The blog post that I wrote in Tuesday indicated that we were having an icestorm, but it got much worse before it was over. The impact from the storm won’t be over for many weeks or months.

The freezing rain began on Monday afternoon and continued until late Tuesday night, when it changed over to a mix of snow and sleet. We were without power for w few hours on Tuesday morning, then the power went out again around 3:00 PM and was off about 12 hours. We stayed warm by our wood stove, and were able to cook on the gas stove in the kitchen. We spent part of the evening on Tuesday watching a DVD on Lisa’s DVD portable DVD player. The rest of the time we were looking out the windows and listening to the cracking and falling of limbs and trees as the ice accumulated. The damage is impressive!

My parents have been without power now for more than 48 hours, and we brought them to our house yesterday to stay with us. Their garage is completely blocked by tree limbs. Our driveway was blocked until we cleared out enough to get the Sequoia through.

I am posting more photos showing damage from the storm, from our yard, around town, and at my parent’s house.

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I know that I never posted anything else about the Macy’s trip, but I’ve just been too busy to spend my time blogging. Yesterday we got out of school at 1:00 PM, and today we missed school because of this weather. It has been freezing rain since midafternoon yesterday. Sleet and snow are beginning to mix in with the freezing rain now. The trees on our property have really taken a hit. There are limbs down everywhere, and if you stand outside or near a window you hear the pops and cracks of breaking limbs every few minutes. Just a few minutes ago, a complete tree came down, and it took out one section of our back fence. We were without power for 2 1/2 hours this morning (10:00 AM – 12:30 PM), but our power is back on now. We don’t know if it will last or not, but we are prepared to keep warm by the wood stove if we loose power again. Take a look at all the pictures of the trees in the ice by clicking on the picture.

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After much planning, the day to leave finally arrived.  It was pretty cold when we were loading the buses around 9:30-10:00 AM.  Our box lunches were in our seats when we got on the bus, but we saved them to eat in a an hour or two.  We were about 30 minutes late leaving because it was 10:30 when we pulled out of the high school parking lot with all five buses loaded for NYC.  We stopped somewhere in Illinois for dinner at something like a Ryan’s Steakhouse.  It takes a while for 200+ people to stop for dinner.  We were on the road all through the night, stopping once, I think around midnight.  Even in the dark, I could see snow on the ground as we drove across Ohio and Pennsylvania.  During the night it became very cold in the bus (mid to lower 50’s) because the bus heater could not keep up with the frigid outside temperatures.

I really did plan to blog about the trip with the FHS Band to New York City to march in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, but things have just been too busy and crazy since we returned home.  The trip was great, and I enjoyed being with the kids.  We did come home a bit weary from lack of sleep, but that was expected.  I am in the process of creating web albums from the trip and will post them here as I get them created.  I may find time to tell a bit of the story of the trip, or I may just find time to post the pictures.   Keep checking the blog the next few days for updates with photos.

Lately, as I have been driving around town, I have seen lots of  “Cosmic Boo-Boo Spacenuts” laying on the ground and in the street.  This reminds me of the years that we lived on Country Way.  We had two of these Bo’Darc trees in our yard.  The green balls that fall from them in autumn are often called horse apples or Osage oranges, but our family (actually, David) named them “Cosmic Boo-Boo Spacenuts” and claimed that they fell from space each night as we slept.  The kids had the job of picking them up from the yard, a fall chore much like raking leaves.  They piled them in brown paper sacks and we left them for the garbage truck.  Of course many of them fell into the street and were smashed by cars that drove past.  Sometimes the kids threw them into the street to try to break them open.  They were actually quite a mess, and we don’t really miss them at all, but I do get rather nostalgic thinking back to those days when the kids were small.  Seeing these “green balls” around town has even made me miss them a little, because of the fond memories they invoke.

Yesterday, David and I went with Lisa and the FHS band to Owasso to a marching contest.  We had to be at the high school at 8:30 AM.  Owasso is just north of Tulsa, so it took about two hours to get there on the buses.  As soon as we arrived in Owasso, we unloaded the equipment trucks and served lunch (pizza) to the students.

Next, we helped students get their uniforms.  It was really hot, so I know the kids were VERY hot in the uniforms!  We kept giving them water to keep them hydrated.  After getting into uniforms we went to the “warm-up” area (pun not intended).  Here you can see students getting ready to perform:

 

They headed to the stadium to perform at 2:30 PM.

This is one of the most prestigious marching contests in the country, and we saw some pretty awesome bands.  Fayetteville’s band did a great job of performing in the afternoon and made the finals competition for the evening.  There were 20 bands in the competition, and 12 bands made the finals.  We knew going into the evening performance that we were in the top six.  The top six bands drew numbers for the order in which they would perform in the evening, and Fayetteville drew the “best” position of perfoming last.  This meant that they had a lot of time to rest, eat dinner, and watch some of the bands perform before getting back into their uniforms.  Fortunately, by this time (around 8 PM) it was much cooler.  They did even better in the evening performance and placed 5th in the competition.  This might not sound that great, but if you could see the bands with whom they were competing, you’d be pretty impressed.  Two years ago when FHS last attended this competition, they placed 9th, and two years before that (the first time they were in this competition) they did not even place in the top 12 that got to perform in the finals.  So you can see that they have come a long way in the past four years.

More pictures…

Serving dinner:

Pictures from the evening performance:

 

Kelly Butterweck, Lisa and Kailey Miller with the trophy:

By the time we loaded the buses to head back to Fayetteville, it was midnight.  Therefore, it was around 2:00 AM when we arrived at FHS, and we all had to help unload the equipment.  I dropped into bed this morning at 3:00 AM.  We had a great time, but what a day!

 
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You may have already viewed Katie’s video from our hike up Indian Creek, but I haven’t posted in such a long time, I thought I should post about the hike and include the few pictures that David took.  Yes, the pictures were taken by David, not me.  Considering the difficulty of the trail, I thought that it was best for me to concentrate on staying on my feet and not worry about taking pictures.  The hike was particularly treacherous due to the high water, but even without high water it wouldn’t be a “walk in the park.”   We did have a lot of fun, and it seemed appropriate to take off on a challenging hike since Matthew, our “Family Adventure Coordinator” was here for a visit.  We did miss having Elizabeth and James and Allison with us.  It would have been even more fun with all of them here. 

Waterfalls are pretty much my favorite thing to encounter on hikes, so this was great getting to see waterfalls everywhere and in all directions!  We saw new ones around every bend in the stream.  The water wasn’t too cold, so the stream crossings weren’t bad, but the water was pretty swift.

Sorry, it’s been too long since I inserted an album, so you have to click on the link above to view the pictures.  I can’t remember how to do it the right way.

Well, the school year is underway, and tonight I will attend my last FHS Open House as a parent.  This will be a year of “lasts” since Lisa is a senior in high school.  Today I was reminded of how it used to be when the parent of one of my 6th graders e-mailed that she would not be able to attend our Prospector Curriculum Night on Thursday.   She said that she has one son playing in a Junior High football game, a daughter with cheerleading practice, and her 6th grade son has a football scrimmage.  In addition, her husband is out of town, and she cannot be everywhere all at once.   I do remember the days when different kids had Open Houses at their schools or other events to attend on the same night, or when Matthew and Katie were in Junior High or High School and David and I had to split up to follow their schedules.  Those days are over, but it seems I stay busy as ever anyway.  It is the second week of school and things have not slowed down yet.

People keep asking me if I am ready for school to start tomorrow.  Well, it doesn’t really matter if I am ready or not because school will start tomorrow, regardless.   I guess I am as ready as I need to be.  It is always crazy the first day.  The kids are scared, and none of them can open their lockers, so we just spend most of the day showing them around and helping them get acclimated to middle school.  I know I’ll be exhausted by the end of the day.  Pray for me and my new group of students, that I will be what I need to be for each of them.  Pray that I will make a positive difference in their lives.

Well, tomorrow I officially begin work for the 2008-09 school year, so technically today was the last day of my summer vacation, but I spent most of the day at school working on my classroom.  At least I didn’t have to get there as early as I’ll have to go tomorrow.  I have actually spent most of this week up at school, and even worked up there on Monday night.  My room is almost ready.  It looks ready, but there are still a few little things I want to get done.  On Friday I am leading an inservice for 5th and 6th grade science teachers in our district, and it will be in my classroom, so I wanted to have it looking pretty good before Friday.  Tomorrow we will be at McNair with the whole faculty together for most of the day, and there won’t be anytime to work in our rooms then.