All we are is dust in the wind, Dude

December 1st, 2011 - One of the craziest and scariest days of my life. We woke up to the wind howling outside. I knew it was going to be rough getting Beckett to school that morning because he is afraid of the wind. Also, Matt had school that morning so I was flying solo. I decided that it was going to be okay to be late to school that morning. We took our time getting dressed and mentally prepared to go out the door. The power went out before we woke up, so that meant I had to go outside and open the garage doors by my own power. I am so grateful for electric garage door openers. That thing was so heavy and hard to lift. At one point, I almost said, "Forget it! He will just miss school today." I eventually got it open - Anabelle and I had to get breakfast since the power was out anyways. We drove to Beckett's school, only to find a telephone pole leaning towards the street, hanging only by the wires attached to it. There was a cop car parked in the middle of the street to prevent anyone from driving under it. Well, I turned around and went the other direction to his school. As I pulled into the parking lot, I noticed there were only a handful of cars in the parking lot, and they were all starting to pull out and leave. I put two and two together and realized that school was canceled that day. BK breakfast for everybody!

Driving in the wind was one of the most frightening things I have ever done. Billboards had lost their signs and tons of big debris flying all over. White knuckles the whole way. We went to a Burger King attached to a gas station (the one closer to us had no power either, which I found out after I got the kids out of the car and through the door of the place. grrrr). We had a nice, leisurely breakfast of french toast sticks, one of the best breakfast inventions ever. When we were finally done, I took a deep breath and braved the wind one more time to go home. Our house was pretty cold without power, especially because the power went off just before the heater was supposed to come on in the morning and heat the house back up to its day time temperature. Couldn't it have just waited a half hour to go out? I mean really? I tried to think of what we could do to waste some time and keep warm and came up with the idea to put up the tent in the living room. The kids would love it and hopefully it would consolidate heat inside the tent and keep us warmer a little longer. I called our friend Livia and invited her and Aspen to come over for our "camping trip". I wanted to make sure they had somewhere warm to be, but really, I just needed a sane adult to be with me to keep me calm. I had a very hard time handling the storm. I kept envisioning the huge trees in our back yard falling over or breaking the power lines that run through them. Part of our fence was already down, and some of our shingles had blown off. I was sure those trees were going to come down next and it really scared me. It also didn't help that we could hear the wind really well inside our house because our windows are a joke. They are so bad that the curtains were moving because the wind was coming through them. I was really frazzled. Livia and Aspen coming was such a blessing. (Sorry for being terrible company, Livia.)

On the plus side, the tent idea worked. It was noticeably warmer inside the tent and the kids had a ball. Also the wind started to die down not long after our guests arrived. We talked and kept the kids happy with cereal until it was time for Livia and Aspen to go. After they left, I realized that the house was just too cold to stay in any longer. Lucky for us, a friend invited us to her sister's house that had power. I braved driving again, which really wasn't bad but I was a basket case at this point. The kids played with all of the other kids there and had a great time. I just sat in a chair with my coat on the whole time and didn't talk much. I was totally checked out mentally, plus I felt like I was never going to get warm again. I tried to keep conversation going with my friend Sharice, but I just couldn't focus. After Sharice asked me if I was okay, I decided I needed to calm down and relax. I don't think I was able to really relax until I climbed into bed at my brother's house that night. I felt embarrassed about how much the storm affected me. Once I heard how bad the wind really was (hurricane levels), I didn't feel as embarrassed.

I figured there was no school the next day. I thought our power was still out and Davis county's schools were closed, so Ogden should be too. I was wrong. We had power and they had school that day. Funny how the day of the storm I did everything I could to get Beckett to school, and then end up missing the day that he did have it. Oh well. We enjoyed our free day just the same, and were very relieved to find no more damage had been done than the bit of fence that was down and some shingles that were on the ground instead of on our roof.

I was surprised how the kids weren't bothered by the storm, not even Beckett was upset after some pep talk. It has made me think about the scripture about becoming as a little child. Here they were in an unpleasant situation, even scary, but they were happy and not worried, because they were with Mom. They didn't whine about how unfair it was that this was happening to them. They didn't wish it away. They didn't even complain about it (I am sure playing in the tent had to do with that). They just knew that everything was fine. They had faith that I would protect them, that they would be safe no matter what. It sheds a new light on how I handled that day. I spent the day praying in my mind that those trees wouldn't come down and that our house would be protected, but never felt like it was enough. I just needed to keep praying about it, as if he couldn't hear me over all of the other people praying for the exact same thing that day. Shouldn't one sincere prayer be enough? Shouldn't I have prayed and then trusted or had faith in Heavenly Father that it was going to be okay? Even if we did loose our roof or one of those trees did come down, wouldn't Heavenly Father have taken care of us? And this goes for other problems that come up in life. I find myself having pity parties and "Woe is me" moments all the time. I guess I need to take this lesson from my kids and just trust that everything is fine. No matter what storms blow around me, I will be fine, as long as I am with my Heavenly Father.