Weekly Wrap Up–The Super Derecho Edition

This has been an eye opening week.  Friday night around 9pm, as I was putting the kids to bed, the lights started to flicker and then I heard our dog go berserk.  Berserk in a way I’ve never heard, so I headed to the back door to see what was going on.   Then the lights went out.   I opened the back door and it sounded like a freight train was coming.  So I slammed the door, grabbed the kids, yelled at the husband and my mother and headed to the basement, grabbing a flashlight as we went.

From the basement I could still hear the dog going berserk and headed back up to get him.  The 50 foot tall trees on the other side of our privacy fence were swaying and swirling all at the same time.  As I grabbed the dog, and headed back in the house, I heard children yelling.   I got the dog to the basement and handed him off to the husband and headed back upstairs and out our front door, around the side of the house to the church playground where two kids, MAYBE 9 or 10 years old, were freaking out.  (My question is why are they out at that time of night alone, and why didn’t their parents have sense enough to come looking for them?)  But I didn’t take time to ask, as I escorted (shoved, ran with and drug) them off the playground, out from under the trees and across the church yard and shoved them in the direction of their front door as I bolted back across the church yard in the hail and wind.

My thought, and that of everyone else was a tornado, but we found out later it was a super derecho. I’d never heard of it before, have you?  Anyway, this massive storm left a 700+ mile path of destruction over several states, killing 12 and knocking out electricity to millions. You can see some pretty amazing photos and videos on this site.

Some of the people in our area are still without electricity and water (wells don’t work without a power supply).  We were without electricity for a little over 36 hours.  We lost the food in our fridge, but the deep freezer in the basement was able to maintain, thank God!  Thankfully though, none of our trees, or even my 7 foot tall sunflowers were damaged, thank you Jesus!!

In other news the girls started swim lessons this week and LOVED it.   Lindsey insisted she didn’t want to take lessons (she’s slightly afraid of water).  By the end of day 1 she was able to go under water, and even open her eyes under water, which was a huge accomplishment.

We finished out knights and castles unit study.  We’ve been working on this project for several weeks now.  We still have a few read aloud books to wrap up before moving on to Vikings.

We had some great family time on July 4th.  We hung out with friends during the day and extended family by night.  And we’ve progressed more on our art curriculum review.   Check out the girls replicas of Claude Monet’s “The Bridge”.

It’s been an interesting week!  We’re thankful to have our utilities restored, thankful to all be safe, and thankful to live in such a great country.   We hope your week went well (although, maybe not as full of natural disaster!)  

Be sure to visit the Weekly Wrap Up!