Tornado in Windsor

A huge tornado hit Windsor, CO yesterday around noon. My office is in Windsor, which is just about 11 miles southeast of where we live in Fort Collins. Around 11 am it started to hail so all of us in the office were just standing around looking out the window. The hail started off pretty small, but soon it was golf ball size! The damage to the cars in the parking lot was terrible. My front windshield was cracked (two perfect circles about 1-foot in diameter, kinda weird) and there are "dimples" all over the top and hood. One person's back windshield was completely shattered. Little did we know that this would be the least of the damage around the rest of the town.

Shortly after the hail storm started the power went out. I tried calling Jamie (who had the day off and was at home in Fort Collins) but the call wouldn't go through. She was able to call me a little bit later and said that a tornado had knocked over a couple of semis just south of Windsor. So of course we all go out side and look at the sky (after it stopped hailing). I didn't see any funnel clouds, but there were tons of other clouds in the sky doing crazy things. Right about that time I guess the tornado hit in East Windsor (I work on the west side of town). But at this point we still didn't know that there was a tornado warning (no power or phones, so we were kind of in the dark in more ways than one). Shortly there after we saw tons of emergency vehicles driving by toward the other part of town. One of my co-workers kids were in a day care on that end of town and she just got a strange feeling that something happened to the day care. She was freaking out because she couldn't get in touch with anybody because we couldn't make any cars out. So three of us jumped in the car and went over to the day care trying to assure her that it was just a hail storm and everything was going to be alright. As we got closer to the other side of town we started to see trees that had been snapped in half, fences were blown over, a couple of cars had been flipped on their side with all of the windows blown out... not good. We pulled up to the day care and it was like a scene straight out of a movie. The building right next-door to the day care center was just a pile of rubble, every car in the parking lot had windows blown out, the playground at the day care was destroyed, but the day care center itself was still in tact. There was lines of kids crossing the street and teachers pushing cradles full of kids. They were all headed to a nearby bank that was a little safer. Thankfully all of the kids were accounted for and okay. My co-worker found her kids and was able to take them home. I went over to another co-workers house who lives in Windsor to survey the damage. Luckily only one window was broken (probably just from the hail). I ended up going back home to Fort Collins and spent the rest of the day listening to the radio to keep up with the storm.

All in all I think seven tornadoes touched down in the area. The "path of destruction" was over 30 miles long and about 1 mile wide. The town of Windsor was hit the hardest. The most amazing thing, the biggest blessing, was that there was only one death and very few serious injuries. Quite a crazy day. I am sure this weekend there will be tons of opportunities to help in the recovery/clean-up process.

Today at work we are going to go out and just find some place to help. My co-workers know a lot of people in the neighborhoods that were hit the worst and we might go over and help them out. But most people aren't even allowed back in their homes because of gas leaks and structural damage. I can't imagine loosing my entire house, but most people who have been interviewed on the news have a positive outlook. It is just stuff.

Here are a few pictures from the internet.

A lot of the houses were completely destroyed. Almost every house in Colorado has a basement, so that saved the lives of hundreds of residents.


A train that was derailed near the daycare center.



This is an old grain warehouse that was used by a billiards company just about a mile down the road from my work.

Game Night!

The youth pastor at our church was out of town last weekend so Jamie and I got to run a game night for youth group at the church. It was a lot of fun, but I was dead tired after about an hour and a half of games (I didn't even play any!!) Here are some of the games we played.

This game is called Kajabee-can-can (don't ask me why). The point is to pull the other people into the trash can in the middle of the circle. If you hit the can you're out or if you let go of the rope you are out too. Fun game (I've played it before), but we didn't have the best ropes. After the first round everybody had rope burns! And as you can see, the guy to that is nearly out of the picture pulled really hard, everybody let go of their ropes, and then he flew into a table. Good times, cause no one got seriously injured:)


The point of this game was to see which team could do the best design using gold fish, peanut butter, and a face.
I gave the prize to Rose, that team went with the classic bearded lady / unibrow look. I think the other team just tried to cover Drew's face completely.




The winner!

Pictionary, always a classic!


Chubby Bunny...
How many marshmallows can you stuff in your mouth and still say "Chubby Bunny"?
I think the winner only had 8, I was a little disappointed in the effort...






We finished off the night with a couple of rounds of "spoons"

Starting over with the house hunt...

We lost the house that we had under contract out in Severance. The initial contract was through May 13 (had to close before that date) so we were going to ask for an extension, but somebody else came in and made an offer so we are out of luck. Oh well, back to square one. Not that we could have bought this house until the one back in Portland sold anyway (which doesn't seem to be happening any time soon), so I guess it doesn't make much difference.

Hopefully God has something better out there for us!

My new hair cut!

Colorado Sun...Warning

I spent a little too much time in the beautiful sunshine last weekend at the Colorado State Spring football game. I guess I just spent so much time in cloudy Portland that I forgot that a sunny day in April can still get ya. It looks a whole lot worse than it felt. But needless to say I will be digging out the sunscreen next time!

The latest news

We are now at the 30 day mark for the house that we have under contract. The builder said that if we get an offer on our house in Portland before May 13 they would be willing to extend the contract so we could close on the loans. But there is another house in the same neighborhood that has already been lived in so all the landscaping is done and the inside has been painted. At the time we were looking at houses this one was under contract, but apparently it fell through. So maybe God does have a better house waiting for us. We will see what happens in the next couple of weeks!

Other than worrying too much about the house and our finances, we have been having a great time developing relationships with people from our church over the last couple of weeks. We are really good friends with the youth pastor and his wife. It seems like we hang out at least 3 or 4 days a week. Lately we have been helping/hanging out with the youth group. There are only 12-15 kids each week, but they are a good group. It is a little different because the ages range from 7th-12th grade. It is hard to have discussions with that wide of an age range without talking over or under somebody's level. I am hoping to go with them to summer camp in July up in Wyoming with a couple of other churches. That should be fun.

We also just finished going through a book with the "newly" married group. For a church so small (about 100-120 people each Sunday), there is quite a few young marrieds (8 or 9 couples that consistently get together). We have a lot of fun getting together with them.

That is about all for now. Spring is trying to come (70s and sunny the last couple of days, but it is supposed to snow again tomorrow). We will try to get some more pictures of the area once all of the trees start to blossom.

Nothin new!

Its Sunday morning and I am all ready for church. Skylar is playing a game on the play station and Hooch and Winston are still sleeping! I thought I would update the blog since we haven't for awhile now, but honestly there is nothing to update everyone on! We are still waiting for our house in Portland to sell, praying that the Lord will open some doors so that we can get a house here. The finances have been a real stresser so please pray for us in that area! I am starting to enjoy my job a little bit more, it just takes time I guess. Skylar is still working hard and sometimes some long days at the office.
I am coaching volleyball at a middle school here and our season is almost over, we have 2 more games then a tornament which should be fun. Skylar and I are also playing volleyball with our church married group. We haven't won a game yet but it is still fun to play! I was also talked into playing on a womens soccer team with one of Skylar's friends mom. She is the women I coach with. So today is my first game and I am so nervous because I have never played soccer before in my life:-) I was told that it is a lot of fun and not competetive at all, so that is a relief!
Well thats about all that is going on in our lives here in Colorado! For those who don't know yet I am coming to visit in May, the 7th-17th! I am super excited and can't wait to see everyone!
God Bless!