Nearly Killed by a Tree

Friday, after having gone to the store for a few things, I drove up to the garage and pushed the opener.  Nothing happened.  Think that our garage door was broken or messed up again, I sent Adam into the house to open it from the inside.  He returned a few minutes later to inform me that the power was out.  So I left the car in the driveway and went inside.

DeeAnn works at a nearby library and it was time for her to go to work.  She called them and they still had power so I took her to work.  I was just pulling into my driveway again when she called to say that the library power was out and they were clearing the building so I needed to pick her up.  I left Nathan in the car and ran in the house to make sure Adam was home as he had not been before.  He was home and since the power was out and they had nothing better to do Adam and EmmaLee got in the car with us to pick up DeeAnn.

On the route I drive to the library there is a really strange road Map of Road (click here to see it) One direction stops (going east on 23rd @ Bixby) the other direction can either travel straight on 23rd or curve on Bixby.  Hardy anyone signals so if I'm stopped at 23rd and there is an oncoming car, I wait.  Well on this particular day waiting saved our lives.  A car was coming in the opposite direction, no signaling to turn but I waited anyway.  After I realized that it was going straight I began to make the sharp turn onto Bixby when we heard a loud cracking noise.  I slowed and looked around and in a split second a tree fell right across the road.  None of the branches that were attached to the tree hit the car but a lot of flying debris which broke off the tree as it fell did hit us.

At first I thought that it was just a branch that broke off a tree and fell.  So seeing that the road was blocked and that no one was hurt I turned around and took another route to pick up DeeAnn.  It was a couple of minutes later as I was driving that the enormity of that close call hit me.  We were literally 3 feet from being smashed by a falling tree.  Our guardian angles were certainly watching out for us.

After we got home I sent Adam to take some pictures of the tree.  By that time there were workers trying to clear it of the road and they had a perimeter set up so he couldn't get very close but here are a few of the shots he did get.
Side Note:  our power didn't come back on until 10:53 pm. Lot's of downed trees from the wind kept the power company busy.

Mount Vernon

We visited Mount Vernon on President's day.  It was cold, and because it was free, there were a lot of people there.  But it was fun to see the historically dressed soldiers and hear the band.  We also got to hear a Pres. George Washington speak.  Hopefully we'll get to go again and see more.

Darin Leaves

On February 16, 2011 very early in the morning we dropped Darin off at the Reagan National Airport.  From there he flew to Salt Lake City and from there caught a shuttle to take him to the MTC.  He will be serving for two years in the Arizona, Tempe mission.

When his call came, Joe and I were out.  When we got home all the kids were kind of laughing and said we needed to sit down to hear where he'd been called.  Earlier in the day I was thinking it would be funny if he was called to the Tempe, Arizona Spanish Speaking mission.  For some reason I always assumed that Darin would be called to a mission where he would need to learn a language.  Anyway, I jokingly said to Darin "It's the Tempe, Spanish speaking mission." He said, "Well one of those is right." So then I thought, "Oh, South America somewhere." So when he said, "Arizona, Tempe English Speaking" I was totally blown away.  Ben would get home from that same mission in December and Darin would leave in February.  We called the mission home and got special permission for Darin to call his brother to tell him he'd be serving in the same mission.