Ice Storm from Hell

 We had a horrible ice storm in early April. The entire city looked as though a tornado went through. There were so many broken branches. You played a game of Russian roulette every time you walked outside because you didn't know if a branch was going to fall on your head. The poor trees couldn't take the weight of the ice so you'd hear a loud crack and then a huge bang as the branch would hit the ground. We lost power for five hours but we were lucky compared to some. Some people were without power for days.

 These pictures don't show how much damage we had. I think we were hit the hardest in our neighborhood. We have over 70 trees, so you can imagine what our yard looked like. My pear tree came out okay, so I was really happy about that! 

We had an entire pine tree go down in the backyard but it didn't hit anything, thankfully. We were wanting to cut that tree down anyhow because it was dead, so I guess that's one good thing that came out of the storm.

Our greenhouse was smashed in. I'm not sure how that's going to get fixed. We turned it into insurance so we're waiting to hear back from them. The greenhouse is 30 years old, so it's hard to find someone to fix it. I'd just tear it out, but it's right in the front of our house. I always thought it was a goofy place to put a greenhouse. Not sure what we'd do with a big gaping hole.

Mike and I were pretty overwhelmed with all of the work and didn't even know where to start. My dad happened to stop through that day because he was going to look at some car parts. He took one look at our yard and one look at us and decided to skip the car parts and help us. Steve and Sarah also came over that day and helped. Thankfully, the township said they would pick the branches up if you had them on the side of the road. We spent all day dragging branches to the road. Thank God for family!

 We had three huge piles the first pick-up. We filled an entire semi-truck with the first round.

Tom, Andrea, Mark, Sharman, Gary, Monica, and Sheldon came and helped the next weekend. They helped us drag the rest of the branches and rake our yard. We are so grateful for your help!

The weekend after that, Tom, Andrea, Mark, and Bernie helped. We had to rent a boom-lift to cut the rest of the branches that were broken. A tree company gave us an estimate and they priced it out at $3800 dollars. We had 20+ trees that needed branches cut off. We said no thank-you! The boom-lift was $250 to rent and we did it ourselves. It was a lot of work, but I'm so happy that it's done. We had two more huge piles for the township to pick up again. They came yesterday and hauled it away.

I have a feeling Mike is going to make me do more yard work this weekend. We have a ton of raking to do. It's funny how one little storm can do so much damage!

Egg Hunt

 We went over to Mark's for Easter dinner and the egg hunt. I can't explain how cold it was that day! It even snowed. We were probably outside for 10 minutes at the most. I remember last year, we hid and re-hid the eggs several times so the kids could find them. This year, we did it once! And the adults pointed out the eggs that were tougher to find. We all wanted to go in!

We had prime rib for dinner! It was really good. We stuffed ourselves and hung out at Mark's for the rest of the evening. The kids like getting into Mark's stuff. He has some pretty cool things they like to tinker with. We had some sleepy kids when we headed home.

Easter Pictures

 I can't believe I haven't posted these pictures yet! We spent Easter at home this year. Mark hosted Easter dinner and we did the egg hunt over at his house.

 The Easter Bunny came pretty early on Sunday. Mia got Dora the Explorer with a horse carriage, Riley got Peppa Pig and her family, and Ethan got Batman, Spiderman, and Killer Croc. The kids were pretty happy with their gifts!

 We went to Mark's church on Sunday. The kids were really good. They had a live band with lots of singing, so that kept them entertained. That, and we ate cinnamon rolls and drank juice during the service.

 I wanted to get a picture of them all dressed up. They looked so cute! Of course, Ethan was trying to be a goofball in almost all of the pictures.

My Superheroes

Miscellaneous

Wow! Has it all ready been a month since I've last posted? I guess time got away from me.

I started my new job on April 9th. I think I'm really going to like it once I figure all of the computer stuff out. The WIC office is going paperless so everyone is still learning the computer system. There has been a lot of confusion among the staff, so I've also been pretty confused.

You wouldn't believe the amount of orientation stuff I have to do. I am currently watching 12 hours of videos on vaccines. The videos are made by the CDC, so you can imagine what they're like. I also have to read every policy about WIC. There are hundreds of them. :)

I'd say I'm 60% done with the orientation stuff. I've never had to do this much for any other job. I guess the state wants to cover all of its bases!

The kids and I are enjoying the nice weather. We've been going on nightly walks and playing outside. It sure has been a long winter!

The kids have a few weeks of school left. My little brother is going to watch them again this summer. I'm planning on taking them to Traci's house once a week so we save our spot with her. I'm looking forward to not getting up as early and I know the kids are looking forward to sleeping in.