confident I can treat it at home.








These are pictures of Jeremy doing the honors tonight. Chicken-flavor toothpaste is the trick. >>mmm<< "interesting"...!






Before bed, N spent some time reading poetry. Robert Louis Stevenson. We've been reading poetry a lot this last week. The children ASK for it, more than any other type of reading. I read somewhere recently that it's really 'good for' kids to have poetry read to them, and we haven't read poetry regularly in the last 2+ years. Evidently everyone's happy to be back at it. :)