What a time to leave Omaha!

Kyle and I decided to go to Utah for the rest of the summer since he is done with summer school. We are hoping he gets an internship with a judge, but it is also a nice break and fun to be with family. Kyle finished his last final on Wednesday and so we decided to get house in order and take off Thursday evening and try the "drive all night so the kids could sleep" thing! It is a 13 hour drive and usually we break it up into 2 days but we wanted to try and save some money and just go all the way through. We left Omaha at 6:30pm and started driving, stopping in Lincoln to get some dinner and then heading off to Utah.

At about 10:15 we were just outside of Kearny, NE. Jantsen was sound asleep but Kambryn was having a harder time going to sleep. She was sitting on my lap (I know, not the best, but at least she wasn't screaming). It started raining alittle bit, and the sky was pitch black, and there was lightning flashing ahead of us. Then minute by minute, it started raining alittle harder and the wind started picking up. I put Kambryn back in her seat right as the weather really started getting scary! It was raining really hard (which actually helped put Kambryn to sleep) and the lightening was crazy. We got alittle nervous of a funnel looking cloud ahead of us, but it turned out to be just normal thunderstorm clouds. The other thing we were afraid of us was the standing water from all the rain. I don't think I have ever been so scared going through a storm and it didn't help when I would look over at Kyle and he had a death grip with white knuckles on the steering wheel and wasn't saying much, just concentrating. Alittle nerve racking but I am grateful it was just a thunderstorm and there wasn't any warnings of a tornado. Can you even imagine driving into a tornado when it is pitch black and all you can see is the light from your headlights or the lightening? It was crazy. But I am glad we were safe. Kyle ended up driving the whole time and we made pretty good time. He loaded up on a TON of soda (120 oz of mountain dew and mellow yellow...now that is alot of caffeine!) The kids slept until we got to Evanston, WY (about 2 hours from Orem). Besides the scary storm, it was a good drive!

Sunrise in Wyoming at about 5:30 am, just before the kids woke up

Evanston WY, at the TA getting some gas right after the kids finally woke up. It was a great trip.The kids slept great and Kyle did a good job driving the whole time and we are glad we are in Utah now!

We spent the next day unpacking and letting Kyle sleep. While we were just hanging out at the house, I got a call from my friend Jenny and she had the craziest news ever! She had to call me because she said if she would have just text me, I probably wouldn't have believed her. She then began describing what had just happened to Omaha, and specifically our little community! Here are some pictures from her blog. (when I figure out how to copy them onto my mom's computer)



Not even 24 hours after we had left Omaha, 90 mile an hour winds tore through Omaha. There were quarter sized hail and winds that just made a mess of our little village green! These winds uprooted trees, bent signs, threw swings into our neighbors window, and the hail dented and damaged cars. Jenny, being a wonderful friend, said she already walked over and checked out our place to make sure our house was okay. The tree right in front of our house was still up and strong. If it would have fallen, it would have either, 1-smashed into our house, 2- fell on top of our Audi (maybe not the worst thing..ha) or else 3-fell on Kyle's BBQ and our shed. I think our building front side was the only part that didn't suffer any damage. It was crazy to see the pictures. As much as I have always wanted to be in a "tornado", I am really glad that my family and I were not there in Omaha. I am also glad that everyone was safe in VG. The main problem that people had to deal with was lack of power for 3 days. But that is why the prophet has counseled us to be prepared! Well we are glad we are in Utah (and it has taken me forever to finally post this blog, or at least finish it) But I will be posting stuff from the past 2 weeks shortly. Pictures will be coming soon!