My Montage 7/22/11 at OneTrueMedia.com

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Hot Days

Wowzers has it been HOT here!! Our house spiked up to the low 80's at the beginning of the week. Normally when it's not too bad in here and we haven't put our window unit in for a couple of years. However, when it doesn't cool off at night and with 3 active kiddos somethings just HAVE to get done; all of which make the house a little hotter(laundry, dishes, cooking, baths...). After getting a little sick, jeff and I decided it was time to put in the window unit to help take off the edge.

During the days we have become pool squatters. My brother in-laws parents have a pool they have so graciously said we could use. So, this week we have took them up on that offer a couple of times. We also spent an afternoon at another friend's pool. There were 5 adults and 15 kiddos....lots of fun!!! The kiddos have been falling asleep on the way home in the afternoon during our 10min drive. They are having a blast. When they wake up in the morning they ask if we're going to the Heasley's pool or the Payton and London's Grandma's pool. I do like it hot, maybe not all the humidity, but I'm not going to complain as we've been waiting for warm weather for many months. So thankful for our friends that have shared their pools with us.

God's Mercy Abounds

Once again, God has shown His power...and mercy. We had a crazy storm roll through here Monday morning. I was in Muskegon cleaning with my mom and the girls were home with Aunt Alyssa. I heard there was potential for severe wind and called Alyssa to take the girls to mom and dad's house. We have many beautiful maple trees on all sides of the house. While they provide great shade in the summer, and beautiful color in the fall, they also provide a little bit of anxiety during strong wind storms as we know they are getting old and very weak. With everyone out of the house my mind was at ease the rest of the morning. When I called home later in the afternoon I found out how strong of wind we had (over 70mph). While driving home the roads and tress all looked fine. Once we got to the old farm house we grew up in (next door to parents current house)we saw the force God put into the wind that morning. I think all of their trees~except for two smaller trees had some sort of damage. Many were completely uprooted. The old shed has a corner completely blown out, and you couldn't even see the fondation of the house from all of the limbs, trees, and roots in front of it. Mom and Dad's current house also had many, many trees uprooted. The woods in the back have several tress laying down and more trying to lay down. As we traveled to our house it was the same in every yard. Limbs down and many trees uprooted laying on their side. Thankfully we did not lose any trees this go-around. We had some down limbs that required a chainsaw, we will also need to reshingle our shed. We thankfully also have power as many in the area don't have any and don't expect to get it till Thursday at the earliest. So much to be thankful for at the Westra household again. When driving around town it looks bad, barns have collapsed, trees are gone, etc. However, once again we need to remember this could have been soooo much worse. We all still have our loved ones, our houses are standing unscathed. While driving around I kept picturing the images of the tornados that tore through the midwest earlier this spring. They had NOTHING left but their faith. God has shown His mercy through the power of this storm in this community. Yes, there will be a lot of work to come; cleaning up trees and debri and fixing some structures. But at the end of the night, we still have a bed to crawl into, our family to cuddle with, and most importantly; a merciful God to praise!

Miya came inside in tears after her rest Monday. "Mommy, the storm took our trampoline away, I don't see it anywere. The wind just took it."

I knew she would realize it sooner or later, so we took this time for a teachable moment explaining that it's just a 'thing' and we need to be thankful that nothing worse happend. After this little lesson with the girls they were fine, but super wound up when Dad came home, telling him ALL that happend through out the day. Here are some pictures of how far the trampoline 'blew'. We found it in the woods 3/4 of mile behind our house.

This is a regular pictures from our house looking towards the woods. The trampoline is about in the middle.

OOPS!!!!

View from the woods looking back at our house....way out there. The beans sure look nice don't they? If this was corn, it would be laying down from the wind :(

This is how Tyler's pigs are getting water. Filling a trash can with water from our house and bringing it to his. A little redneck ya think? ?