We Survived the Storm

   We love Thursday night tennis with the Swans. 

  Watching these two hooligans has been exciting to say the least! I find myself sounding like a broken record when I say, "Hudson, get off Max" or "No, be soft Hudson" or "Hudson's turn then Max's". Between the hitting, crying and body slams they sure enjoy chasing each other around the kitchen bar and seeing who can squeal the loudest. I'm grateful I can watch Max so Allie can go to such a fun preschool. 

   September means peaches time! Mom Peck and Grandma Swan were angels and helped me bottle 25 beautiful quarts. Knowing they could have been doing anything else on a Friday afternoon but chose to help me with these makes my soul so full of gratitude. I am beyond blessed. 

  I always love Lydia's cryptic notes. 

  We had such a fun Labor Day weekend! Cam, Mary, Em and Tyson came up to spend a few days and we partied! We played tennis, games, watched the new Mulan movie and just had fun catching up. The kids played every minute from when they woke up until bedtime. I love that they have so much fun together.

  I went with Brayden and Cam to Wayne's loop Saturday night. It was absolutely beautiful and aside from a slight scare from a run-in with cows we had a great time. Brayd ran the trail and beat Cam and I on bikes. He is one amazingly fit man. 

Grandma and sweet Adeline.

  I can't even with this girl. She is just the sweetest!!

  We just had to go see Great Grandma and Grandpa's new Razor. The kids had a blast! Almost as much fun as Grandma and Grandpa do when they're meandering around the property. 

   Em is almost 18 weeks along! They are having a girl and we couldn't be more thrilled for her arrival!

  Loren and I woke at 3:30 am last Tuesday morning to howling wind. I had never heard such a storm and was honestly worried our roof might blow off. We looked out our window to make sure the tramp was still there. It was and was staked down so we went back to bed. A minute later we heard a huge BAM on our window. We rushed over and looked out to see our tramp, upside down against the fence just seconds away from flying over top of it and smashing into our neighbor's house. Frantically we raced outside and was all we could do to just hold on. I felt like we were in a tornado with wood chips, rain and who knows what else swirling around. It was pretty scary to know that we had absolutely no control of what the wind would do. We were finally able to break the net poles down and lay the tramp flat on the mat. We threw our umbrella weight on the middle of the mat and tied it down to the swings just for good measure. We went back inside and didn't sleep a wink the rest of the night. 

  Garbage from everyone's garbage can's littered our lawn.

  Our canoe was right next to the house and the wind had blown it clear across the lawn!

  This was Lydia's face when she discovered her grasshoppers, which had blown across the yard during the storm, had survived. I'm sure they were traumatized as it took at least a couple days before they hopped anywhere. 

  My parent's fared worse than we did. RIP tramp.

  Everyone who had large trees lost either part or all of them. That morning as I took Allie to preschool, I could not believe the amount of damage done. There were huge downed trees everywhere, on top of houses, over fences, in the middle of roads. Mangled trampolines lined quite a few yards. The power went out and took two days to come on for some people. It was truly a storm to remember. 

  That morning Liz's power was out so she had to make do with lots of flashlights. The boys didn't seem to mind.

  Liz caught this sweet moment of Allie sharing a hammer with her friend.

  Last Thursday and Friday the kids were sick so I kept them all home from school. We decided to go to the library for the first time since March. We couldn't go in but could pick up ten books. The girls were thrilled. On our way home we drove past the Hyrum Cemetery and couldn't believe all the huge trees that had fallen. There were so many damaged gravestones, it was heartbreaking. We also stopped by the rodeo ground at this park and you can see where a bunch of trees had fallen.

  I've heard about the salmon run up at Porcupine but I've never seen it for myself. So since the kids were home sick on Friday we decided it would be a great time to go explore it. What a cool thing! There were so many bright red salmon swimming. The girls sang the salmon run song from Brother Bear the whole time. They loved it! Wish I could have taken more pics but it was all I could do to keep Hudson from swimming with the fishes.

   Like father, like son.

  Lydia made this crown all by herself!

  We took a walk up at Second Dam on Sunday. It was so nice to be out in nature. This boy is growing so fast. He turns 18 months in a couple days. 

  Allie and I finally had some time for just the two of us to play with her Kiwi box. It was dinosaur themed this time. We had fun making a Dino costume, fossils and playing a fun Dino game. 

  My world.