We were thick in the middle of renovating the lovely Norman house when we learned that Brady's grandmother, Whynama passed away. Such sad news to us. The day before we were supposed to travel, I made a quick trip to the store and picked up Hunter some new dress clothes and shoes as his were too little - plus I thought he needed a tie. We were all packed and ready to head out early the next morning as a family when Hunter had other plans. He threw up in the middle of the night a few times. Taking a throwing up child on a car trip just didn't seem like a good idea for his and our sake. Brady called his parents and luckily was able to catch a ride with his family before they left town. As Hunter was telling Brady goodbye, he threw up on him. Nice. He needed to head out the door right then so he got the lucky pleasure I am sure of smelling not so pleasant for the rest of the day. I was sad because I really wanted to attend her funeral. She was a very sweet lady to me and I liked talking to her.

Later that evening, well almost midnight, I was catching up with Brady on the phone. I remember hearing the wind pick up and the whole house creaked. I remember telling him I was getting kinda freaked out. We lost signal with each other. His area was not very cell friendly and we were in the middle of a storm. The kids were asleep in our bedroom. Then air started moving through the atrium door pushing it open. The sound of the wind was incredible. I secured that door and went back to our room and shut ourselves up in the back room. I could hear the wind banging on our bedroom door. The power went out and then it got hot. I tried texting Brady and looking up the weather on my phone but no luck. So after a very long time, I finally fell asleep. In the morning, I woke up and went to the living room as usual when I noticed all the damage outside. Opening up the back and front doors to check it all out was crazy. One of the atrium sky lights had blown off and was in the back yard. That explains the wind coming through the house! Lots of trees were down but luckily no major house damage occurred. The power was still not on and after waiting several hours more in the sticky heat, I decided to head out to get some breakfast at IHOP and to charge up my cell phone.

The power eventually came back on and I tended to Hunter the rest of the day. We all just lounged around. I looked out in the yard often and all I could think of was when in the world was this giant mess ever going to get cleaned up as the Norman house was consuming our every waking moment. Both Brady and I were physically and mentally exhausted. I was thankful for a day off from the Norman house but I couldn't stop thinking of all the work that still needed to be done now at two places. The next day some really sweet people from church stopped by and cleaned up most of the debris from the yard and cut up the really large trees and placed them by the street for a hopeful city pickup.

Brady tidied up the piles and drug around some more debris to the front when he returned. In order for the city to pick up storm damage, the tree limbs have to be a certain length. About a month later, the CLAW came by and picked up our limbs. Hunter, Brady and I had a good time watching the claw pick up large loads and place them in his vehicle!