~ Fall 2011 ~

I never posted about a strange occurance that happened soon after we moved into our house last April. It happened when we were getting all that rain and wind. I was really worried our basement was going to flood which was going to ruin all the dreams I had of finishing the basement and living in our house forever! Luckily, no water in the basement means the possibilities are endless! However, the storms didn't stop a huge branch from falling off one of the trees in our front yard. Luckily no damage was done other than the neighborhood being forced to find an alternate route to work and the neighbors across the street without a mailbox...ooops!
The whole story is actually pretty amusing! It had been storming all evening. At 6 am my dad calls Patrick, I told him not to answer ( I thought he was accidently calling, who calls at 6 am?!). Not 30 seconds later my phone is ringing, and it is my dad. All of a sudden I realize not answering a phone call at 6 am is probably the dumbest thing I could of done--what if there was an emergency?! I answer the phone and my dad says "Good Morning!"

Side note: I love when my dad calls in the morning. He is 100% a morning person and always  
sounds like it truly is a good morning even when I am half asleep. I think I need more positive tones
in the morning to get me going.

Back to the story, I respond with a groggy "good morning." He then tells me "go look out your window." I am really confused now. All sorts of thoughts are running through my head--did he buy me a new car? is there a car crashed into my new livingroom (I would of heard that, right?), if it is a new car should I be dressed a little better?! I walk into the living room and look out the window and see a huge branch completely torn off the side of our tree, laying across the road, which was causing quite a comossion with morning traffic.
I freak out! Am I going to have to pay hundreds of dollars to get this tree out of the way? Who do I call? How quickly can we get this branch relocated? Do we own a chain saw?
My dad is very helpful he tells me he will call the city works office, and get it figured out. I go and wake Patrick up. Before Patrick is all dressed and ready we hear a chain saw. I go and look out the front window and one of our awesome neighbors has already started sawing it apart and another neighbor is helping him! Patrick hurried outside to help. As they were finishing up the city works trucks pull up. Patrick and the neighbors had cut enough of the branch, and  moved it to our yard, that cars were able to drive through again. All the city works employees had to do was remove the now much smaller branches. However, there is a little bit of sad news. They informed us the rest of tree had to come down, but they were going to do it this winter AND plant a new one for us! I am a bit sad because the tree is huge and a good source of shade in the summer. However, after this fall I have done more than enough raking because of the massive tree! I wish I would of snapped some photos of the tree across the street but I didn't.
Here are some photos I recently took.

We just noticed the orange spray painted X. We are thinking it is coming down soonish?!

This was the first raking of the year. Since then there have been hundreds if not thousands of leaves added to our yard. 

P.S. we do not rake to keep our yard looking nice and manicured. We rake to entertain our son!

As I was taking photos of the tree, and my adorable son, I decided to take a few snapshots of other random things around our house.

                                         

   

    

And then I realized...I do not think I have ever posted a photo of the front of our house! It is not a great photo as I am standing at an awkward angle, towards the sun. Oh well, maybe next spring I will take a better photo.

Thank you Jesus for our awesome home! I love it so much!

I will leave you with a few more photos of Matthew.

Have a blessed day everyone!