Where have we been and what have we been up to?

January - Early August

I know, I know........I have been seriously lacking in the blogging department lately! Life has been so busy and chaotic these last few months, I have barely had time to breath, yet alone sit down and actually write a blog. BUT, Bailey is still in bed ( in my bed ) asleep this morning, so I thought I would catch you all up a little.

January- Bailey celebrated her 2nd birthday at the 1st National Bank Community Room with a lady bug party! I made a 3-tier cake and it was super cute if I don't say so myself! She was really excited because her sister got to come from Bartlesville for the party. Some of her friends that attended were: Nathanial, Amberly, Jordan, Chaszity, Gage, and cousin Jace came, but was asleep in the car. Gage had to leave early because as usual, him and Bailey were acting like they were married and fighting over every toy that she opened.LOL

Bailey blowing out her candles on her awesome cake!

Bailey & her sister having fun at the party

Bailey & Gage fighting.LOL

February- In Feb. my grandma got really sick and was admitted into the hospital here in Miami, then into St. John's in Joplin, and then into St. John's in Tulsa. The social workers decided that she needed to be in a skilled nursing facility due to the fact that it was becoming increasingly harder for my grandpa to care for her when I was not there. My uncle and cousins came in from Florida and we all made the decision to put her at Eastwood Manor in Commerce. She actually used to be the director of nursing there back in the 90's, so we thought it would be a familiar place for her. Sometimes she thinks she's at work and tries to boss the workers around! My grandpa is so dedicated to her. He gets up and goes to his full-time job at Wal-Mart at 7 am, he gets off at 1 pm, then he goes home to eat lunch. After his lunch, he goes and sits with her at the nursing home all afternoon and into the evening, until she falls asleep. When she falls asleep, he goes home. he has done this every single day since the day we put her in there. I love him so much, he's the best grandpa and husband anyone could ever ask for.

Because we had to put grandma in the nursing home, I lost my job as her care-taker. I was really bummed out and was not quite sure what I was going to do for a job. I headed right down to good old Head Start, and I went to work that same day! I was only subbing, but it was a full-time job. It was really nice to be back around all my old co-workers and friends. Bailey started daycare at Tater-Bug's Daycare while I worked.

March- In March Bailey's daycare announced that they were closing down. I went on the hunt for a new daycare and enrolled her at Joyful Learning Center. I loved her teacher, Ms. Danielle! Bailey loves it too! It's a christian daycare, they learn bible stories and songs, plus they have a really good curriculum. She has learned a bunch since starting....she can count to 12, say her abc's ( up to the L M N O P part ) and spell her name out loud! They put on a spring concert and she did awesome singing and dancing on stage for all of us!

April- In April Miami was hit with quite a few storms....I have been really afraid of storms all my life, but since the tornado that hit Picher, I have been extra afraid of them. When the warnings go on the tv, I go to Rachel's house because she has a basement. We were under the ground but could see the hail through the small window in the basement. It was storming really bad! The sirens were sounding and it was even worse because we couldn't see what they sky was looking like. The radio that we had in the basement gave the " all clear " signal so we decided that we would go above ground. We were narrowly missed by a tornado that night! It formed over town but never actually touched down!

May- In May, I started my new job as a bank teller at a local bank, I was super scared about it. Turns out that I LOVE it! I work with a really great group of people and I am really excited to see where it takes me in life!

Here are the other tellers that I work with! We don't always get to dress like this but this was a special credit card promo day where we got to dress in our fav. football team shirts!

June-Tish, Sarah, and I took the kids to the Dickerson Park Zoo in Springfield. That was a crazy day! I had a broken toe and was in a walking boot, so they got to push me around in a wheel chair!

Bailey also got to see a turtle up close and person for the very first time!

July- We celebrated the 4th at the Freeman's during the day and then Bailey went to her Meme & Papa Richards for the night works. It was fun until the big firework tipped over and shot out at us!

We also had a pool party at Rachel's dad's house. We cooked out and swam for several hours...Bailey hated it

Rachel and I took the kids to the Gentry Arkansas Wild Safari Zoo. They all had a blast!

August- It has not been the best month for us. My papa Jack fell really ill and passed away earlier this month. I always thought of him as being invincible, I have been just really tore up over this. I miss him bunches. I'm just so glad that Bailey knew who he was. He will be deeply missed by us all.

New Job

I started my new job at the bank on Friday. I really feel like I am going to really enjoy it! It was def. time for a change for the better in my life!

May 10th, 2008

EF-4 Tornado

Picher, Oklahoma

May 10th, 2008
I have already blogged on this last year, but I feel the need to do it again. May 10th, 2008 was a day that changed many lives, in many different ways.





I was driving through Montana last year on this day with one of my best friends, Rachel, my daughter, and my dog. We were making the cross-country trip to move me back to Washington. I got a wierd urge to call my mom, to let her know that we were ok and where we were at. The events that transpired after that phone call will forever change my life............





I dialed my moms phone number, she answered the phone in a panic. " Carrie, I can't talk to you right now, there is a tornado! "





Of course, being myself, I am trying to ask her 100 questions, " Where is a tornado? What are you talking about? Are you outside? Are you sure it's a tornado? " My mom quickly hangs up on me.





Then I called my dad, " Dad, mom is telling me there is a tornado. " My dad says, " Carrie, it's huge! I'm standing in the guard tower at Tracker Marine right now, it's massive! It's heading straight for PICHER! "





My heart sank! I looked at Rachel, " It's heading right towards Picher! " I quickly dialed my friend, Tish. She answers the phone. " Tish, where are you at? "





Tish says, " I'm in the closet with mom and pap! "





I can tell that Tish is frightened by the sound of her voice. I can hear things hitting her house and I can actually hear the wind blowing over the phone.





" What's happening? " I ask her. She managed to utter some more things to me, but honestly the comotion was so loud, I can't quite tell you what she said. THEN...........the phone went dead! Here I am, helpless in Montana, and thinking that I just heard my freind die. It was the worst feeling in the world! Rachel quickly pulled the car over and we began to pray. Thats all we knew to do, was to pray, and pray hard. I tried over and over and over again to call Tish back, but got nothing. In despiration, I called my mom and dad both back. " PLEASE, you have to go to Tish's house, it's bad, please, go find out! "





My mom said that she would go check, but that it was going to be a bit before she could leave b/c there were still very dark clouds lingering over Picher, and she was scared to go over there. We felt so helpless. We had already decided that if we did not hear something from someone soon, we were going to make our way to the nearest airport and catch the first flight back into Tulsa.





My phone begins to ring..............it's Tish! She was clearly shaken and probably at this point, pretty much in shock, but she was ok! I took the biggest sigh of relief that I have ever taken in my entire life! She had damage to her house, her NEW house. I stress the NEW house because she had just moved. Her old house was gone, completely destroyed by the tornado. If she had been in that old house, she would not have survived.





Today it's been one year to the day since that tragic day that an EF-4 tornado claimed the lives of 7 peole in Picher. I think everyday how fortunate I was to have not lost my friend that day, I think of the sound of her voice on the phone and then the phone line just going dead, I think of the fear that I had that day and cannot even begin to imagine the fear of those who were living the nightmare first hand.





Please just let this be a reminder to you, live everyday as if it were your last, tomorrow is never promised, and always tell those closest to you, how much they mean to you. When the sirens sound, take cover. Always be prepared, and never under estimate the power of Mother Nature.

This is where Tish's house used to stand before the tornado

In memory of:

Mistie Dawn Kelley

Linda Mathis

Samuel Berry

Tracie Berry

Darrell Patterson

Chizuri Cox

Margie Seamands

Back up and running

OK, so we finally have a NEW computer! Let me tell you, I was super excited to get this new e-machine! It has a FLAT screen! LOL, our old computer was one of those giant bulky things that took up the whole desk-top. I am sort of sad to see the old one go, it had an awesome photo editing program on it, that I have lost for ever, and that makes me wanna cry real big tears!

Make a Joyful noise

Bailey started her new daycare a few weeks ago. She LOVES it! I'm so happy that she likes it! She has made many new friends and comes home singing songs and she even says a prayer before she eats! It's precious! It goes something like this, " God is gate, God ( something, I don't quite know what) good, ( again some more babbling here ) FOOD! A-BEN! " LOL, I love to hear her say her prayers! She folds her hands up by her eyes and says it! Shes so smart!

I got MALWARED!

So, the other day, I am working on the computer.....well, I was on myspace and harvesting crops on my farmtown account on facebook......anyway, I was on the computer when all of a sudden, it just TURNED OFF! I thought, " Well, this is strange......hmmmm, I will turn it back on. " I turned it back on and it immediately turned right back off! I repeated this over and over and over again until I was blue in the face, and at this point, extremely peeved off. I called Tish because she is a computer genius, she was out of town, but told me to call Tavis ( Rachel's man-skillet ) He is also a computer genius. I begged him to please please please fix my computer. He met me at Rachel's about 30 minutes later. I was devastated thinking that I may have lost ALL of the pictures I have ever taken of Bailey in her life! My last computer crashed last year and I still have yet to retrieve all the photos from it, so needless to say, I was super sick to my stomach by this point. 2 days pass and Tavis calls with BAD news! It has a horrible virus and I will need to take it to Best Buy. I cried.............SO, I took it to Best Buy and the Geek Squad guy was super nice to me and took alot of time explaining everything to me. It had 194 malware viruses!!! It could be fixed for about $250 or I could get all of my pics and documents off of it for $99.99. The thing was 7 years old, so I opted for the $99.99 deal. I am just so thankful that I was able to get all of my pics! So now I am on the laptop, I hate it, I hate this keyboard. At least I am still able to harvest my crops on facebook b/c I was seriously worried that they were all gonna die! LOL

Bailey's 1st haircut!

Yes, it's true! Bailey's hair finally got long enough to get a little trim! My cousin Sarah did the honors! Bailey sat so still and watched herself in the mirror. We saved her hair in a small plastic baggie and she got a certificate to put in her scrapbook!