Thankful

I meant to write yesterday but I was not feeling very well. I ended up missing work as my side and my head were just hurting. What I wanted to write about is how Ronnie and I are very thankful and have said many prayers of thanks since Saturday.

On Saturday afternoon we decided to take the kids outside for a quick walk on the bike path by our house. They had wanted to go for a walk and we figured before it started to rain we could go for a quick walk to enjoy the outdoors and to help the kids burn off some energy. Isaac and Avery drove their bikes while I pushed Mason in his stroller. We felt a few sprinkles as we started on the bike path but it was not bad at all. We got passed the softball fields and then were by the little dog park when Avery had fallen on his bike. As Ronnie helped Avery up it started to rain hard so we decided to turn around. As we were on the way back to the house the wind also picked up. Ronnie was trying to yell at Isaac and Avery to slow down as they were pretty far ahead of us and we were afraid that they were going to fall because of how slick the path was becoming and how fast they were going, especially Isaac. They finally heard somehow over the strong winds that had come up. Ronnie and I had been doing a really fast walk to try and catch up. For some reason we had pretty much stopped when they did. At that very moment a tree fell and landed a about 3 to 4 inches behind Isaac's bike and landed right in front of Avery's bike. It was literally touching his tire. Avery also managed to be in the only place where there were no branches on the tree. I had seen the whole thing happen and it seemed to happen in slow motion. Ronnie had not seen it start to fall and this was good as he probably would have yelled for them to move and since I was in shock I did not yell for them to move. If we had they would have moved and been hit by the tree. They would probably not be here right now if that had happened. Ronnie took off running towards them and had to tell me about 3 times to cut through the field of grass to get back to the house. I was in shock I what had just happened and also torn between not going to help my babies. Ronnie got to Avery and sent him towards me but I think Avery was panicked as he started to run the wrong way. I was yelling for him and he ran quite a ways yelling for me before he stopped and started crying. I was finally able to get his attention as I could not just leave Mason by himself. I had left the stroller a little ways and yelled at Avery and then he came running towards me.

When we got in the house at home we checked the boys over. Avery had cotton from the tree in his hair but was fine. Isaac was okay too. He had not seen what happened as his back was to the tree. We said many prayers that day and continue too. The storm passed very quickly and Ronnie went back and took a picture of the tree. That is when he told me how lucky Avery had been and that he had been in the only place where there had been no branches. He also said that the tree had not been dead, the live trunk just snapped. There had been no lightening that hit that tree either. I was still in shock. Hard to believe that we could have lost one if not two of our children just like that! I am very thankful that I believe in God and have said even more prayers of thanks since Saturday. I am just glad that everything has turned out okay.

I will write more later but I have to get some laundry done and the house cleaned. Did not get a whole lot done yesterday as I was feeling bad.