Busy and Beautiful

Kit is super busy lately. She is adorable and sweet and funny and she makes huge messes. The other day I set out to pot flowers on the front porch with her. It was a disaster. She spread dirt everywhere, dumped the cat's food and attempted to drink his water. I was feeling frustrated when I looked up and saw this beautiful scene.

 

Gibson is a Teenager

We'll we are officially the home of three teenagers. Gibson is such a good kid. He is always making us laugh with his wittiness. He is very obedient and helpful.  For his birthday he asked for a loaf of homemade bread all to himself. He also asked for Cake Pops. I hate making Cake Pops, but I will do it for a person who asks on their birthday. :)

 

Grace Concussed

Well, Tuesday I was headed to the grocery store with Kit. I had just dropped Lilla at school, when I received a call from the VP of Davis High saying Grace had passed out in her nursing class and hit her head on the cement floor. I went straight over and picked her up. She was in a lot of pain mostly in her neck and the back of her head. She had a giant goose-egg. Conveniently the teacher is a nurse so Grace was well taken care of. I took her to the ER, the same one I visited when I hit my head. Yep. Luckily she didn't need stitches, but she was quite confused. For example she couldn't remember the word "breakfast" or even pronounce it when I gave her the word. After talking to her, the Doctor said, "She's obviously concussed." Now it's funny, then it was scary. She was just having a little bit of a hard time understanding what people were saying. They did all the tests and scans and everything came back fine. She didn't eat breakfast that morning, and the doctor said it's not uncommon for kids her age to pass out. 

I called my Mom and she rushed to the hospital to pick up Kit, thankfully! Kit got to spend the day in Pa's garden, a much happier place than a hospital. I'm so grateful we live close to our awesome family in times like these

Wednesday, Lilla made muffins "NOT FROM A BOX" which was her goal. They were delicious carrot muffins, and she did it 99% by herself! 

 

Grace

Friday morning was off to a rough start. Nate's car wasn't running because it needed a new battery and mine had squeaky breaks and needed to be taking to the shop. Grace saved the day by using only help of YouTube to change the car battery. It was awesome. I was so proud! And grateful!! Now we could take the other car to the shop and have a car to use for the day. YES! 

Saturday we got up early and helped with the neighborhood cleanup of branches and trees that the wind took out. Even after many many hours of work yesterday, there is still clean up to do. They even brought in the National Guard to help.

Grace and I bailed out early though and headed to Provo for a little mental break. We met up with Margie and Chloe at the Beehive Bazaar. And hit my favorite little shop, Harmony. We ate way too much and then went to check out this cool mural. Apparently Provo has lots of cool murals. It was good to spend some time one on one with Grace. Before we know it she'll be flying the coup.

Wind

We have had a few traumatic days. Monday night, September 7th. Nate and I and the kids had just finished the main work on the mud room. We worked on it all weekend, and it's looking good. We went to a neighborhood meeting, and it's a good thing. Because we were notified of a wind storm that was coming. We came straight home and all worked together to get everything in the yard secured and put away. That night was crazy windy. At 3:30 AM Tuesday morning I noticed our bedroom window was cracked open, and stuck that way. I prayed we'd figure a way to shut it. The window surely would have blown off had we not been able to get it shut. Thank Heaven we did! I couldn't sleep after that. The wind was blowing SO hard, I was nervous to stand by any of the windows because the wind was shaking the house. I was nervous enough that I went down to the basement and prepared beds for everyone, then went to each of the children's bedrooms, woke them up, and we all went to the basement to sleep. I felt much safer down there, but didn't really get much sleep. The power flickered off and on during the night, but we finally lost it for good for around 10 AM Tuesday. School was initially put on a 2 hour late start, and then cancelled altogether. The rest is sort of a blur honestly. 

The winds died down a little that morning, but we'd heard it was going to get really bad again. And it did. Winds of 99 miles per hour were recorded in Farmington. I'm not sure when, but at some point the big tree on the northeast corner of the property blew onto the garage. Nate and our new neighbor John Baker (Poor Bakers literally are just moving in.) braved the wind in bike helmets to cut some of the tree off the house to prevent more damage. I was scared for them. The power was out all day. That evening things calmed down and we were able to go outside, knowing that things were supposed to get bad again Tuesday night. We've lost several trees including Lilla's favorite pink poof tree. Dad was able to bring us Uncle Ace's generator, so we could at least keep the fridges going and have a little light and some Wifi. Nate ran to Home Depot and Target. Nate said the stores were like scenes from Stranger Things. It being pretty dark and the generator lights flickering. He said he had to use his phone light to pick out the M&Ms -ha! Nate and Dad helped stabilize the chimney that was blown off the house and we braced for round 2.

Luckily Round 2 was not as bad as Round 1. Still super windy, but I was able to get some sleep. We even slept upstairs in our own beds. School was cancelled Wednesday. Due to power outage and debris. There were 180,000 people without power. I believe Farmington and Centerville seemed to receive the brunt of the storm (Centerville even worse than Farmington I've heard), though I know there was destruction all over the Wasatch front. And still, some people today (FRIDAY!) without power. They called on crews from other states to come help get it restored.

Anyway. All day Wednesday we worked on cleaning up our yard and the Baker's yard. Dad was up again to help, Nanny brought Ila and Pearl and they helped. It was a huge mess. And there is still a lot of cleaning up todo. We picked up so many branches, some garbage, a bunch of apples, and probably 100 pounds of plums that had fallen from our beautiful trees. The sound of chainsaws was everywhere, even as I type this I can hear 2! Both neighbors sawing away at fallen trees. We worked hard all day. My watch recorded 23,321 steps. :) Just under 10 miles of walking and working. We noticed the power was back on about Noon on Wednesday! Yay!

Thursday the kids finally were able to back to school. I drove around our little town with Kit in the back seat taking pictures and feeling a little traumatized.

Old Famington City Hall.

Though there's so much destruction and sadness, through it all there is always the the awesomeness that comes from working through it and helping each other out--Coming together as families and communities. 

I like to call this the Hurricane Hibiscus. I brought this pot in before the storm and the Hibiscus finally was warm enough to bloom.