5 Years

It has been 5 years this weekend since the tornado destroyed Greensburg. I feel very honored and blessed that I have be able to be a part of everything that has taken place over the last 5 years. This weekend was the celebration and memorial services to commemorate the anniversary. I and the rest of the tourism committee have been working hard for months planning the weekend's events. All in all, I think it all went pretty well. Ashley and the kids came up and spent the day. I had to go downtown in the morning to do some things, and Ashley brought all of the kids down in her big wagon. I wish I had a picture of all of them in there. There was a petting zoo that they all really enjoyed. Here are a few photos from the weekend...

Downtown ice cream social Friday night.

Community memorial service Friday night.

Lining up for the panoramic photo Saturday morning.

Saturday afternoon all of the kids, including Alivia since Krista was here too, got down to their diapers and ran around in the sprinkler in Mom's backyard. I seemed to only get pictures of Tru the whole weekend and none of the other kiddos. Hopefully Ashley got a few.

The last 2 weeks we have rehearsed for the play based on Greensburg, Rooted. Last night was the concert performance at the Methodist Church. It went very well and it was great to hear and see the audience's reactions. They laughed and cried. It will be amazing when we can do the full performance in the new theatre. Someday...

Girl Scouts

Yesterday was the Girl Scouts of the Kansas Heartland 100th Birthday celebration in Greensburg. There were supposed to be around 1500 people here. It was much less crazy than I was anticipating. I worked at the arts center in the morning and by noon we had a steady stream of traffic through the building. Mom watched the kids in the morning and fixed us lunch. After lunch, we went home for naps, then went back to mom and walked down to take part of the festivities. Amelia kept saying music, she wanted to go watch the bands play. She and Tru had a good time dancing. She got her face painted like a butterfly. We went to the soda fountain to see Travis and it was super busy. It was like that all day he said, he was there from 9 am to 8 pm with a line the whole time. He was very tired when he got home.

 

We had a nice day today, church then decided on a whim to go to Daves for lunch. Ray and Pat met us there. Then Travis and Ray went to their house to get a pickup load of mulch and Pat, the kids and I came home and started working in the yard. We got mulch put on the flower beds, I put grass seed out on some of our bare spots. The kids and I came in and Travis kept working outside. Dad came over with the tractor and they did some stuff in the yard. It's looking better, one step at a time. We are getting some rain right now, which I am glad for since I planted the grass today. Hopefully we can keep it watered so it will come up.

Awesome

Tonight for supper we had leftover fried chicken from dillons, pasta with veggies, grapes and strawberries. Amelia and Truman were eating when I sat down with my plate. I asked Amelia if dinner was good, and she said "it's awesome." I laughed and said, "did you say awesome?" She said, "yep."

Travis was gone tonight and last night helping with the junior high and high school track meets. This week has been very busy preparing for the next couple weeks of crazy. Today the girl scouts started showing up for their weekend celebration in Greensburg. They are expecting to have 1500 people here. I can't even imagine what that looks like, guess I'll see in the morning!

Rehearsals began this week for Rooted, the play that was written about Greensburg. I am reading the part of tour guide, it's really a far stretch for me to have to act the part. ;) The play is really wonderful and I can't wait to see the audience's reaction.

I am working at getting ready for the grand opening of the Big Well Museum. I ordered a bunch of new clothing for the gift shop yesterday. I had some buyers remorse afterwards, spending money is difficult. But gotta spend money to make money! I am excited to see all the new stuff when it comes! Here is a night shot of the museum, it is really amazing.

Grandma's Roses

I got a cutting from Grandma Audrey's farm 2 summers ago. I started it in a pot and then planted it in the front flower bed last year. It has really taken off and has it's first bloom. I am very excited it has survived. I saw that pink bloom today and thought of her.

Yesterday, Truman and i went to Manhattan for Kyra's baby shower. I am really glad I decided to go. I hadn't seen her since my baby shower for Amelia and it had been about 3 years since I'd been to Manhattan. We are all growed up and stuff.

Sickness and Fire

This last Wednesday morning around 430 Amelia came and got in bed with us. The only thing unusal about that is that it was a few hours earlier than normal. She was fussing then started saying mommy, mommy, then puked in our bed. I stayed home with her for part of the day, and grandma Pat came over while I went to a meeting. Thank God for grandmas! Amelia threw up a few more times throughout the day and couldn't get up off the couch and slept. Travis stayed home with her Thursday and by late afternoon she was up and playing.

Tanner, Jill and Wyatt came though Thursday to get the new to them car they bought. We had dinner with them and it was great to see them.

Last night we went down to the Petty Ranch for a bonfire. Mom kept the kids for the night. Once Clint and ashley got their 4 to bed, we went out to burn the pile. We stayed until around 1 then came home. It was a lot of fun, we all needed it.

Trees and Tornadoes

Friday was the tree planting at the Big Well for the Siemens grant that the city received last year. We planted about 15 trees or so. I went and got Amelia from daycare so she could get in on the planting. It will be cool to look back 20 years from now when those trees are big and remember planting them. (Sorry for the sideways pics, I tried twice to upload them and they are cooperating. I don't have the patience to mess with them, so just lean your head to the right.)

 Friday afternoon, a Wichita Model A club was in town visiting. They parked in front of the Commons while they visited the Soda Fountain. They were really cool to see lined up on Main Street. I love this bumper sticker I saw on one of them:

Saturday was predicted to be a day for really bad weather and it turned out the predictions were true. Travis had to work in the morning and I needed some things from Hobby Lobby in Dodge for art class at school on Monday, so I decided to take the kids to Dodge for lunch and a Hobby Lobby/Walmart visit. We went to Wendy's first for lunch and when we left it was raining pretty good. Next was Hobby Lobby then Walmart. As we were getting loaded into the car at Walmart, Ray called and said there was a tornado warning south of Bucklin. I decided to just stay in Dodge until it passed. I drove around Dodge until the kids went to sleep, then just sat in the visitor's center by Boot Hill parking lot. We made it home around 4pm. We had dinner and another round of storms came through around 8:30. We were listening to the fire radio when the sherriff came on and said he saw a tornado on the ground north of town, so they set off the sirens. I went outside and tried to take a picture, but it was too dark by then. There were some homes damaged and trees down. Travis went out that night and this morning to help and survey the damage with the fire dept. There were tornadoes all over the state, the sirens went off here 2 times here, Jill spent most of the day in their basement, and south and east Wichita got hit. Woodward, OK was hit and 5 people were killed.

My latest sewing project:
I finished it in 2.5 hours on Friday night, start to finish. It's the 3rd one like this I've made. Ignore the diaper only look, she got shorts put on later. I think I'll make another one and add more fabric to the bottom for a dress.

This morning I was trying to get myself ready to go to church. I could hear clanging in the kitchen so I went to see what Amelia was in to. I found here with a butter knife digging at the butter dish saying something about Truman. I turned around to look at him in the high chair and saw she had given him a spoonful of butter to eat. What a helpful sister.

ohhhhh yeahhhhhh

Our Dillons store in deep in the middle of a big reset and rearrangement. I went tonight for milk and ended up buying a bunch of markdowns. Since they are moving things around they are also getting rid of old items that aren't selling. I got 63 packets of koolaid at 9 cents a piece for Ashley. They made slushies during the summer months, so I hooked her up.

The only bad thing about the manager's specials is that they cannot scan them with the barcode scanner. So my cashier had to manually type in each code for each packet of koolaid and the other 10 or so items I had. But hey, what else am I going to do on a Wednesday night at 9:30pm then hang out at Dillons?

The exhibits are going up at the Big Well Museum and it's looking amazing!

A truckload (literally) of trees arrived this morning and we are having a community tree planting (weather permitting) on Friday.

They are forecasting bad weather for tomorrow and friday, hail, winds, possible tornados. Better get the apocalypse bag ready, hey, I could pack some koolaid.