Moving Excitement

Nine days ago we had movers at our house packing up our belongings and loading them into the truck to bring them from San Antonio to Huntsville, Alabama. On Monday Glen had his final check-in at work and then we hit the road. We planned to stop in Houston (about 3.5 hours) for the night, which worked out well as we only had a short drive that day. The next day we drove to Hattiesburg which was about 5.5 hours (of driving - with all the stops it was closer to 7 hours). It was a dive of a hotel - horrible place. The boys did a good job of sleeping, though, so I'm thankful for that. Wednesday morning at breakfast we saw on the tv that they were expecting bad weather for most of our route from Hattiesburg to Huntsville. I was a little nervous about it, but only because I was worried it woud make our drive longer. It was only supposed to be about 5.5 hours, but was more like 7. We stopped in Tuscaloosa for lunch around 12:30 and were back on the road at 1:30. As we drove along the freeway we were noticing trees had been blown down recently. Eventually I turned on the radio to a weather report. They started talking about tornadoes ahead of where we were, although we were driving northeast and the tornadoes were northeast of where we were. At one point we looked ahead of us and saw the funnel cloud ahead of us. Several cars had pulled off the freeway and many people were out of their cars. We pulled over too for about 10 minutes. It turns out a tornado had hit the town just off the freeway where we pulled off. I started getting really nervous and anxious about the weather ahead. I was mostly concerned because I felt such a responsibility to keep my kids safe, yet we couldn't do anything more than what we were doing to keep them safe. We planned to drive to our house and use the automatic garage door opener to get into the house. We had only thought we would leave the cats there and then head to the place we had reservations for the night. As we got closer to the house, we were hearing that more tornadoes were heading our way. I just wanted to get to the house and was trying to think of how we could make it work to spend the night there. We got to the house and discovered the power was out and there was no way to get into the house, so we got back on the road to head to our temporary lodging.  I was worried because the tornado was continuing to head toward us and it was going to take time to check in and get to our room.  We had some complications with made our drive even longer, but just as we were checking in the tornado siren started blaring and then the power went out.  SCARY!  We hustled to get to our small apartment and get our cars unloaded.  I guess I didn't really expect a tornado to hit where we were because I actually had the kids sitting in their highchairs in front of the window (so I could see them since we didn't have any lights) to eat dinner. 

Well, we were safe and our biggest inconvenience was not having power.  It was kind of adventurous making due with little food and no power.  The power came on for about an hour on Thursday morning so we watched a press conference on tv.  It went out again at about 9:00 and stayed off until about 6:30 on Friday morning.  We took advantage of the power being on and went to the grocery store to stock up on foods we could eat without power.  We do have a gas stove so are able to use the cooktop and we also have hot water.  We found out while watching the news that Tuscaloosa, where we had just been four hours earlier was hit really bad by a tornado.  We also had a tornado hit pretty close to our house shortly after we were there.  God was really watching out for us.  It's just amazing to think how close we were to a few different tornadoes, yet we didn't have to experience it.  The closest we came to experiencing it was being without power for about 36 hours.  We also didn't have any phone or internet access, so we had a difficul time letting our families and friends know we were okay. 

We still don't have power at our house.  We drove out there yesterday and I got to see it for the first time.  Today we drove out to do some cleaning.  We met the neighbor and he offered to let us piggy back off his generator, but we'll just stay where we are until we get power out there. 

It's been quite a ride.  I'm so thankful that God protected us and provided for us just what we needed when we needed it.  What an amazing God I serve.

Walking, Talking, and Moving

We've been busy moving and I haven't had time to update here, even though there's tons that's happened.  About three weeks ago Luke started really walking.  He continues to improve and I'm just amazed after waiting so long for him to start walking that he's doing such a good job.  But he's been like that with several different things.  Like once he learns it, he's got it.  He's still a little stiff in his legs, but I think that will be fixed as he gains strength in his legs and hips.  He's also started talking a lot more.  He started saying "please" and "ball".  He signs please, thank you, cracker, more, eat, water, dog. 

Just a few days after Luke started walking he received his SMO's (braces).  I'm not convinced he needs them now that he's walking, but we're still having him wear them.  We were told to have him wear them anytime he's awake, but he's probably only wearing them half the time.  It's hot, so I feel bad making him wear socks and tennis shoes because his feet get so sweaty.  Once we're settled, hopefully only a few weeks, I'll arrange to have a physical therapy evaluation along with a speech eval to determine whether he needs to continue with the services or not.  We're so proud of the progress he's making. 

We've had an eventful move and we're not even done with it.  I'll write more about that in a separate post.

Cute things they are doing

The other day Micah was carrying around a little stuffed frog. He walked over to a hat that was laying on the floor and tried to step on it. I told him it was for his head so he put the frog on his head.

Luke has had a walking and signing explosion the last few days. About a week ago he started taking many, as in more than 10, steps at a time. He first tries to walk and then once he falls he goes back to crawling. In the last three days he's started signing dog, more, and I cant remember the third one right now. He's been signing more for a while now but he started doing it correctly with his fingertips today. Oh, the third one is thank you.

I was trying to get a video of Luke looking at himself in the mirror and asked if he could give kisses. Micah walked over to my mom and gave her a kiss. We made such a big deal about it that he did it again and I was able to get the second kiss on video.