New Years Eve 2005

Well, I got the idea for this post from Suzanne the Farmer's Wife. She was telling about previous New Years' experiences and asked about ours. Well, how 'bout one that wasn't planned at all?

My husband and I had been to a church New Year's party and had arrived back home. Our middle son Josh was with us and the other two had gone to friends' houses for the evening. It had been threatening rain all evening and the wind was blowing pretty hard. We heard large raindrops thumping on the roof, so, as we were wont to do, DH and I went out to the garage to watch the approaching storm. I love watching storms!

We were standing there watching the sky light up and listening to the thunder. Then it became deathly still and quiet. How wierd was that? Then, the winds started howling and we looked at each other. It got louder and louder and in a matter of seconds it sounded like a freight train coming. The trees were bent over sideways. We immediately scrambled into the house and shut the garage door. We grabbed up the dogs and Josh and headed into the hall bath with some blankets. We could hear cracking and creaking and the pounding of the rain and rage of the wind. Then BOOM! The house shuddered.

It seemed as if it only lasted seconds. The winds calmed and we could hear thunder and rain. We came out of the bathroom only to hear water pouring into the house. A huge pine tree had fallen across the top of our house perpendicular to the roof line. It had crashed into the ceiling in the kitchen, the garage, the laundry room and the dining room. The rain was coming in in torrents, and running into the appliances. It was also washing all the insulation out of the attic and walls and the wallpaper was bulging from holding water. What a MESS! We grabbed trashcans and tried to catch some of the water streaming in but it was almost useless.

DH called my dad and our friends John & Trish. In about 1/2 hour, John and DH were on top of the house in the cold pouring rain, thunder and lightning with chainsaws cutting off both ends of the tree across the house so they could put a tarp over the roof. They were soaked to the bone in a matter of minutes. I was so scared they were going to get hit by lightning. The floors were getting flooded and Mom and one of the neighbors came over and we tried to sweep lots of water out the doors.

We had been hit by a tornado! There were trees uprooted all over our neighborhood, some small damage to a few homes, but our's unfortunately bore the worst damage. $40,000 to be exact. It's amazing how the Lord takes care of us, tho. We NEEDED new appliances, our old flooring was coming up around the perimeters, our oven had already gone out, our house was getting older, needed a new roof & gutters and wanting updating. My mom said, "How can you not be upset when this has happened?" I was having a grand old time cleaning up the mess. I told her" Mom, the Lord is providing us a new kitchen and new floors, new everything in this part of the house!"

He always provides. (it would be nice if a tornado would hit the other half of my house...)

Another New Year's party we had with church friends was the year 2000. We had a huge Pajama party (no nighties - only flannels and sweats - you dirty-minded people, you!) Of course, that was the year when everyone fancied that the whole world was going to shut down completely because of Y2K. We waited anxiously with bated breath as the clock struck 12 all over the world, and waited, and waited, and..... nothing happened. Our excitement and anxiety over with, then we all went home!

The only other memorable New Year's I can recall right now at this very moment was the New Year's eve of 1981. How to put this delicately .... well just suffice it to say that our oldest son was born 9 months & 2 weeks later. 'Nuff said!