Friday, October 14, 2011

Shaken Up

This school year began with a shaky start. Literally. Everyone was asking, “Where were you when the earth shook?” Our story is not quite as interesting as my friend who was on an amusement park ride and had no clue an earthquake occured until after they closed the park down. The East Coast earthquake on August 23, 2011, was the third yet strongest quake I have felt thus far.

Sweetness was upstairs talking to a friend on the phone. Cutie Pie and I were downstairs playing board games. When the rumbling began I thought, "Is that a low flying helicopter or thunder or is Sweetness dancing, or jumping upstairs?" But the rumble became louder then the shake, rattle and roll. Cutie Pie asked, “What’s happening mama?”

When I realized it was a significant earthquake I cried out to the Lord, “I love you Lord, and I know you’re in control.” My mind's eye replayed the footage I viewed of the Haiti earthquake and how the walls and roofs caved in on the helpless people and realized, “We need to get outside.” In the meantime Sweetness was ascending down the trembling stairs loudly asking her friend, “Are you ok?” Her friend was feeling the quake too and was trying to get her dog outside with the rest of her family.

I calmly led the children to the door, opened it to exit when our dog darted inside. Of course I had to make her go back out and once we were all outside the earthquake subsided. We walked around the house to see if there was any damage to the foundation and waited a few minutes before entering our house again. Whew...

The phone started ringing. Within seconds we knew it was a 5.9 earthquake centered in Mineral, Virginia. Treasure Hunter, who was driving, did not feel the earthquake. But he had the pleasure of feeling some pretty good aftershocks.

It wasn’t until a month later that I found some knick-knacks that had fallen off a mantle shelf downstairs. Other than that I am so very thankful that we are safe and our home is sound. And regardless of what the USG website says, I do believe that earthquakes are increasing in frequency and intensity. A sign Jesus told us to look for when the days of His return would approach. In that case, rock on earth!

The hail storm that occurred just two days later had us running to the basement! Ping Pong ball size hail pelted our house for several minutes! I wonder what kind of winter we'll have this year?

I'm almost up to speed on this blog and hope to have some exciting and interesting events to blog this weekend. So before I go let me say,

We love Nags Head for more reasons than one!




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