Storms

We had some severe thunderstorms and tornadoes come through our area last night. Nothing really much at our house other than mostly small hail, strong winds and rain, all while we were bunkered down inside our storm shelter. It's amazing how comfortable you can get in such a tight space if it is well planned!

There was one minor injury though. I got bit by something, and it HURT! We think it was a brown recluse spider. (I don't mean to make light of true storm injuries and death.....my heart goes out to those who lost loved ones or were injured from debris or something else storm related.) My hand was on my 2-year-old as I was holding her, so I am so thankful it bit me and not her. It is possible for death to occur from a brown recluse bite, and most of those deaths are in children under age 7.

So far it doesn't really look any different, about 24 hours later, but it is a little sore, and I have been feeling "off" all day, like I'm coming down with something. It may be unrelated, but I have heard and read that it can sometimes take 3 or 4 days before some people notice any changes in the bite area. So I think I'll take pictures just for fun, in case it turns out to be a brown recluse bite.

I did put activated charcoal on it right away, so that probably helped. Here are more great tips for natural care (read the comments as well). We have these things on hand, since we have brown recluse, brown and black widows, hobo spiders and a few venomous snakes as well. Last year our puppy was bitten by a copperhead. I used activated charcoal, coconut oil and essential oils on his wound, and after he mostly slept for 2 days, he was completely back to normal. A rattler is more serious, but since we have them around here too, we know what to do. Everyone needs to know!

Here is the only picture we took of the storm from our back yard, before we rushed into the storm shelter......the wind and rain were picking up fast at this point! My son took this one, and it's hard to get a good pic from our yard because we have so many trees.

Here are a few others I found on the web, and this is definitely what we saw, just not usually the entire mesocyclone at once! These were all taken yesterday of the storm that went directly over us. It had produced tornadoes in Moore, but thankfully they dissipated pretty quickly and were gone well before the storm reached us. There was still quite a bit of rotation though, which is really scary when you're standing right under it!

Week in review

I don't have many pictures from this week, but we've been busy!

Monday Myles went to the biweekly (turning into weekly, lately) Bible study with the men in the church. We all just stayed home and did some cleaning and played computer games.

Tuesday was dance and scouts. Nothing exciting, really.

Wednesday afternoon I went out with Chrysinda. We picked up another friend and went out to dinner at this great Asian noodle place! It's cheap and good, so we love the place! Afterward we went to the Bible study with the group from the retreat last weekend. We didn't leave there until nearly 11:00!!! During that time the kids went to AWANA.

Thursday had a lot going on! Myles usually gets home early in the afternoon, so an hour or so later, I went to the grocery store to get some grape juice for the Lord's Supper/Passover we were invited to that night. As soon as I walked outside I noticed a huge cloud of black smoke, and it looked very close to our house. Thankfully it wasn't blowing in our direction, but we were having wind gusts up to 50 mph that day, and it was SO DRY! I pulled out of our neighborhood only to come up on bumper to bumper traffic at the stop sign. Just half a mile from our house was a fire! I could see it! The flames were huge and right at the corner of the main intersection!

As Jayla and I left a little while later, we went to the corner again, thinking they might block off the road to prevent us from getting all the way to the corner. Myles had already taken the boys to watch the fire, and apparently everyone had the same idea. There were probably 50 cars parked in the empty lot right on the corner, and just on the other side of the street were huge flames, high above the trees! As quickly as I had pulled in and found Myles, I was being told to leave in fear that the flames were about to "jump" on our side.

We drove on to meet my friend Mandie to follow her to her SIL's house where the feast was being held. On our way there we nearly got stuck and/or turned around because of more fires. It was so sad. We saw people trying to get to their homes but being turned away by the police who were closing the roads. On those roads we saw people coming out of the neighborhoods with trailors all loaded up with whatever they could salvage in a few minutes. Later we saw on the news houses burning to the ground. Nothing was left, and just as one house would become totally engulfed in flames, the one next to it would catch. Every so often one house would get skipped. It was odd and all very sad.

Once it was all said and done (very late into the night) I think over 100 homes state-wide were completely lost, but I don't think anyone was killed! Praise God! There were some injuries, including firefighters, but no fatalities. One more house caught on fire Friday morning, but by then the wind was nearly calm and they were able to get it out with no more spreading or fatalities.

The Lord's supper/Passover was so fun! I enjoyed meeting several new people. There were over 30 people who attended the meal. The front of the haggadah we used was titled "The Order of the Lord's Supper, a Passover Narration". The group was mostly made up of non-Jewish Christians who were not celebrating for legalistic reasons (because they HAD to), but they wanted to honor Jesus as the Messiah, and Jesus was emphasized as the Messiah throughout the entire meal! It was very cool. There was shouting of praises and Hallelujahs and songs! I actually sat directly across from an Orthodox Jew, so I got to listen in as he talked with the man next to him about how this dinner differed from the Orthodox Jewish Passover. He would also say all the prayers in Hebrew before we said them in English. It was neat! I really did have a great time of worship and fellowship with other believers. Jayla came with me and was so excited the whole time. Jonathan chose not to come because he didn't want to be forced to eat celery. HA! They actually didn't use celery, so he missed out on all the other great food (and lots of it!) and tons of grape juice (which he LOVES), so he may change his mind if we do this again next year. We ended up leaving right after the meal. We were so stuffed! I think it was after 10 by this point, so we skipped the last part of the "order" of the meal. Others left early too, mostly those with children.

Friday evening we attended a going away party for a former pastor and his family. They are about to leave to be missionaries in another country! It seemed like a family reunion since we hadn't seen many of them in a while, and it was cool to see how all the kids have grown and changed. :) On our way there we drove past some firefighters who were still spraying down the trees and underbrush that had already burned. Here it was 24 hours after the fires started and it was still pretty smoky. Actually, by the time we went home we saw some more glow in a couple of areas, so apparently there were more flareups. Also the house we were at was very close to the fire. The pasture back behind the house was all burned, and a couple of houses further down the street were burned.

Today the smoke is all gone and it is not windy today either, so hopefully this set of fires is all done. I took Jack for his MRI this morning. It went well. It was kind of scary, even though I knew it was standard procedure and he'd be fine. Just watching them put him to sleep, seeing him struggle for a few seconds, then I had to kiss him good-bye and leave. :( They gave him a drip to keep him asleep. It took about 45 minutes or so and they called me back in. He was restless for a while, but by the time we got home he was asleep again and now is doing better. They said not to let him walk around today though because he could just fall over! :) So he is resting/sleeping and just hanging out in bed with Daddy today. I think I'll take a nap with him later. I didn't realize 7:00 came twice a day! :)

On our way home I drove through the fire area. It was so fascinating to see how it skipped all around the houses! I wish I could see an areal photo of the area just to see the pattern it took. I'm sure people had their hoses out and firefighters did such a great job keeping it away from houses. I'm sure they were exhausted having to fight against the wind for so long! The fire marshal said the fire was intentionally set, but they weren't sure if it was done in malice or not. At least they know who the criminals are, and I am so glad to know that no one was killed!

That's the update for this week, I guess. For the rest of the day we plan to hang out here at the house and maybe go shopping in a while. Tomorrow is Easter, so we're looking forward to a great worship time with our fellow brothers and sisters in the faith! :)