It's December. Wow. Where has this year gone....that's all I can keep thinking.
Mike is out of town and I'm sitting here waiting to go pick-up Amanda from a friend's house, listening to Christmas music and enjoying the quiet (finally) house as I just put the younger two to bed.
I've been thinking about this past year and if I have accomplished anything I set out to do last year at this time. I like to think I did accomplish some things. Other things I still need to work on. Those things seem to be the same things I was working on last year. Why is that?
Just too busy? Probably. I feel like I'm doing the right things. I don't feel like I waste time. Could be the prioritizing...who knows....just more to ponder in the coming months.
Remember back in August/September when I said I was bored because I was pretty much 'down' still recovering from a summer of surgeries. That is a distant memory now. But it's a good busy. Volunteering at the kid's schools. I've been in charge of the lunch activities at the jr high and it has been so much fun! Piano is going strong.
Last Monday, I met my parents to go to the temple and then out to lunch for Mom's birthday. We were going to meet at the Bountiful Temple and then try to meet Mike for lunch. Well, my parents called me as I was making my way up the hill to tell me the temple was closed! I should have thought about it, but due to this horrible wind storm we had, the power was still out.
So, I dropped my car off in a parking lot and rode with my parents to the Jordan River Temple. As we are pulling up the drive, we read the sign that says the temple is closed Dec. 5th to the 12th. We just started laughing!
My Dad said Oqurrih Mountain Temple has too many stairs for him and he wasn't driving to the Draper Temple, so we decided to do some Christmas shopping. We got a lot checked off my parent's list, too.
Then, we went to McGrath's Fish House for lunch. It was fun to reminisce and laugh. I love my parents so much and really appreciate their love and their friendship.
I'll back up and explain the storm. They had forecasted horrible winds coming through Davis County on Thursday, December 1st and they were right! Mike had made it to work ok, but said he'd never seen anything like it. The winds were pretty normal at our house, so I ventured out as I was supposed to meet Renae and Kellie to do some Christmas shopping in Salt Lake.
I jumped on I-15 and by the time I hit Farmington, I knew I had to turn around and go home. One problem, I missed the Park Lane exit. The next exit was Centerville and it was a good 5 minutes away on a good day. This was not a good day. I saw about 6 semis turned over and many more stopped along the sides of the road waiting out the storm. (Later, the trucks were prohibited from driving on I-15 until the wind settled). Signs were blown out. Debris was scattered and also flying through the air. Something hit my car's antenna. The wind was so bad, it was so hard to keep the car in the lane. My hands were cramping from my white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel.
By the time I got to Centerville, I was pretty shaken. The power was out, but I was able to hurry back on the freeway heading north. I kept praying that I would make it home safely. I was so happy to see that Kaysville exit.
When I pulled into the garage at home, it felt like a normal windy day. We didn't have any damage to our house. We only saw one fence in West Kaysville blown over. But, as soon as you got east of the freeway, there were blown out signs and many, many trees that were down.
Friday, the Davis School District cancelled all schools due to power outages and blown out windows on school buses.
Sunday, we got a call in the afternoon that we needed to help an older neighborhood in East Kaysville. More winds were forecast, although not expected to be as bad, and officials were worried about all the tree limbs taking flight and causing more damage.
Church for our neighbors was cancelled! As Mike came home from doing tithing, he loaded us all up and we headed East. What an amazing sight! More trucks and trailers than we could count were out helping! The dumping ground for the debris was out by our schools. So, you would see the empty trucks heading east and the full trucks heading west.
We had a hard time finding tree limbs to load in our truck! I kept telling the kids, "this is what happens when Mormons find out someone needs help' We finally found a house where a guy was using his chainsaw to cut up a huge pine that had fallen right next to a house. We ran into neighbors there and soon we had a full load.
We went back to WK and had to wait in line for a 1/2 hour to unload! The line was that long. There were policemen directing the traffic. We saw Nat'l Guard out helping and many, many, many community members.
We were able to dump 3 loads that day. By the time we dumped our last load it was getting dark. We had a great time as a family and were so happy to help. It's an amazing feeling you have when you are helping others. I know our kids won't soon forget that Sunday afternoon.
I'm going backwards, so I may as well keep going. Saturday morning, I went to a luncheon with Renae, Kellie and Catherine. Renae's neighborhood does a mothers/daughter's lunch for Christmas every year. It was a great time to chat with these gals and a few of Renae's neighbors we know.
Amanda and I also went to help wrap trees for Festival of Trees that night at 10PM. The Festival is a fundraiser for Primary Children's Hospital. We have been involved with Festival every year but one since moving to Kville. It was so much fun being with Amanda this time around. She is an amazing worker! We didn't get home until 2AM.
Then, we woke up bright and early and went to help deliver the trees at 8AM. Amanda was a trooper because we were so tired! One of our favorite deliveries was to the sister of a missionary who was killed just a few weeks earlier. Someone had purchased the tree and then donated it back to the family. We showed up on her doorstep and said surprise! She was overwhelmed and then told us she was thinking of taking the tree to her mom. Yep, we cried a little.
Overall an amazing few days to start December!
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