24 Weeks

Happy about my belly and baby inside! Belly button is still an innie, and I hope it doesn't pop out!
I don't know...can you tell any difference from the last picture? Just kidding, I can definitely tell I have grown, which means baby is growing too. I had another doctor appointment this week. Everything is going great and I gained 5 pounds in the last month. So I have gained a total of 15 pounds. I am supposed to start putting on more weight from now on as the baby gains the majority of his weight now. I am supposed to gain 25-35 pounds total. So let's see, it took me 6 months to gain 15....I guess I can gain another 15 pounds in the next three months :)

Right now the baby enjoys listening to music (I guess he does anyway). We listen to it together instead of the headphones on the belly. I learned some songs to sing to him, so almost every morning I sing him one. I figure if he gets used to hearing my singing voice now, it won't scare him later!

I will have to take some pictures of the things I have gotten for the baby so that you all can see. We've gotten clothes and all kinds of things from family, and few we bought on our own. I will try to do that next week.

Neighbor's Damage

A power line was down across the road, so neighbors were out to try to keep people from driving down that street. Later the police came and blocked the area. The debris on our streets was so bad that cars had trouble getting through. Small bulldozers came through and worked all night clearing the streets. Broadway street and part of highway 62 were also closed, so the street of Park Lane became a major way for the diverted traffic for a few days.
Here's our western-side neighbor's backyard. You can see my car under the carport at the left. To the right, you can see the black electrical line that is lying on our fence and it extends into their yard. We got our power back on Saturday evening, but they got theirs back today when the line was put up.
Here's their tree where the dog was chained up. There is a shed on the left next to the tree and the dog was found between the tree and the shed. She has some boo-boos but she is alright.
Here's our western-side neighbor's front yard. Their tree is mostly gone and you can see it lying there. They lost several shingles on their roof as did our neighbor's to the east of us. Both of them will probably have to get new roofs. We only lost one shingle.
The front of the church across the street suffered damage. The whole overhanging porch roof blew away. You can see one of the white poles on the ground and the other lying across the doorway. Part of the roof was lost so that this part of the building was open to the elements, so I'm sure they have lots of water damage on the inside.

Like I said before, this is just some of the damage. This doesn't even compare to other damage in neighborhoods close to ours. My brother-in-law, Nick, took lots of pictures around town. You can see them at http://flickr.com/photos/tech2/

Tornado (unofficially) in Altus!

We lost our redbud tree when the whole tree was pulled out of the ground leaving a hole! I'm really sad about losing this tree because it was the most beautiful redbud I had ever seen :(
Branches from our neighbor's tree fell all around Brian's car not on it! Thank you, God!
We lost our shed and some of the contents. The shed is folded up against the fence and contents are lying around. This was the next morning so Brian had already picked up our grill which you can see at the right of the picture. That was turned over and sitting on its lid with the legs in the air. Oh, and some pieces of the shed are lying in our neighbor's yard!
Here's a look at the front of our house the next morning. Brian had to move the branch in the driveway so he could go to work. We had no electricity but the tech center did, so off to work!
Here's our neighbor's dog (on the right) who is staying in our backyard until things get fixed in theirs. The dog was chained to a tree that got blown over. Their electrical line also fell in the tree and yard, but we had already lost power before that. We were worried at first that she had died because she did not come when we called. The neighbors got home right after the storm. Brian and Pat found the dog out of her chain but still in the fallen tree.

So in case you didn't know, we had a tornado in Altus last Thursday, June 5th. It hit hardest on my part of town, the air force base, and in Blair. I said in the title "unofficial" because the base sounded the alarm but the town of Altus didn't. So the county officials cannot say it was a tornado, if you know what I mean. But we all know it was and some people have pictures of the funnel touching ground. The damage was really bad for some. We lost power on Thursday about 20 minutes before it hit (because of the high winds) and we got power back on Saturday evening. Our neighbor on the west side lost a tree and lots of branches of others, and they also lost one vehicle when a tree fell on the carport. I saw many homes with huge trees lying on their cars and one home I saw had part of the neighbor's tree in their house! Many homes also had partially lost their roofs. I can't even begin to describe all of the damage here. So, I am thankful to God that no one lost their homes and no one had died. I'm going to post a blog next that will only have pictures of my neighbor's.

WOSC

Well, it was official yesterday that I got the full-time position for biology instructor at Western Oklahoma State College (WOSC). Yay!!! I'm really happy and excited to have this full-time job. I have been enjoying working there part-time. My full-time position takes effect in August. I am still working part-time this summer, but I will get a key to my new office soon so I can move in!

Lots of big things have happened this year for us so far. #1--we bought Mom & Dad's house here in Altus, #2--baby's coming!, and #3--now I have a full-time job!

Brian is enjoying his new work this month at the tech center. He is working with the simulator instructor on the flight simulator machine to repair it. If this works out he may be on an 11-month contract in the future.

In July Brian is putting in tile floors for my kitchen/dining room and the laundry room. We are also looking at getting new carpet in the rest of the house. I'm excited about this because I have been wanting new flooring for a long time.