Watch, Warning, and Touchdown

Last night we experienced what is actually quite common here in the Midwest - a tornado. About 8:30 I noticed lightening and thunder getting pretty intense. It actually looked like a strobe light was going off in the sky. Too bad it was so dark, I bet the clouds looked really cool. I didn't really think much about it - we have thunderstorms a lot. Then I heard the sound, the sound that scares children much more than it is meant to - the tornado siren. Josh actually thought he was hearing a tornado. So, we headed down to the basement. I tried to calm the kids because they are just positive that a giant funnel cloud is going to come down and rip the roof off of our house. I turned on the TV to see what the news people were saying. The storm was right over us. Some funnel clouds were spotted. The kids were still really scared and I was assuring them that nothing was going to happen. Then the weatherman said that it was confirmed that a tornado touched down at 180th & Harrison. We live at about 180th and West Center.
The star is the tornado and the red circle is our house. That's when I started to get worried. The tornado was moving in a north easterly direction so we weren't really in it's path, but it was so close. It actually didn't do very much damage. Things calmed down and we sent the kids to bed. Then another little thunderstorm settled over us. Just as I was going upstairs, it blew the back door open and a bucket full of water rushed into our house. That's about the worst of it. We're all okay.

The only injuries that were "caused" by the tornado were also slightly related to football. Football is very big here and Nebraska was playing #4 ranked USC on national television. Someone was having a football party and they heard that funnel clouds were forming. They all went out on the deck to see what they could see and the deck collapsed. I believe there were only minor injuries. I guess the moral of the story is - don't mix touchdowns with touch downs (sorry for the awful pun, I couldn't resist!)

So, that was that, and today the weather was beautiful. That's another thing I've learned about Nebraska - they have a beautiful fall. The days are crisp and clear, with low humidity, sunny and temperatures in the 70s or 80s. You just have to be prepared to weather a few thunderstorms, or maybe a tornado.

Road Trip

Well, we survived a trip to New Mexico. It was so nice to see family and to participate in the fun activities. Unfortunately, we have no pictures. I think we were too exhausted from the traveling to use the camera. The trip in the car took 16 hours. It was a very long drive. On the way there, we left at 6:00 am, made it to Denver by 2:00 and arrived in New Mexico at 8:45 pm Mountain Daylight time. We had gained an hour so to us it felt like 9:45. It was long, but it wasn't really that bad. Here are some things that we learned:

• Take very seriously the 75 mph speed limit on I-80
• The northern part of Colorado is very flat, ugly and brown (not what you would expect)
• A child that has been playing all day and gets into the car will fall asleep almost immediately, a child that has been in the car all day has a very hard time falling asleep.
• You will always lose some checkers to a travel Connect 4 game, even though the game comes in a zippered pouch and has elastic pockets to store the checkers in.
• It is very difficult to get a child to throw away trash in a car.
• The mountains of Colorado are very scenic, but difficult to drive through. Think hair pin switch backs and those big steep hills to stop run away trucks.
• McDonald's has better toys than Burger King
• It is far easier to leave at 6:00 am and arrive at 10:00 pm than to leave at 8:45 am and arrive home at 2:00 am.
• Kids almost never eat the healthy snacks you pack in the car.

I really wish I had some pictures to put on here. On the way to New Mexico I kept seeing these interesting things but I figured a picture from the window of a moving car wouldn't have turned out. There was a rest stop in Colorado that had tepees over the picnic tables, some water falls, pretty mountains, Welcome to [Colorado, New Mexico, Nebraska] signs, Chimney rock in Colorado (there is a different one - the Mormon trail one, in Nebraska). I'm sure there's even stuff I don't remember, but I know I wanted to take a picture of it. Also, one weird thing that happened is I was wondering exactly at what point we would cross over into the other time zone and I looked up and at that moment I saw the sign, saying we were in the new time zone.

Anyway, this is what we did in New Mexico

• Got rained on at the annual dinner.
• Got sacks full of candy at the parade.
• Raced, played, and rode a train at the games at the church.
• Went to a play about a county fair.
• Saw fireworks
• Went swimming at the Kirtland pool. Some of the kids even jumped off a diving board and swam to the edge of the pool.
• Saw cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, brothers, sisters and of course, grand parents.

It was nice time, even though the drive is long. I guess the good thing is, it will make driving to Utah seem easy. And don't even talk to me about the measly 6 hour drive from Utah to New Mexico...

Swimming Fun

We had a lot of fun swimming the other day at the Hanscom Park pool. It's called a leisure pool - the deepest it gets is 2 feet deep. It has a couple of slides, a mushroom, an octopus, and some places where the water gurlges up. It was a perfect place to cool off and not having to worry so much about all my kids drowning. It's probably the only kind of pool that I could go to without another helper. A bunch of other moms and kids from church came too. It has been so hot here that it felt very good to get wet.

Wild Weather

We had some crazy weather the other day. This first picture is from about 2:30 in the afternoon. It got really dark and these clouds just moved in very quickly. In fact, the sky turned a greenish color. We had intense rain, thunder, and lightning that lasted for about 30 minutes. Even though the sky was green, there was no tornado.

Then 4 hours later, when it had cleared up considerably, a neighbor called and wanted to know if our boys wanted to come over and play in their sandbox. I sent them out and in less than 5 minutes the sky looked like this.

It was really quite amazing how quickly the clouds starting rolling across the sky. I guess these clouds were called a "wall cloud" and that can signal that a tornado is coming.


There was no tornado, just a repeat of the earlier storm with lots of thunder and lighting and thick rain.

It sure made for a beautiful sunset later on.

Lemonade Stand

Rachel really wanted to start some kind of business venture. Her friend suggested a cleaning business. I don't think Rachel really wanted to do that (I mean, come on, I can hardly get her to clean her room :)) so she wanted to do a lemonade stand. She figured out what she would need to buy and said she would pay me back with her profits. She was so excited about this - it was pretty cute. So, the time finally came. I figured that in about 10 minutes of the hot and muggy weather, the kids would have drunk half their inventory and been begging to come inside.

Well, I was wrong! They actually made ten dollars. Most people just gave them a dollar for the lemonade. One nice gentleman gave each of them a dollar for 1 cup of lemonade. They made enough money to pay me back for the supplies and still be happy with the money they had left over. It was a success. I just don't think they would have that kind of success if they tried to do it every day. Fortunately, one time was enough for them.

Emma's trying to tell me something

Sometimes when I'm on the computer, and Emma is down in the office with me, she crawls over to the CPU and turns it off! Granted, the CPU is down on the floor (it won't really fit on the desk) and the button is hard for a baby to resist - it is glowing blue - she really acts like she knows what she is doing. She gets this mischievous grin on her face and just giggles. At least I've never lost something important that I've been in the middle of. And what could be more important that a cute baby with a mischievous grin?

Lil' baby and a pot of mud

This is what happens when you are trying to have a conversation with your spouse and you would like your baby to stay occupied for more than 2 minutes. The dirt was pretty wet because it had been raining a lot the past few days. At least she had a lot of fun. I think we need to get a sandbox. Same type of fun with a lot less mud.

9 Years and Counting

Today is our 9th wedding anniversary. I thought I do a little blast from the past and post some pictures from our Wedding day. Here are some fun facts about our married life so far:

* We have moved 5 times
* We have 4 children - ages 8 to 1
* We both received a Bachelors degree
* Aaron has had 6 different jobs (if I remember correctly)
* Amanda has had 3 diferent jobs - 4 if you count motherhood (which you should!)
* We have had 5 different cars
* We have lived in 2 states
* We have owned 2 houses

There's nothing else really too interesting about us! We're just happy that we've made it these 9 years.

4th of July in Omaha

We had a fun 4th of July weekend with our visitors. Grandma and Grandpa and Michelle arrived safely the evening of the 30th. We were all very excited to see them. That night we were treated to a fireworks display that we could see from our deck. It was pretty impressive. Thats when we realized that the 4th of July here is not just one day. The festivities and the fireworks just keep going and going.


Saturday was Rachel's baptism. It was very nice. Everyone that came said that it was a lovely service. Michelle spoke about Baptism and Grandpa spoke about the Gift of the Holy Ghost.


On Monday, we went to the Mormon Trail center and Cemetery. We toured the visitors center. The kids had fun trying to pack a wagon, pull and handcart, and sleep in a ship bunk. Then we discovered that one of the Bloomfield's ancestors is buried at the Cemetery and is the only marked grave of the hundreds of people that were buried there. Her name was Amy Porter.



Later that day we went to the Whole Foods Market. It is an organic grocery store and it has some pretty interesting foods. We got some Edamame, sweet potato chips, organic soda (I refuse to call it pop - that's what people in Omaha call it), natural Turkey bacon, and some other stuff. I don't think I'll be shopping there on a regular basis, but it is interesting to look at what they have to offer.


On Tuesday, we went to Omaha's Old Market. It is in downtown Omaha and consists of a few blocks of cobblestone roads and sidewalks with some neat shops and restaurants. The kids favorite was the Old Market candy shop. We all had lunch at the Old Spaghetti Works. Rachel and David had a Peanut butter and Jelly pizza - which was a big hit. I think its the first time we have gone to a restaurant and the kids have finished their meals. David had 2 pieces left and when the waitress was about to take his plate away, he said "I was going to save that!" She brought him a box and that made him happy. I was going to take of picture of the pizza when we got home, but David ate the rest of it on the way home. A fun time was had by all. When we got in the car to go home David said "mom, I feel so good inside - we should do this every day!"

That night, Michelle babysat. Grandma, Grandma, Aaron and I went back to the visitors center to see the new Joseph Smith movie. On the drive home, we could see fireworks in every direction. It was something I had never seen before. It's legal here to have the fireworks that shoot up in the air and explode - kind of like the professional ones you see. So, for about an hour (or maybe more) there were big fireworks going on everywhere. You could see in every direction (no mountains) and the back deck of our house provides a nice view. It was quite a sight.

We were sad to see everyone leave the next morning. We are so glad that we had some visitors!

Rachel's Baptism

Here are Rachel and Aaron in their Baptisimal clothing.
The Bishopric gave Rachel a picture of the Winter Quarters Temple, the boys are enjoying the cookies that we had after.
Rachel was so happy after her Baptism!

The whole family.

Here are the missionaries that taught Rachel the discussions.

Last day of (summer) School!

Well, I'm a little late in posting this, but David had his last day of Summer school. I have mixed feelings about this. It was fun for him, it did keep him busy, and I wasn't so worried about sitting down with him everyday to do school work. The reason that I'm glad it's over is that I no longer have to roll him out of bed at 7:15 to catch the bus at 7:45. I don't have to fight to get him in bed before 9. Don't you remember those long summer days? When it doesn't get dark until 9:30 and there are still kids outside playing baseball? It's kind of hard to go to bed. So now, David can kind of enjoy the sleeping in part of summer. He really did enjoy it. On monday, they would get muffins from Mimi's cafe and he got a cerficate to go to Mimi's cafe for a free dinner. To Rachel's great annoyance, he reminded her of this every chance he got "my dinner is FREE". I just hope that it did help him catch up. Now that it's over, I've got to get the mommy school in full swing. David said it would be fun if I did "centers". Yes, it would be fun, but there is a reason I didn't major in elementary education. But, it is fun, when you can teach your kids, and you see the improvement. When that light goes on and they start to understand something. We still need to work on numbers a lot and I have a feeling we're going to be reading lots of Bob Books this summer. That's okay, it's really cute when they are so excited to learn.