Still Cleaning Up and Serving Others

While Daddy was doing this last weekend- 

We were doing this!

We may not have been able to help cut down and clean up the trees in Marshalltown last weekend, but we were still able to serve those who did!

And that felt pretty great!  We've had several long clean-up days at our house too, with plenty of breaks along the way.

 Leah and Emma prepared a lunchtime feast for us 

 while Adam and Noah finally checked out the trail down to the creek.  Look at Adam's protective gear and all those burrs on their pants! But they say it's worth it down there!

And the clean up continues.  We are done cutting down the biggest of the trees and now have a woodpile that is going to last us a long, long time!  And it will serve as a great reminder that Morales's know how to do hard things!

To Remember the Wind

It's Saturday and the kids and I are having a blast with friends at home, at parties, and at the pool, but Jason isn't with us because he and 700 other members of our church, along with countless other members of our communities are out taking care of all of this-   

Some town are still without power and every one has a story of how they were affected.  It's the first thing everyone is talking about, and not unlike the floods of two years ago, we're sure we will never forget the Derecho of 2020.  

I don't think I'll ever forget the huge gray clouds with the line of blue at the bottom or my kids shouting in the park that the sky was a weird color!  Everyone knows that a green sky means tornadoes are around but this was completely different.  

But just in case we do forget, this is what Iowa looks like right now, and it's heartbreaking.  

 That's an airplane wing in a house. 

 

 Over 10 million acres of corn has been destroyed.

 

This may be my favorite picture- we bend so far before we break.  This tree tried it's best!

 

I will never like Brick Town but this was amazing. 

These downed poles in our old neighborhood left our old street and school and friends without power for five days.  

 We may not live there anymore but I still teared up when I saw this beautiful sight in our old elementary school parking lot.  

 We've seen utility trucks from all over the country and Iowa needs all the help we can get.

 About half of Jason's corn looks like this- 

but we must becoming true Midwesterners because he just shrugged and said, "this happens about every other year.  It is it what it is."  And it is what it is, but we aren't going to let it keep us down. 

Where We Live

Where we live there is a lake.

We have to drive across it every time we want to go anywhere, and it is magical. 

We call in the Mermaid Lagoon, and we always watch for the mermaids.

 Sometimes we see something splash up and out of the water, but it's always gone before we can know for sure if it's a mermaid.  

 But it's a magical place, and just two minutes (or up and down three big hills) from our house. 

It's a great place for exploring, and gathering flowers, 

and in magical places like this you can find twisted vine scepters

 and crowns to add flowers to.

And just enjoy being together!

discovering the beauty of this new place where we live. 

Derecho Aftermath

In keeping with the theme of "anything goes in 2020", the storm that we had last week was apparently a derecho, also known as an inland hurricane.  

We're about as inland as you can get, but we still experienced this 'line of intense, widespread, and fast-moving windstorms and sometimes thunderstorms that moves across a great distance and is characterized by damaging winds.'

This storm was nothing like we've experienced before, and there is proof of that all over Iowa.   I don't think we'll ever forget that weird line of low clouds that came charging toward us while we were at the park, running into Homemakers, and thankfully kept safe and protected from. 

Trees are snapped on every street, roofs are gone, corn is flattened, barns are crumpled, fences are toothpicks.  It's just a mess.

Four days after the storm a tree fell on the power lines and we were without power. I didn't panic, but our Ankeny friends were without power for over 100 hours- five days!- and I wasn't about to suffer through that.  Time to buy that generator we've been talking about!

Adam promptly made this sign when the power went out, and we listened to our friend's advice to take showers before the hot water disappeared and take the ice out of the fridge before it melted- smart!

There were some to choose from locally, but we decided a day with 90 degrees in the forecast and nothing on the calendar would be a perfect day to head south to Kansas City (which wasn't hit at all). 

That way we were able to hit up IKEA and Fritzies, too!

Somewhat ironically, we were planning to go to Kansas City in March for spring break, but then the world shut down and there was no such option.  Now, five months later we had the restaurant entirely to ourselves with a masked server and an owner who seemed very grateful that we were there.

And Noah, who was so sad that he didn't remember the last time we were there (understandably, he was only 18 months old!), gave this place two thumbs up! The kids all loved ordering their meals via the table phone and watching their food arrive at the table by way of a speedy little train!

It was a great and quick trip, and a perfect way to spend a day without electricity, which was back on by the time we got home to a pup who was very happy to see us. 

And since then, we've been dealing with the damage.  A quick drive our old house last week told me that the roof will have to be replaced, and the biggest maple, the honeycrisp apple tree and one of the buckthorns didn't survive the storm. So sad, but strangely not our problem anymore at all. 

At our new house we've been working on slowly chopping down, hauling and burning the trees a little bit every day.  We're learning the meaning of work around here like we never could have in Ankeny!

And the sun continues to rise and set and we keep moving forward.

And we're feeling the same sense of community and strength that we felt two years ago after the flood.  Work and meetings and church have been cancelled so that we can all help each other dig out from the latest Midwest force of nature.  Also, Iowans are amazing.

We are blessed, and we are thankful for it!