On Sunday night (July 6), we had a pretty major thunderstorm. Casey got a text from his sister Renee saying that a tree had fallen on their screened in porch. Since Jeff and Casey had just finished completely gutting and remodeling the porch we were thinking that was really disappointing! Casey decided to head to their house to see if they needed help. He called me a while later to say that he couldn't get to their house because so many roads were closed because of downed power lines and trees. I turned on the news and realized that this was a much bigger deal than we realized. We found out later that it was actually a tornado, and the damage at their house was quite major. They had several large trees on their house, a couple broken windows, some interior cracks in the walls and trees covering their entire yard.
Almost a week later, most of the trees have been cleared and plans are being made to repair the damage. Meanwhile, we've had the McCaul family living at our house and it's been a fun adventure! The cousins have been having fun playing together and have a sleepover every night.
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| Ty is sleeping on the floor in Peter's room. Here Peter is reading him a book before bed. |
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| Miriam and Cassie are sleeping on the floor in Esther's room so that Jeff and Renee can have Miriam's room. |
In the afternoon we had a kids' book club at a friend's house in our neighborhood. Esther and Peter got to attend the book club and I had Miriam and Cassie here along with the hosting mom's youngest daughter.
Wednesday we went to some friends' house for the day and swam for a bit. It's actually been relatively cool here, so not the greatest pool weather! In the evening our amazing neighbors did a hot dog cookout for us and the McCauls. It ended up being a huge block party with almost everyone on the street attending! We are so blessed by our neighbors.
Thursday we went to the public museum with my parents to see the Lego exhibit. I think the kids would have stayed all day to play with the Legos they had there. Somehow playing with other people's Legos is more fun than playing with your own?? We also explored some other areas of the museum and rode the carousel.
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| Chicago buildings made of Legos! |
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| Esther's creation. They had Lego boards attached to the wall for kids to build, and also tables with lots of Legos. |
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| Miriam's house |
On Friday morning Peter went to a friend's house. On the way back from dropping him off, the girls and I stopped at Tim Horton's for a donut.
When we got home our neighbors were outside. The girls got a chance to hold sweet baby Maggie!
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| In the afternoon we met some friends at the pool. In a weird accident, Peter sort of bit his friend's finger and knocked out his loose tooth. (The finger did not sustain any major injuries in the incident!) He managed to catch it in his hands without it falling into the pool! |
