On Mother's Day, May 10, 2015.  We had what started off to be a wonderful day.  Molly was a little bit cruddy, but other than that we had a fun filled normal day.  We stayed home from church because Molly was sick.  We did a little laundry and watched a little TV.  All the normal stuff.

At 10:00pm, the kids were in the bed asleep and Larry went to bed.  I stayed up to watch the radar because there was storms brewing and we were under a tornado watch.  I get a little nervous but not scared enough to wake the kids up.  I did wake up Larry and he assured me nothing was happening because the wind was not even blowing....regardless of the tornado warnings going off. 

At about midnight or a little after is when I learned that trees were down around town.  A little while later I decided to go into to work to see if I could help.  That's when I realized how bad this storm was.  I had no idea that about a mile and a half from our house an EF2 tornado had touched down killing two people in our town. 

These are pictures from the damage.  These aerial photos were taken by the news media that was all over town the following day.

These pictures are of a trailer park on the west side of town.  There were four trailers completely demolished. 

 

Two people lost their lives in these trailers and other were injured severely.  The young couple that was killed were found shielding their 18 month old daughter.  The daughter survived and was fine.

On the east side of town at another trailer park, there were several trailers damaged by trees.  This family was home when the first tree fell on their trailer at the end of it near there bedroom area.  They were all in the living room area and left the trailer.  When they came back after the storm had passed, there were two more trees across the house in the living room and kitchen areas. 

 

Throughout the trailer park there were multiple trailers that looked just like this one.  It looked as it the tree was a knife and it cut straight through them.

 

The next picture is of a house on Sunset Street.  There were several trees on this house.  This is what most of the damage looked like on many houses.

There were many trees down around town.  Some were uprooted.  Some were snapped.  Some were twisted off.

 

 

 

This one is a house on Johnson Street.  You can see the massive damage to trees in that area. 

 

The Church of Christ also had major damage. 

 

These photos were taken by Jonathan Canaday from the radio station.  He takes very good pictures and captured a lot of the devastation. 

 

A lot of the houses behind the old hospital looked just like this one.  There were people trapped in their houses after the storm.

 

This is an idea of what the streets looked like.  When the storm came through you could not even get into the destroyed neighborhoods because of downed trees and power lines. 

 

Jonathan captured this photo at a church on Leslie Street.  Notice that the wall of the building was gone but the tablecloth and flowers on the table were undisturbed.  That kind of stuff blows my mind.   There were so many stories like that.

 

This next photo is of a camper that was parked in a yard that got slammed against the house when the storm came through.  It was demolished.  The camper and the house.  I don't know who the man is in the picture.  But I imagine him laughing to keep from crying, especially if it is his house or camper. 

I am so proud of our little small town.  I love that everyone comes together in times of need.  It wasn't 15 minutes after the storm passed that you could hear chainsaws running and I don't think they have stopped since.  The church set up a drop off place for donations and they had to start turning people away because there was no more room for donations.  The next few days was overwhelming to see the love and compassion shown to everyone.  Tyson and Pilgrim's sat up in the church parking lot and cooked for people displaced, without power, and the volunteers and workers.  They donated several thousand meals during a few days.  Local and neighboring business donated anything from food and water to clean up supplies.  I couldn't even count all of the volunteers that came out to help clean up.  It was amazing. 

The Red Cross was there as well taking care of victims displaced and delivering meals to workers in the neighborhoods.

 

School rivalry ceases in times like these.  There were students from Ashdown, Dierks, DeQueen, and Amity that came by the bus loads to help with the clean up. It literally made me cry when I would start talking about all the volunteers and donations. 

The police department, fire department, city and county road crews, and highway department put in lots and lots of hours even following the storm.  It was also very heartwarming when I realized that every police officer came out during or shortly after the storm without even being called.  These guys don't get enough credit.  When something bad happens they run to it, not away from it.  They walked in these neighborhoods in the rain and lightening, climbing over downed trees and power lines, knocking door to door to make sure everyone was safe.  Then they worked days of traffic control on little sleep afterwards.   

 

 

It will take weeks to get all the streets and yards cleaned up, and the neighborhoods will never look the same.  But as always, it could have been much worse.  We are thankful and appreciative and happy to live in our small town. 

This one's for the girls!

"This one's for the girls" was the theme this year for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. We trekked to Little Rock Friday in a small caravan to participate in the race in honor of Debbie. I met some very sweet girls from our neighboring county and felt like I had known them forever. They were good people. We ate good food, "camped" at the hotel, dyed our little girls' hair pink, laughed, and enjoyed each other's company. Okay, I didn't participate in the dying of the hair. Props to Kristi.

There were 14 to 17 in our group at any given time. And did I tell you how nice everyone was? This will go in my book of good times!!

Our little girls were excited about their pink hair and strutted it around all day Saturday. (and the day after that and the day after that.) I finally had to make Sadie take her pink hair out! I think she would have left it in forever.


We left the hotel at 6:45am and drove to our designated parking area and began our walk to the starting line. At this point I should tell you that this was my first race for the cure. I was excited about it...even at 7:00 in the morning!

I wasn't the only newbie this year, but there were a few two timers (Diane) and a couple of veterans around in our group. I'm glad. I would have been lost because it was so overwhelming. There were people EVERYwhere. When I say everywhere, I mean everywhere.

Our first stop was at the Channel 7 News table to get the little girls some tattoos. Look what happened. We all turned into little girls and plastered Channel 7 tattoos on all of our cheeks. (Lauren's wouldn't stick good. Kristi was the sticker.) Then Debbie got interviewed on Channel 7. We, as her team, stood around "for support" and air time. Debbie is a three year survivor, a very sweet girl, who I'm glad survived. I am very proud for her and very proud of her.

Then we located the tent to turn in donations through a maze of women every shape, size, color, height, width, age, religion, and shoe size. I was very proud of my Sadie who raised $93.00 in donations all by herself. An accomplishment in my opinion.

There were many innuendos regarding the safety and concern for female appendages. I got a kick out of them. This was a port-a-potty decorated by the Little Rock Children's Clinic. Too cute.

And the race began.... We walked, of course, not ran. But the people. You would not believe the people. I was mesmerized. Everyone there was there for the same cause. They were walking in honor of or in memory of someone close to them that was affected by this undiscriminating disease.

It was emotional for me. I felt like a part of something. I so needed to see the good in people because often times I do get cynical. I saw good in every one of those thousands of people walking that day. As we walked, I prayed for every one person affected by cancer in any way whether directly or indirectly. And I also thanked God for the many blessings that I have in my life. I imaged that 3.2 miles would seem like a long hike. But there were distractions that kept you entertained along the route. There were also thousands of supporters, mostly men who I imagined were spouses, fathers, sons, brothers, and friends of those in the race, who cheered everyone on as they walked for a cause. That too moved me to tears a couple of times. It felt good. The time went by quickly...too quickly.

One of the distractions was a fire truck parked in the intersection blocking traffic on the route. There were many of these intersections, but only one with real live dancing firemen on top of a fire truck. They were there, wearing pink, truly for the crowd.

Also there was a city block lined with Harley motorcycles with tough biker men wearing their tough black leather and pink everything else. This was another sign that I thought was adorable.

And on another block were some belly dancers performing and right beside them were these men posing in a Yoga stance. I don't know how long they stood like that, but anywhere else it would have been out of place. Here it was inspiring.

There were also schools bands, cheerleaders, live bands, radio stations, TV stations, mayors, and other dignitaries along the route. Gov. Beebe and many many other supporters gave me high five as I briskly walked past them.

You would hear survivor stories as you walked over loud speakers and radio station speakers. Announcers would be in the crowd stopping survivors to ask how long they have been a survivor. It was unbelievable....the numbers.....the people....the good.


And my little Sadie made every step of the walk and was tuckered out and had a sore foot. Bless her bones - she stuck with it and kept on trucking.


Good Day. Good Times. Great Cause. Much Love. My favorite color has always been pink. Forever it will be pink!

Tropical Storm Ike

Sorry I am delayed in posting these...but I couldn't not post them after all of the effort that I went through to report the damage from Hurricane/Tropical Storm/Tropical Depression Ike. I consider us lucky although we had major tree damage and electrical outages. Some compared the costs of the damages to that of the notorious ice storm years ago. I personally don't see how it could equate to that, but there was plenty of trees, limbs, and debris scattered.

This was a beautiful tree at the courthouse in town...

This tree went down blocking one of the city streets....

Many trees just split from getting twisted in the high winds...

This tree landed on a house...

Many of the trees that fell took power lines down. I know you can't see this picture very well, but trust me, the tree fell and took the power line down.

I had to work the morning after the storm. I was unaware of the damages that Ike left behind. I know now that my ignorance was a good thing because I would have been a little more nervous during the storm.

I wish I could have gotten pictures on the way my town. It was so dark and I was so frantic to find electricity to get ready for work, that I didn't have time to stop and try to capture the images of the maze of electrical poles that I had to maneuver through about two miles from my house. It was then that I realized the impact of this storm.

We lost electricity at 8:30pm and sat in the dark for about 30 minutes before we gave it up and went to bed. I allowed Sadie and Sophie to sleep with a flashlight....one because I had to get up at 4:15 the next morning and I wanted to pacify them and give them something to entertain themselves until they found the sandman....and two because flashlights are safer than candles.

Electrical crews were out at daylight and worked frantically all day. Power was re-routed and restored to my house before noon, which I was so thankful for. It was many many days before the new poles were reset.




This was my favorite tree in my yard. It was a black walnut tree I am told. It was already leaning when I moved there, but we didn't cut it. I have always liked this tree. It had character! It made it through the ice storm. It served as a jungle gym for the kids. But Tropical Storm Gustav got it. It is now laying down and will probably die. I am so sad...

And Ike got this one! This one is a Mulberry tree, I have been told. Isn't there a song about a Mulberry bush? I think this one I can save--at least some of it. This tree started out as a bush that I kept mowing down. Wayne told me to let it grow because it would grow very fast and provide lots of shade. (I think he knows what he talking about.)

This is my farewell to Ike. So LoNG IkE!!!

17 kids

OMG! Could you imagine having 17 kids. Not just them living in your house everyday, but actually having and supporting 17 kids. That is just unthinkable to me!

Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar have had their 17th child today. Jennifer Danielle joins 16 siblings whose names all start with the letter "J."

I first met the Duggar family on a TV special on Discovery Health two years ago. Interesting to me because they family lives in Arkansas, the father was a State Representative, and because I was pregnant at the time of the 16th child's birth. I have followed them since. They are an amazing family. Check them out.

Family Website
Discovery Health site dedicated to Duggar Family