Zachary's 5th Birthday & Party!

This week we celebrated our little Zach's 5th birthday!  I've always had a special bond with my little buddy and I just want to keep him little forever, but he is growing up nonetheless!  Zach is such a sweetheart.  He has the sweetest things to say, gives the best hugs, and always wants to play and spend time with his family.  He is a thinker and a  little goofball and often says the most random things, or shares the most random thoughts with me!  One day while I was rushing to get the older kids out the door for school he kept coming up to me and saying, "Mom.  Mom.  Mom."  I kept putting him off so I could get the kids off, but once they were, I turned to him and said, "Ok Zach, now what did you need to tell me?"  Completely serious and a little bit excited he says, "Mom, I figured out how boys and girls are the same!  They both have to sit down to go poop!"  Haha, he was quite proud of himself for figuring this out!  

Jon and I have often commented on Zach's striking similarity to one of his favorite shows when he was a bit younger, "Curious George".   He is curious about EVERYTHING, he is always making messes- not necessarily on purpose, he climbs all over everything, he gets into everything, he often thinks he's being helpful when he is being the opposite, but at the end of the day he is just super loveable.  I think we may have let him watch a tad too much curious george...

Zach loves doing crafts, especially aqua beads, painting, and sticker books.  He loves running around with friends outside, jumping on trampolines, swinging and climbing all over our playset, riding his bike, going to parks, and going to the library.  He loves to spend time with his siblings and will often resort to pestering them if they aren't giving him the attention he wants.  He loves stories and has recently gotten really into magformers and other small building toys!  He loves the avengers and all superheroes.  

For Zach's birthday we started the morning by letting his stay home and watch shows instead of coming to the gym with me while I taught (he is back and forth on whether or not he likes the gym).  Next, he got to pick his lunch (a bagel), and we got ready for school.  While he was at preschool I went to the store and picked up some balloons to surprise him with.  When I picked him up, he was super excited about the balloons and even more excited when I told him that we could go to the dollar store and he could pick out a couple of things.  He LOVES the dollar store.  On the way he says, "Oh, no Mom!  I forgot my money!  Do you have any of my dollars?"  I said, "Zachy, it's your birthday, you don't have to pay with your money. I'll get them for you!"  He said, "Really??  You'll pay with your money?  I love birthdays!"  When we were checking out at the dollar store he said to the cashier, "Um its my birthday today and my mom said I didn't have to pay."  Haha, I had to clarify that I would still be paying.  

For dinner, he picked out Chic Fil A chicken nuggets and after dinner we had a chocolate chip cookie cake I made.  For his presents he got a couple small drones, an avengers lamp, some sticker books, pajamas, some books, a large transformer (by specific request), some rock candy, and a couple other things.  He loved his special day!

Two days later, on Thursday, we had a small party with a few friends from the neighborhood and a few from church at SkyZone Trampoline park.  Katie and Colton also got to invite a friend.  The place was pretty fun and not very crowded and the kids all had a blast!  We had pizza, drinks, and cupcakes in the party room after jumping.  It was a fun time!  Covid has definitely changed a lot of things, but thankfully some of these places are safely opening back up.  The capacity was limited and the staff all wore masks, and gloves to serve food.  They were also frequently cleaning things.  I know there is always still a risk but it felt like a small one and I'm glad the kids could have a fun night with their friends! 

Zach's Favorites:

Show:  Curious George,

Movie:  Zombies 2

Color:  Green

Hobby/Activity:  Play with Toys

Dinner:  Chicken Nuggets from Chic Fil A,  Chicken Tacos

Treat:  Jolly Ranchers

Things Zach does NOT like: dinner (pretty much every single dinner), pizza, pink, purple.

What in the world is a "Derecho"??

 We were about 4 hours from home, on our 20 hr road trip home from North Carolina when I got a text from my neighbor.  It said, "Are you guys home yet?"  I texted "No, but will be soon."  She texted, "We are getting a crazy storm here, and your playset just blew away!"  Our playset is very large, metal, and very heavy.  We have had many windstorms in Iowa since we've had it and it's never budged.  Hearing that it had blown away, out of sight, made us realize that this storm was huge!  

Since we were still driving that direction, we started looking more closely at the radar and future cast.  We started seeing things pop up like "Massive Derecho slamming Iowa".  I said to Jon, "What the heck is a derecho??  Apparently, that's what this is!"  The storm on the radar was big, growing in size, and headed right towards us.  We weren't sure what to do.  Do we pull over somewhere and ride it out on the side of the road?  Do we try to find a safe store or something to go inside? What if we do that and the roads get blocked by debris and we aren't able to make it home?  

We decided to pull over to the side of the road and said a prayer together that we would know what to do and what the best choice would be.  After a few minutes Jon said, I feel like we should re-route and take back roads and try to go around the storm as much as possible.   At the end of such a long road trip, adding an extra hour + to our drive didn't sound great, but we felt like it's what we should do.  As we drove, we could see the clouds darkening and getting closer and we watched this massive storm head towards us on the radar.  It was moving really fast.  When it became apparent that we were not going to be able to miss the whole thing and we would still hit a small portion of it, we pulled over at a small gas station to do one last bathroom trip before we pushed through.  

In the time in took for the 6 of us to quickly go to the bathroom, it went from being cloudy and calm outside to crazy winds whipping everything around.  We ran to the car with the kids screaming and hurried and closed the doors and buckled in.  The next 20 min we drove through some crazy winds and rain, but were able to get through pretty quickly and unscathed. 

As we drove the rest of the way home through the storm ridden areas, it was like dejavu.  The downed trees and powerlines and debris looked just like the hurricane damage we had driven through one week earlier in North Carolina.  What in the world??  Did a hurricane just hit Iowa??  

When we got home, we found our playset several houses down in someone else's backyard.  Our garage was dented in by the wind.  Our porch furniture had been blown away but the neighbor kids had helped gather it.  Many neighbors had a lot of siding and roofing damage, but thankfully ours held up.  Fences were destroyed, trees toppled, corn crops flattened, trampolines and playsets blown all over the place, patio furniture and pillows everywhere, trash bins toppled with trash everywhere, semis overturned on the highway- it was crazy.  

We also came home to another fun surprise.  The power was out and since we had planned on being able to get in our garage to get into our house and didn't have a spare key with us, we were locked out of our house.  So here we are, dirty, hot, feeling gross, at the end of two straight days of driving and we're locked out of our house with no power.  Several neighbors came over to offer help but we weren't able to get in for a little over an hour.  When we got in, we faced the realization that we had no food really- since we had no power and had depleted a lot of stuff before vacation, and no hot water to shower or clean up with.  We decided that if the power wasn't back on in the morning, we were going to drive up to MN to stay with family.

Sure enough, the next morning, we still had no power.  We kept expecting/hoping it would come back on but decided we might as well start driving and if it came back on we'd just turn around.  As we drove, we saw even more of the storm damage- flattened crops, cars/trucks off the road, freeway signs blown over or broken in half, destroyed grain silos.  

We stayed in MN for 3 days total until we finally got a text from my neighbor that the power was back on.  On day 2 in MN, we had a little scare when I saw a friend's facebook post that they had forgotten to empty their freezer ice tray and it was leaking all over their floor.  We also hadn't emptied ours so I was worried our wood floors were going to be ruined so Jon jumped in the car to drive the 3 hours home to go take care of it.  Thankfully, on the way he was able to get ahold of his cousin Jason and he and the bishop were able to come over and take care of it for us!  Thank heavens!  Jon was able to turn around and come back. 

The text came from my neighbor at 4:30am in the morning and as soon as all the kids were up, we headed back home!  We were so ready to just be in our house!  

We got home and had some clean-up in the fridge and freezers we had to do with the ruined food but it could have been worse.  Thankfully, before we left to MN, we were able to drop off our most expensive cold items at a friend in the ward's and they kept in in some extra space in their fridge/freezer for us!  

The after math of this derecho has been crazy!  Billions of dollars of corn crops were destroyed.  Clean up efforts are still going on around the state.  Our school was delayed starting because of the storm.  Some people were out of power for 3 weeks!  On week two, Jon went with some volunteers from the Stake (Mormon Helping Hands) and helped with some clean up in a neighboring city.  Cedar Rapids, a city 2 hours from here that we used to drive through frequently on the way to MN from the QC lost 50% of their trees canopy and had tons of damage to buildings/structures/etc.  What was even crazier was how little national news coverage this got.  It was ridiculous, in my opinion.  We had winds reach that of a category 3 hurricane in some places, many homes, businesses, crops, etc. were devastated in this storm most people have never even heard of, and all the news cares to report about is politics and Covid.  It's been pretty frustrating.  

In the aftermath, we are incredibly grateful it wasn't even worse than it was.  We are grateful we were kept safe as we drove through it!  2020 has been a crazy year and now we have an Iowa Hurricane (Derecho) to add to the list!

Cousin time while in MN waiting for the power to come back!

Nice clean fridge at least!

A few internet photos of the storm and damage:

Carolina Beach Trip

 The first week of August we were finally able to make it back out to North Carolina to spend some time at the beach with friends.  It started out a bit rocky, but ended up being a great trip and nice mental break from Covid and all the craziness in the world!  

When we started our trip, we new there was a hurricane headed towards the Carolinas, but we decided to press forward and hope that it would go away or change course.  It didn't do either.  We got to Raleigh on Sunday and were supposed to head to the beach house on Monday, but Hurricane Isaias was supposed to hit Carolina Beach Monday night so we opted to stay another day in Raleigh and hopefully get out there Tuesday.  

Monday, during the day, we were able to go visit our friends the Findlay's from the Quad Cities, who had just recently moved to Holly Springs.  It was so fun to see them and their new house!  Being around good friends is so therapeutic, even if its only for a little bit!  I wish we would have gotten a picture here but I forgot!  After our visit with the Findlays, we drove to Fuquay Varina and drove around our old neighborhood and showed the kids where we used to live and go on walks.  It was pretty rainy so we didn't get out of the car for much of it, but it was a fun walk down memory lane!  On the way back to our hotel we got our favorite Hibachi Chicken from Hibachi and Co in Fuquay.  So yummy!!

After getting the "all clear" Tuesday morning from the Suttons (who had decided to ride out the hurricane in the beach house) we headed to the beach!  As we got closer, it was easy to see the effects of the hurricane that hit- just hours earlier.  There were down trees, branches, and power poles all over the place.  Traffic lights were out in several places.  At one point we had to divert our route because there was a giant tree in the road.  Thankfully, we were finally able to make it to the house and see our friends, the Suttons and McDonalds!  We love those guys!  

The week was amazing and tiring and just what we needed.  We spent lots of time playing on the beach and the weather held up pretty well for most of it!  The first couple of days after the hurricane the waves were pretty rough, but we all still managed to have a great time.  We had a couple of perfect (mostly calm) ocean and those were wonderful.  

Highlights:

Katie and Colton got to stay up late one night and go fishing in the dark with Jason and his boys.  They thought that was awesome.  

I got to go on a walk one morning on a trail near the beach house with Lindsey and Krissy and we saw a real alligator in a pond we passed!  Bucket list item checked off!  Later that morning we took the kids to show them and they all were so excited!

One of the nights before we left we walked down to the beach and just enjoyed the sunset and letting the kids run around and play in the sand. 

I went running on the beach one morning and loved it!  It's always a bit tough to run in sand but the atmosphere is worth it!  I also found some good shells and saw a crab on my run.

Katie spent a lot of the time at the beach collecting shells.  She got so many!!

Colton, with help from Lindsey, was finally able to find a shark tooth.  He also really loved all the chances to fish or watch the others fish.  He was thrilled to see the alligator!

Madi did not like the water very much, the first several days but warmed up to it right about when it was time to head back home.  She did enjoy being "in the water" if I was holding her. 

Zach loved digging in the sand and making big holes and playing in the waves.

We had lots of great conversations with our great friends and can't wait until our next get together!!