24 Years Ago Yesterday..........

Then

Now

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad! We love you!

How fast are you?

82 words

Flood Cleanup

After being forced to use a sssllloooowwww laptop for two months, we finally have reason to celebrate because our hi-speed internet on our regular computer was hooked up yesterday! What does this mean, you may ask? This means that I can easily access blogs, quickly post something on my own and download pictures - which, in turn, means that I will post more often! Things are looking bright! Sooooo, I thought I would post a few pics that I downloaded last night of the flood to give you a taste of what has been going on.

:Cleaning out the basement:

:Hauling out ruined cabinets:

:Ah....memories of the old laundry room:

:Stairs leading up to the kitchen:

:Living room - notice the popped up hardwood floors:

:Dining room:

:Mom pointing out the watermark in our garage:

:Me pointing out the watermark at the front of our house:

:A very happy debris carrier:

:Our muddy basement walls:

:Stick 'em up! This powerwasher is loaded!:

:A mud caked bike:

:Powerwashing the basement:

:The stack of ruined music:

:Attempting to dry music out:

:Our friend, Megan - she and her husband, Caleb, helped us trmendously on our house:

:Washing the muddy bathroom floor:

:Ready to rip up some hardwood floors! Watch out, people, she's got a crowbar!:

:Way to go, woman!:

:Caleb the handyman:

:Laying the new hardwood floors:

:Our fixed hardwood floors in the living room:

:Our beautiful new hardwood floors!:

:That is the swingset that fell out of the truck (see previous post):

:Ready to take a load down to our new home:

:This was written above a door in our garage:

God's Promise!

Announcement

Our internet should be officially up and running on August 8th! We have our regular computer set up and ready for internet.....once this happens, I will have pictures and more posts! One more week! [smile]

Where to begin??

Where do I begin? Life has been unbelievably hectic this whole month - which is why I haven't posted, and for that, I apologize. I know it can be boring and frustrating to look at blogs that hardly ever post anything, so I don't know why I've been pulling the same thing. There has been plenty to blog about, but since we still don't have our pictures downloaded, it doesn't make for a very exciting post.

I guess I'll just have to go back to the beginning - starting with the 4th of July. We had a wonderful July fourth weekend - filled with ultimate frisbee, swimming, fireworks, a parade, food, and lots of fun and laughter.

The next weekend we took a trip to Des Moines for our Nazarene District Assembly and campmeeting and then Saturday we went to the Adventureland theme park! It was a wonderful reward for all of everyone's hard work! I got out of my comfort zone a lot that day - I even rode a roller coaster....and I loved it!

This last weekend we had some friends of ours, Megan and Caleb, come up to help us clean up our house and for some fun. We got SO much accomplished! Caleb, who is a great handyman, fixed our hardwood floors, replaced some flooring, did some plumbing work and so much more! Megan jumped right in there as well - washing floors, helping to pull up the flooring, and hauling things out of the garage. They were both such an enormous blessing! But it wasn't all work, work, work. Saturday, Megan, Deanna, and I went out for some fun. We headed to the mall and Bath and Body Works was our first stop - was that ever an experience. Let's just say we made some memories! After shopping around for a while, we went to Kohls and Famous Footwear, and made some great purchases. Then while sitting in the parking lot of Kohls, trying to decide our next move, it starts to pour cats and dogs - it was windy and rainy, lightning and thundering - it looked like a mini hurricane. So we drove down a little ways and ended up at Village Inn, where we raced inside, and were DRENCHED!

Also, we had a wild experience yesterday when we were transporting our swingset from our old house to our new one. We didn't bungee cord it down, so as we are going down the highway, all of sudden, Megan says, "Caleb, slow down!". We look back and to our horror, see a rather large part of our swingset fly from the bed of the truck and crash onto the other lane on the highway. We turn around as soon as we could. Turns out, God was looking out for us and the other drivers. There "just happened" to not be anyone in the other lane - if there had been, it more than likely would have shattered their windshield or worse. It "just happened" to be that Caleb had hooked his trailer onto his truck, so when the swingset flew out, it hit the trailer instead of my mom, who was following behind us. And it "just happened" that the drivers around us were paying attention enough so as not to hit it - although three cars, including my dad, had to slam on his brakes and swerve in order to miss it. So God had his hand on us and everyone around us - it could have been so much worse!

So, from a wild experience at Bath and Body Works, getting drenched in torrential rain, and having our swingset fly out of the truck onto the highway, we had a great time and made many memories!

In the midst of all of this, we have been working on our flooded house, as well as trying to make this house a home. I will attempt to post more often...hopefully we get our normal internet up and running soon!

Up next on the docket, we have hockey tryouts this weekend to attend (YAY!) and a fireworks show we're watching with a church group on Friday. Dad will be pulpit supplying all during August in Davenport, Iowa, so continue to pray for him.

Thank you for your support and your prayers!

Hello....

....from wet Iowa!

I am SO sorry for my lack of posting! I do realize that it has almost been 2 weeks since I last posted....I haven't been keeping up very well lately. But things are gradually getting back to normal around our household - although I know the work is just beginning for some families who were hit by the flood.

We are very slowly getting our new house in order....we finally have the dining room and living room how we want it. Yay! Everything else is coming along - our goal is to have it done by tomorrow....which may be a lofty goal, but it is a goal.

It's gradually starting to hit home a little more about how much we lost - as we are unpacking, we notice things that are gone or are not the same as before. Today, we had to go through all of our piano music - that was not fun. We lost a lot of music that we use when we travel and just use for fun. But, thankfully, we were able to salvage more than I had originally thought we would be able to - some of what we lost can be replaced - when that will happen is still up in the air.

Our old house is coming along, as well. The basement is being bleached and cleaned out, and the items that we were able to salvage from our garages will be hosed down and bleached, hopefully, tomorrow. Progress is being made!

All of us are so exausted....we have been on the go for a month straight. Last Sunday, we had a wonderful break from it all as some friends (who happen to be friends of not only us, but also our pastor and his family) came up and we got to hang out with them all day! We spent the afternoon and after church Sunday night playing ultimate frisbee, croquet, and spoons! It was a wonderfully relaxing day - it was great to get away from it all.

Hopefully our internet on our normal computer will be up soon - for right now, we are using Dad's laptop - which makes it hard to post pictures and to look at your blogs. But I will try to post more often!

God has been so good throughout this whole ordeal! I have two verses I would like to share that have helped me throughout this time.

"Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart, All you who hope in the Lord." ~ Psalm 31:24

"But now, thus says the Lord, who created you, O Jacob, and He who formed you, O Israel: 'Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; You are Mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior;" ~ Isaiah 43:1-3a

I think I could use a shout-out from all of my friends right about now! Also, a lot of you who have blogs aren't saved on my dad's favorites, which makes it hard to find your blog. Please leave a comment so that it makes it easier for me to find it. So please leave a comment! I would love to hear from anyone who is reading this! :-)

Flood Update & Pictures

What a week this has been! While we have gotten a lot accomplished, there is still so much to be done. Wednesday, we had a crew of 5 guys come up from Knoxville, IA, who attend the church we used to pastor. They were SUCH A BLESSING! They stayed all day long and helped us gut out our grandparents' basement, and cleaned out our basement as well! They worked SO hard and we are sooo appreciative. We could have never got that much done in one day! We also cleaned out our back garage - we lost just about everything that was back there. But we were so fortunate compared to many other people!

Our house was a wreck, which was hard to see since it was so beautiful before. The hardwood floors and carpet were ruined and the basement was full of mud. It was a mess. The crew from Knoxville helped us clean so much of that out.

At my grandparents', we had to take out the ceiling tiles, take out the sheetrock, disassemble some kitchen cabinets, a countertop w/ sink, and a toilet. That was quite a job - but we had a lot of fun! :-) We were all so dirty! The sad part about this day was that I forgot my camera!! Agh! Sorry - no pictures from that day.

But I do have some pictures of the flood. Now, keep in mind that these pictures were taken almost a week after the flood had hit (last Saturday & Sunday), so the waters are extremely low. I don't want you looking at them, thinking "This is the flood that was supposedly so bad??"! If you have seen pictures on the news, etc., you know how bad it was.

This is actually the river, which was still flooded a bit.

The flood waters created these holes in this alley next to my grandparents' house

This is just the beginning of my grandparents' growing junk pile


Pitching in at grandpa and grandma's house

I found this among my grandparents' things - I thought it fit us where we are at

The waters washed out part of this basement

I thought this was SO weird! This is a pet store called "The Floodzone" - how coincidental!

These pictures don't do it justice. I'm not trying to make it sound like more than it really was, but the destruction was so bad - people are hurting and homeless, there are those who don't have anything, and there are those, like us, who were able to save almost everything, but their house is such a wreck. Many have decided to just sell their houses because they are so sick of it.

In answer to a question asked in a comment, we will not be returning to our house. Actually, we had our house up for sale when the flood hit, so now we have just completely moved out. We already had a house lined up to rent, so we have moved into that. It's a blessing that we had somewhere to go! Continue to pray - we still have work that needs to be done on our house and at my grandparents', and we are trying to make this new house a home at the same time.

It's so good to know that throughout all of this, GOD IS STILL GOD!