Things I Might Forget: Blessings in the Storm

We are finally home from a really exciting, but really exhausting vacation. We combined a birthday trip for the two of us (which I will blog about later) with a trip home to visit family and BOY was it an eventful week! Aside from the fun things we had planned, we (along with the rest of the East Coast) dealt with an earthquake at the beginning of last week (whose epicenter was about 30 miles outside of our home) and a hurricane toward the end.

When we left Virginia last Friday (the 19th), we had no idea of what we would be missing...and I'm so thankful for so many things. I was thankful that the earthquake wasn't more powerful than a 5.8, thankful that no one I know was hurt, and most importantly, thankful that we weren't home (because Pack would have been on the road and I would have been home with the boys...FREAKING OUT!). And an earthquake is a scary thing, not even taking into consideration all the aftershocks that have continued to happen. The scary part for us was that we had no idea if anything inside our house was damaged. We would have to wait to get home to find out (not a thing was out of place, by the way...thankful).

And then there was Irene...

When we left Virginia, we knew there was a tropical storm in the ocean and we knew it was probably going to make landfall, but we figured it would probably strike the coastal areas (of which we are not), so we didn't make a lot of serious preparations before we left. Just the normal security type stuff. Then, while we were in San Francisco, we learned that Virginia was going to be pretty hard hit and all my friends in Midlothian were making emergency preparations. We were thankful once again that we weren't home and that our boys would be safe in South Carolina while we were in hurricane-free California. I knew we had a lot of trees around our home, but there wasn't a whole lot we could do about it, so we just didn't dwell on the worst case scenario and spend the time sightseeing and enjoying our time. Then, on Saturday my next-door-neighbor called and I knew it must be bad news. They were in the thick of the storm and called to let us know that a tree from their yard had fallen onto Pack's work truck....which was parked in the driveway next to the house. They couldn't be sure there wasn't any damage done to the house itself, so once again, we had to just wait it out and see.

Well, we got home today and once again, we were thankful. The tree that fell crushed the windshield of Pack's truck, but there was hardly any damage anywhere else on the truck. Thankful. Our house was unscathed (minus the yard, which is a wreck). Thankful. We have awesome neighbors that pulled out their chainsaw and went to town on the tree with Pack to make sure it was going to be light enough to move safely. Thankful. About five other men (three of which, we hardly even know), spent part of their Monday afternoon, lifting the giant walnut tree off of the truck while I backed it out the driveway. Super-thankful. Although the windshield was shattered, there was no water damage to any of Pack's things inside the cab. Pack was thankful. And the tree itself was VERY close to our house. If we had been home, the family van would have probably been crushed instead. If the tree had rolled off the truck, or fallen just a few inches in other directions, there would probably have been damage to the house. As we cleaned up the yard and dragged branches and limbs to the curb, we couldn't complain about a thing. We. just. felt. THANKFUL. Thankful and glad to be home.

Oh, and we never liked that walnut tree anyway;)