Today is 'rest the leg - make phone calls day'. First the body shop called, and told me that they only found another $200 of damage under the hood and above the head-liner. BUMMER. So I called Progressive to see if we could get the value adjusted, because I felt it was kind of high. The first thing they said was that their records showed that it WAS totaled, and we needed to tear up the check we had been given and proceed with the 'total loss' department. So we did that, YIPPEE!! It's been alot of phone tag and there will be some extensive document gathering that needs to take place but it's all do-able. The trailer will be a total loss too, the problem they are having on it is that there are so few of them out there, on the market, that they are finding it difficult to assess the value that they need to reimburse us for. Maybe, since they are so rare, we will come out ahead!! Pray that it's a couple thousand more than what we owe - wouldn't THAT be cool!!??

Other than that, life clicks along. The kids are hitting some bumps. Mayahna spent a day and a half peeing her pants three and four times a day. But we were just very matter-of-fact with her and let her deal with it, (since I really CAN'T help her that much, anyway) and it got old to her pretty fast too. She is more cuddly, though, so that is nice. I'm HOPING that this event will provide her with some new sense of trust toward us, since she experienced that we did manage to keep her safe in a severe situation.

Tommy seems to have weathered things pretty well, even though he was always the one who was SO scared on Tornado Watch days before. Lon asked him at one point, how the real-life event compared to what he had imagined, and he said the real life one was WAY worse. But he doesn't SEEM to be too effected by it. So far.

Ricky has reverted to some previously extinguished behaviors. We are in the process of getting his Autism diagnosed, so he is working with counselors already who will help him process this too, I'm sure!

Emma has been hit pretty hard. She's pretty fragile. She lost the most personal property and she also lost a pet, her favorite chicken was the one that died. She is struggling. I'm in touch with organizations that can help her. Everything is a process and takes time to get established. Pray for her.

Sarah and Annie seem to be ok - they are a little distracted, and easily tired. There is ALOT of work to do, here at the house, now that we have everything here. All that is unpacked must typically be cleaned, etc. and then sorted to the appropriate rooms and then we gotta figure out how to organize it all, once it gets there. And. of course, most of it was not packed in any sort of an organized fashion. (with the exception of the kitchen, thankfully - thank you Lois!!) We did get the clothes all washed and sorted and put away (with some help from the Pathfinders) so that was a BIG hurdle to get over, and put behind us.

Lon is a little out of touch with the emotions that those of us who were IN the house for the tornado are processing. I've spoken with a few other moms who were home with their kids and found this reaction to be pretty typical. If you were not there, you just can't even begin to wrap your mind around what we saw/hear/felt/smelled... But he and I have had a pretty frank discussion about what he NEEDS to provide for us, and what we DON'T need, and I think things will be better from here on out, hopefully. (another matter of prayer).

I do pretty good most days. Yesterday was a difficult day. My energy level is low, but I'm guessing a fair bit of that is because of the crutches taking so much energy to use. But there are times when the emotions just overwhelm me, and other times, when you would THINK I should be moved to tears (some people have given us AMAZING gifts) that I don't cry. It's all part of the ride. I'll probably try to get a chance to do some 'processing' with a professional at some point too.

It has been pretty helpful to write here, and process and decompress as I write. Several people have suggested that I need to write a book. I don't know about THAT!! Not sure when I would have TIME!!

I did talk to the Home School cover administrator today, finally and was given permission to dismiss school as of April 27. That was good news. I suspected that would be the case, but wanted to hear it for sure. Apparently our cover has had MULTIPLE families impacted by this series of storms (there was a smaller outbreak on April 15th, when we were up in Michigan - between the two dates, we had more tornadoes touch down than are typically recorded in an entire year).

I guess this might be a good time to address some stats. The twister that hit us was the longest in recorded history, at 132 miles long (previous was 130 miles) it was as wide as 1.25 miles wide in places, but not that wide when it hit us. In fact, Lon was looking at the NOAA sight with Michael and they said that NOAA ranked it as an EF3 as it went through our neighborhood (Doug and Nan take a bit of exception to that, understandably!) it was EF5 for most of it's path, but fortunately alot of it's path was agricultural land, so not as much of a population impact as the one(s?) that hit in Tuscaloosa. There were apparently 8 deaths in Madison County. We know of at least three of those that were within a mile of our house. We had been told of another 4 that were just under 2 miles away, but have not seen those names listed in the official death list. There were a total of at LEAST 28 twisters that touched down in Alabama alone that day, many more in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Georgia, and even a few states further away, I believe. They are having a hard time documenting some of the smaller ones because so much of the damage has been cleaned up by the time they arrive to survey, because they are so backlogged trying to get everything documented. So the number is likely to go up. At one point there were over 300 people missing, mostly in Tuscaloosa, and most of them have been found, alive, having left the scene either immediately before or after the twister came through. The missing number is somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 now, I believe. Several of those are children. There is a story of a small baby that was found, alive, 40 miles from where it had been. And people's body's found 60 and 80 miles from where they should have been. These were some POWERFUL storms. We found stuff in our house from four different neighbor's houses, plus several items we don't know WHERE they came from. I'm sure there is stuff from our house all over the entire county. Did I mention before, the birthday cake? Emma's birthday was the day before the storm and there was a small plate with two slices of left over birthday cake on it, sitting on the kitchen deck - a typical kitchen deck with a fruit bowl, pencil can, yesterday's mail, etc. All of the deck was WIPED CLEAN, except the cake still sat there!! Also an antique creamer that my aunt gave me that belonged to my Gramma Hanna was laying - on the TILE floor - unharmed, having been, previously, on a shelf 6 feet off of the floor!

Well, I should stop for now. I'm planning to finish the thankfulness list (though it keeps getting added to on a regular basis!) and the chronological stuff as soon as I can. All the phone calling has slowed me up a bit and I have a TON of thank-you cards to write too!!

I guess that is all I have for now. I need to get going on the SBA loan application, so that we can get approval and buy me a new car before the rental has to be returned on Monday at 6:00. So guess I should close this for now and get going on that.

We really do appreciate all the prayers and other support that people have sent our way. We can feel your prayers!!! Please keep them coming!! God has faithfully sent other support exactly when we need it. (I'm sure all the prayers have had a great deal to do with that!!)
We are trusting Him to continue to do that!!