well hello there....

we are in west yellowstone today.  thought i would take you on a little jog down memory lane from our trip to idaho/ wyoming last summer.  i originally posted this on july 21, 2009.  xoxo 

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hello little blog. i've been missing you. i thought of you once when i was staring at the midnight stars over the grand teton holding my baby. i thought of you when i was sitting at the emporium drinking huckleberry shakes in idaho. and, silly, i thought of you as we counted spires all the way from idaho falls to salt lake city. all these strange and foreign experiences i wanted to share with you from my children's view...but somehow my own experiences always color the story. i have lots of pictures and many fun tales from our journey of the last week, but i'm starting as it ended. i'll work my way back through the last ten days starting right in my own back yard. oddly we blew out of town on the tail of a nasty storm that flooded our neighborhood and destroyed the playground...and returned to a nasty storm that blanketed our neighborhood in hail and leaves. surveying the area today things looked simply gray. leaves torn off trees. houses covered in them. snowshovels in july. neighbors helping each other dig out. the wind blew so hard that the grass lay flat. no birds singing today. at all. found some of those sweet souls bruised and battered in the yard. the very poignant thing for me is that we were not officially in a tornado. the "real" tornado touched down miles north of us. but our neighborhood looked pretty bad. in my life i have never experienced a storm like we had. and we never have severe weather at that time of night. all the neighbors checking in...making sure everyone was safe in a basement. i was shaking. and as soon as it started, it was over. all i can say is we are so lucky to have gotten by with such minor damage. i really feel a new admiration for those who lose everything to something so uncontrollable as the weather. nature is so powerful.