A Wild Storm

A week and a half ago, a ferocious wind storm tore up our quiet little neighborhood here in Farmington.

It started early Thursday morning December 1st and didn't subside until the afternoon. Winds got well over 90 miles/hour. I honestly thought our house was going to blow away. But luckily it didn't:) We also didn't have electricity most the day.

We were very fortunate to have only minimal damage to our roof and stucco and although our fence is pretty much in shambles, it shouldn't be too much money to repair.

Some families weren't so lucky in our neighborhood. I thought I'd share some photos of what happened.

This picture was taken from our upstairs bedroom window. It is our neighbor's roof which literally blew away. They probably had the most extensive damage. Debra said she went up to her laundry room and her attic door had blown away. She could see right out to the clear blue sky.

This is our back fence and the pieces we were able to salvage.

Our back neighbor's roof.

This is our house. The side aluminum on the roof was all mangled and caused a lot of ruckus during the storm. That black mark is a shingle that scuffed our stucco.

This is Jay and Jill's house next door. They were standing in their kitchen when a shingle flew through the window in the family room attached to the kitchen. They said glass went everywhere and with no electricity, they had to bring in a generator just so they could vacuum up the mess.

These are our neighbor's around the corner. I feel really bad for them. That was a lot of fence that blew away.

This is the back of our house. The kids loved that they could go into Sabrina and Oliver's yard again to play on their swing set.

It was a pretty scary day. Hunter kept telling me he was scared and Grey was telling us the "ghost was coming".

Since the power was out. We had to rely on our gas stove for food. It was kind of fun to put our food storage- aka, canned chili- to good use. And it was pretty nice to have a hot cup of cocoa as well.

After this experience, I was really heart warmed to see our neighbors working together to put all our homes back together. We have really good people that live here. I also realized that we need to work on our 72 hour kits because they would have been really useful.

And I'm especially grateful our house didn't really blow away, although if we had landed in OZ, and I found a cute pair of ruby slippers, that would have been pretty cool!

things to do when you're bored...

Style your's and your friend's hair with 500 bows...

then do your mom's.

Watch morning cartoons in your pajamas...

...then keep them on the rest of the day.

Invite your food loving friends over so they can make you "hotpot".

You may get brave and try shrimp for the first time and not like it, but you'll love the rice noodles.

Play "shooting guns" with your best friend.

but be careful... it may turn into war.

Just take a picture of you and your favorite little buddy...

or take a picture of your child that loves having her picture taken.

Play Bingo with M&Ms. That way everyone's a winner!

or write the most important letter of the year to "you know who"!

There. Now you have no excuses:)

A Happy Halloween

We had a very happy Halloween yesterday! The kids were so excited that they could just go ask for candy at all our neighbors houses:)

This year, Grey was Batman, Hunter was Spiderman and Jaina was a fairy princess with monarch butterfly wings? That girl has an imagination!

I thought I'd show you how I decorated for Halloween this year. Not too exciting, but it was fun making these fabric leaves. They are sprinkled around my house.

This wreath with the same fabric leaves.

A little message for the trick or treaters.

And more fabric leaves. Hopefully next year will be more festive.

Other happenings this Halloween weekend:

Grey tried to spook us...

...by sneaking the Ipad under our bed and playing games.

Is that bad that he can navigate the Ipad better than me?

And we made slime. The kids LOVED it! It was... so messy, but luckily the clean up wasn't so bad.

Hope you had a Happy Halloween, too!

for 2 years now...

we have called this place home.

A lot goes on in this little home of ours. If you were to peak through our front room windows (which I hope you never do:)) you would see that we are a regular family with struggles and joys.

You would probably see:

Hunter playing the "tank game" on the computer,

Grey following us around asking for his "bobby." (his sippy cup of milk),

and Jaina playing with her snail shell she found this morning on our walk home from Hunter's school.

You would probably see me happily going about my day except for those few moments where I pull out fist fulls of hair and then you'd hear Jaina ask why I have mad eyes.

You would see Jon either chasing the kids around or reading something new on his Ipad, (which I swear has become a new organ to his body.)

You would see that we love to make our home welcome to all who may come in.

Outside you would see a few changes since we moved in.

Our October Glory maple trees are getting taller each year and will one day provide lots of shade for our children on hot Summer days.

There are several plants we planted this year namely a vegetable garden, a few fruit trees, a weeping pine and some beautiful flowering kale.

You would see that we didn't quite plant our grapes and raspberries this Summer and that I'm sure I'll regret it next year.

You will see our little garden tucked away for the Winter and that it provided for us very well this past year.

You will see that the grass seed we planted last Fall has now filled in and makes for a soft place to lay-and makes for a lot less dirt in our house, too.

You will see why we love where we live. We are surrounded by good people and beautiful mountains. And it doesn't hurt that their is a Cafe Rio nearby.

And you will know why we love to play outside before it gets dark.

And we love that we moved in at the dawn of the holiday season and that this year as we look past on our last 2 years here, we are grateful to have each other and our cozy little home.

32 years ago...

this incredibly smart, funny and talented man was born...

and years later, made this girl the happiest girl on the planet!

Happy Birthday sweetie pie! Wuv you!!!

Catching up

We've been up to a few things these past couple weeks:

the kids were entertained for days by this "drum"...

then they and their friends dug a hole to China, while looking for treasures like rocks and underground water...

my sister and her family came over for a nice Sunday visit...

when we've dropped Hunter off to school, Jaina and Grey have wanted to do this the whole time...

my little artists made some beautiful creations...

Hunter played around with the laws of physics...

Jaina helped pick bucket loads of tomatoes...

I was amazed we even grew a single tomato...

and then we made Grandma Pearson's recipe for delicious canned salsa...

Hunter caught a frog on his way home from school, which was completely loved to pieces (luckily, not literally) by all my children.

we made a quick labor day get away to Antelope Island...

Jaina created these cat whiskers out of juice box straws...

We had our first "family meeting" on Sunday where we discussed Hunter's bed wetting, Jaina's whining and also the need for our children to respond in any way when we ask them to do something. (they tend to completely ignore us and silently walk off)

We came up with Hunter saying, "Copy that" and Jaina saying "yes, ma'am" in a Southern accent.

and lastly, it was only this past Spring when Hunter learned to ride a bike without training wheels. Now he's got a partner to keep up with him when we go for evening rides...

that's right, Jaina really is a big girl now!