May 29, 2008 Tornado's!

Tornados!!!

I'm sure many of you have heard by now about the tornado's that went through Kearney Thursday evening. I just happened to be here to experience them! (lucky me!) Mom and Dad had a big drapery job in Hays KS, so I came to Kearney to stay with the kids. (which are only Relyssa & Kaela since Meshayla and Kara are at Preps with Jana, and Morgen went to help Mom & Dad.)

We knew we were supposed to get a bad storm Thursday night, but I never really thought it would be this bad! We were listening to the radio and they were doing a phone broadcast from the west edge of town where one of the DJ's was, and hearing things like "yep, we're seeing some definite rotation in the clouds, it's looking pretty bad out here, oh, looks like a funnel coming out of the clouds, oh wow, there's another funnel that appeared to have just touched down from what we can see....."
Not long after that, the power went out and we sat in the dark, in the closet under the basement stairs and waited and listened and tried to calm a 6 year old who was quite scared, I'm sure we all said a prayer or two, and when the 6 year old wouldn't calm down, we decided to sing some hymns. That did the trick and I think we even managed to get a little giggle out of her when we couldn't remember some of the words to the hymns we've all (all as in Relyssa & I) known for years!
Trey was totally silent through the whole thing, I thought he had fallen asleep! Which of course was good since we were cramped, in the dark and couldn't move enough to get comfortable anyway!
It was so loud even down in our shelter, I was picturing all this terrible damage to the house, roof gone, windows blown out, or something, but when things calmed down and we decided to peek out, the house was still standing minus a few shingles! Grandma Priscilla's house is right next doors to mom & Dad's, and she lost 2 big trees in her front yard and another along her driveway lost a big branch. Mom & Dad lost a good size branch off of their older pear tree, but the rest of the fruit trees look fine.

Ryan stopped by after things were cleared up and was going to go out to survey the damage so I sent my camera with him so I wouldn't be tempted to be one of "those crazy people driving around to look at things"!
Thanks Ryan & Keith T. for the great pictures!
The pictures in my video are some of my own, some of Relyssa's, some of Ryan or Keith's and also some from the Kearney Hub web site.

Here's a few interesting video's on youtube from the tornado...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1vCH4F9AiU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcfbhCA0pBA

8 years ago....

Happy Anniversary (a few days late) to us!!!
8 years ago we started a beautiful journey together, for better, for worse, forever.
It's been amazing and every year it gets better! Thanks to my wonderful husband for the most wonderful 8 years of my life.

May 24 Hapy Birthday Dalayna!

Since I've been out of town, this is a belated post! Happy Birthday to my Sister Dalayna!!!

Happy Birthday Laura!!!

Happy Birthday to my Sister Laura!!! Enjoy your last Oreo Cookie and Dr Pepper! (where she lives, those are rare, hard to find, sometimes shipped from the states treats!)

Graduation Cakes

Graduation Cakes from this weekend. First one is an 11x15 chocolate fudge cake with almond icing. Next is a 15x22 white almond sour cream cake with almond icing.

Congratulations to the class of 2008!

Happy Birthday Derek!

Happy 24th Birthday to my Brother Derek!
This means that for 5 days, mom will have 3 kids who are age 24, 25 and 26! Hmmm, I wonder if we kept her busy?!

(Picture taken November 2003 while we were visiting Derek in Las Vegas)

My Perfect Mother's Day

Happy (day late) Mother's day to all you mothers out there!
I had a wonderful mother's day!

It started out with a special mommy picture with my 2 sweet kid's

Then we attempted a family picture, but when you're taking a picture with a remote and the kid's don't know where to look since there's no one standing behind the camera.....this is the best you get!

After meeting, Jim grilled steaks and made loaded baked potatoes and we had a delicious lunch!

Dessert was of course the infamous Cheesecake Stuffed Chocolate Dipped Strawberries!
Jim didn't want to admit he was impressed by them but he finally said (after helping himself to a third one) that if you're going to ruin a strawberry, this is the way to do it!
The kids of course dove right in!









After my leisurely "Sunday Siesta", we went out to t he green house to get some tomato and pepper plants. Decided to wait on flowers since we need to move the flower beds first.

After supper, we took the kids in the jogging stroller for a walk to the park, and tried to walk a few of those strawberries off!

Before bed, I got a long relaxing massage compliments of my wonderful husband, followed by a long bubble bath.
What a wonderful Mother's Day!!!

Webkinz Cake

A fun cake that I did for a webkinz loving 8 year old girl!

Cheesecake Stuffed Chocolate Dipped Strawberries!

I decided that even though my wonderful husband was going to cook mothers day lunch for me, It would be in my own best interest to make my own dessert! (dessert just isn't that important to every one else around here!)
I decided it was time to try the Cheesecake Stuffed Chocolate Dipped Strawberries recipe that I had found.
So Saturday evening I set out to make this (to die for) dessert.
Of course you're going to want the recipe and directions so of course I was a good little cook and took step by step pictures for you all!
The filling recipe is one I use for cakes, you could use no bake cheesecake instead.

Vanilla Cheesecake Mousse

1 Pkg Jello Instant French Vanilla (or other flavor) Pudding
1 Envelope Dream Whip
1-1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
4 oz Philadelphia Cream Cheese softened
2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Pour powdered pudding and powdered Dream whip into medium bowl and add the light cream, blend on low speed with electric mixture until blended. Switch to high speed and beat 6 minutes scraping down sides occasionally with spatula. Add softened cream cheese and vanilla and beat another minute.

Cover tightly and refrigerate for at least 3 hours. If too thick add a little bit light cream until desired texture achieved. Flavors develop when sitting over night.

(Recipe courtesy of Carol Chisholm.) Delicious, creamy, not too sweet and sturdy enough now to squish out from between layers.

After filling strawberries, I put refrigerate them for about 45 minuets before dipping them.
I like to use Dove Milk Chocolate for dipping.
(1 vanilla cheesecake mousse recipe and 3 bags of chocolate makes 4 dozen strawberries.)

As I was taking this last picture, I decided to tip the tray up a little more to get a better angle. Picture me holding out this glass cutting board lined with waxed paper, holding the strawberries, out on one hand and trying to take the picture with the other hand.
Not a very smart idea. You see, the waxed paper slides, and the strawberries go on the floor. Luckily, I managed to catch all but one with my shirt and camera strap,
and level the board again!
At least the whole thing gave me an excuse to eat the "ugly" ones!!!

Little Boy (who was fresh from his bath) was quite delighted to help with the mess on the floor, and I didn't have the heart to stop him!
When he was finished with the floor he went to the fridge and started pulling on the door begging for another one!

New Jogging Stroller!

I've been enjoying my new double jogging stroller - almost every day since I got it! Since Jim has been working a few evenings a week, it's been a good time to head out for a walk, sometimes to the park. If we take the "long way around", we can take the trail to the park, and that makes a good uphill/downhill workout for me! Tonight, I decided we'd go for a bedtime walk since the kids already had their bath. We headed out on the trail but cut back home before they saw the park and wanted to play!