Easter Recap, the hunt

Rye and his egg buddy Jake, getting ready for the big hunt. (both are clueless as to what is going on)

My mom, Trev and Rye heading out to look for the eggs...

my Dad, making an appearance at the hunt...

examining the "goods" (which were crackers by the way, hey when you don't know what you're missing... ;)

i like this shot, check out the remodel on Mom and Dad's...

this is the point where Jake realized there was food involved in this hunt

suddenly he was a lot more interested

check out those guns!

oh look, I was actually there....yea i need to figure out how to get in more pictures for these type of events.

Happy Belated Easter. This was our first Easter as a family, last year Trev was in Japan for Easter, so woohoo for togetherness!

Trevor and Briana: Defined

I just couldn't resist....this sums us up...perfectly.

(click on the picture to load larger in another window so you can read the descriptions)

i stole this from a Mercedes ad and customized it.

I wonder where Rye will fall?...

Hodge-Podge Lodge

Here are some of my recent finds while perusing some design/decor blogs. Enjoy this random assortment of fun.

Birthday Strut

For my 30th bday, one of my best buds, Heather and her dear sis, Amber, did a Strut photoshoot at my party! It made the party and was such a great gift. Here are some of my favorites...

last, but not least, the "group shot". Thanks again Heather Joy, I love ya!

Terrifying Tennessee Tornado

Perhaps, i should start with a myth: tornadoes to do not touch down on mountains.

Last Wednesday at 8:55am multiple tornadoes touched down on Lookout Mountain and the Chattanooga Valley. I was brushing my teeth and Rye was playing in his bed when i noticed the wind was really picking up. Then the rain started blowing sideways (I'm talking horizontal) and the sky got black. Then I heard what sounded like a train, coming for the house. Since my friend Heidi is from Texas (and has more experience with tornadoes than me), i remember her saying, "if it sounds like a train is coming towards your house, take immediate cover." So, I grabbed Rye and my phone and we went and hid in the laundry room and art room. I was pretty freaked out.

Although this is not my first time dealing with this sort of thing...it was really pretty scary. I could hear trees snapping and the sky was full of debris flying everywhere. Pretty creepy indeed. Rye and the dogs were fine, Mia was napping and Rye was asking for his cars.

After it passed one of the trees had snapped and fallen towards the house, landing about 3 feet short (photo below). However there was massive damage to our neighborhood and about 4 houses had massive trees through the center of them. It was pretty humbling to see all the destruction and see what God spared us from.

Throughout the day over 30 tornadoes hit the area, killing over 300 and causing incredible damage.

(this is a video James Ward -worship leader at our church-did showing footage of the damage)

Here's a shot of one of them on Lookout Mountain

the tree that fell towards our house

A picture from the news...this is at the end of Everett (about 1/2 mile from our house)

Here is the house that I used to live in on Alabama Ave, in St Elmo (about 1.5 mile from our current house)

another angle

Here's a picture of Rye and I eating pizza in the laundry room...as you can see, he was unfazed by the whole experience.

We were without power for 4 days and without water for a day, which comparatively isn't really even worth mentioning. We mooched off of some friends, stocked the freezer with dry ice and waited it out. There were over 120,000 without power and 20,000 are still without it. Ok, well i think that about sums up our last week. We are so thankful for God's protection and would appreciate your prayers for all of those in the area that are devastated by this disaster.