speaking of tornados..

Last week a tornado that sounds like it was comparable to the Holly tornado came thru north-central Colorado. Windsor, a town about 20 miles from us was severely damaged. Wellington was in the projected path of the tornado when I got out of bed after hearing the wind blowing very badly. I walked into the living room to see the weather lady on TV saying for our area to take shelter. Ken was in the shower so I got him out and we went to the basement. The kids were all in lockdown at their schools. Annie has always hated tornados so she was very scared. We had a period where we could hear the hail hitting the side of the house. Normally, in the area we were hiding in, we can't hear anything from outside so we knew it was bad.
When we finally came upstairs we were happy to find only minimal damage including a bird feeder that was smashed and our large stainless steel grill in the middle of our yard. The grill was dented and one of the shelves was almost twisted off. Our neighbor had a gazebo with a yard swing in it that was thrown into our fence. About a mile south of our house there was a house with broken windows and huge old trees shattered.
We know now not to tease Tami about living in tornado alley..and our glad that the tornado had mostly died out by the time it got to us.

New Neighbor

Annie and I helped our new neighbor get her gardens and livestock in order today. She is very nice, but

we haven't actually seen her yet. It seems that she only comes out on summer night and is very reclusive. Her name is Shaylee which is from Celtic/Gaelic origin meaning Fairy princess of the field

Annie enjoyed laying out the vegetable garden that magically sprouted fully developed fruits and vegetables including bananas! The chickens were tucked safely behind the garden fence.
We tried not to disturb her beautiful pathway, but regretfully got some soil from the garden on it.
We could tell that she liked the dark since there are no windows in her charming house. We hope the mailman doesn't get our mail mixed up since our house numbers are the same.
We think we will enjoy having her as a nieghbor. She isn't loud and hopefully will bring good luck to us.

Trip to Holly

Wyatt, Annie and I took a trip to Holly, CO for the past few days to visit my sister Tami and work on some new Green Bottom Bag designs.

Holly is the town that was hit by a tornado about 1 yr ago. It was amazing to see the change it brought to the town. This picture was taken right after the tornado. Now there are new houses and cleaned vacant lots where the path of the tornado had caused so much damage.

Wyatt painted a chicken coop and a shed for Tami. Their property is really nice, unfortunately I don't have any pictures since I had some camera issues.. They had a new garage put up in the last couple weeks, so now all their outbuildings are the same color and really look sharp.

The kids enjoyed the chickens. Wyatt was getting to be an expert about when there might be an egg in the coop to collect.

Annie played Barbies with Pearl for just about the entire time we were there. Annie also has a friend that lives in Holly who she met last summer so she spent some time with her.

It's too bad we live so far apart, we all really enjoyed the visit.

Please pass the word

Wyatt and I have created a button on this blog (right margin area) for friends and family to donate money to his Carpenters Tools International trip. The money raised will go into a paypal account to be transferred into a CTI specific account in Wyatt's name.
All of the money will be going to fund the 6 week band tour that he is going to be a part of. We have to raise approximately $4000 plus money to get him to Willmar,MN to go to training before leaving the country and a little extra spending money. The $4000 will cover international airfare, housing, food, visas, equipment, and traveling costs in the country he will be touring in. We have 2 months to raise half of the money so any help at all will be very appreciated!
If for some reason he does not get all the money raised in time, any money that he has raised will stay in an account and be added to thru the year so he can go on the tour in the summer of '09.
Please pass the blog address onto anyone that you may know who may be interested in helping Wyatt out.
Also, be looking for a blog in the near future featuring Wyatt and his CTI experience!!

GRAND OPENING

Act Now!! We are finally open at Etsy. com.

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5624267



Right now we have a grand total of 3, yes 3 bags ready to be shipped directly to your door. :)

Look in the near future, dependent upon my "real work" schedule, for more bags to be for sale and for things other than the tote-style.

Exciting news for Wyatt

Wyatt got a call this afternoon on the way home while he on the bus. He was accepted into CTI (carpenters tools). http://www.carpenterstools.org/

They are a christian music based ministry that tours outside of the US for 6 weeks in the summer. He will be one of 2 guitar players. Usually they have 6 groups a summer that go to various overseas locations. We don't know where he will be going, but he is over-the-moon excited.

The challenge will be raising the money for him to go. We will be doing garage sales, fundraising letters and visits to local churches, and anything else that we can think of to make this happen for him. I think that this will be a lifechanging opportunity for him and I am very proud.

I am sure that there will be alot of posts in the future about this experience!

pug and pine

This is our baby pug/australian shepard. Her name is Francine and she
is about 5 weeks old.
Her eyes are marbled blue/brown.