Honesty and Tabbyness

Well it is past the new year and February is already here! This last year has been a busy year full of fun and then a flood. And if I am honest with you, the flood took A LOT out of me! I have not really had anything I have wanted to say. Maybe that is why I have not been blogging like I did before the flood or BF(before flood). Life got in the way of blogging. Though our house was not badly damaged in the flood, everything in our yard was and so was our entire town. So after arriving back in Galena in August, life filled up!

Life filled up with mucking out mud, washing inches of silt off of everything that the water touched. Life became re-stacking firewood(which was nicely stacked BF) all 6 cords of our wood floated AWAY.... into the woods. And it took many friends throwing one piece at a time a few feet to a pile and then throwing that pile a few more feet and then a few more feet and so on until it got to our yard where we had to re-stack it again.  Life filled with replacing parts to bikes, snow-machines, wood splitters, gas tanks, four-wheelers and anything else mechanical that the water touched. Life became a butchery to cut thousands of pounds of meat for people that didn't have time to get moose meat while they were rebuilding their homes. Life became feeding volunteers and so many other things that happened after the major disaster.

Life also got filled up with trying to forget some of the scary parts of our flood. Forgetting the real danger of freezing water rising with giant ice chunks coming at you. Forgetting that my husband put us in a boat to send us to the airport thinking we were safe, while we in reality we were stranded at the airport, in basically a bowl, because no planes were coming and we had no way of getting in contact with each other. Or I try to forget that feeling as we took off from the airport in a small missionary plane with my children safely in the back, but knowing my husband was facing the river and that fear of I might not see him again.(Maybe those memories stick with me because I know what cold water can do to a person. That is how my grandfather died in 1996. A boating accident where he fell in the water and died of hypothermia. So during the evacuation all I could think of was DON'T fall in that water!) I try to forget all those scary moments. Again maybe that is why I have not really wanted to blog a lot. I have been trying to get back in to my "Tabbyness." The fun, adventurous side of me that somehow got lost this last year.   I still get very shaky when someone asks about what went on and how we escaped to safety. But like all of us that live here, we are Galena strong and are all getting over it. It might take a while but bare with us we will get there! and one of these days it will be just some awesome story that I tell my grand-kids.

 I spent a month in Texas with my parents this December, which was nice to get away from it all. But it is really hard to be somewhere when most of the people around you have NO idea what happened or how dangerous it was and the slightest thing can send you into a panic.  Like the fire alarm at a building that sounded just like the emergency siren here. And the first thing you do is grab your children and start looking for higher ground... or a boat.  Thankfully I was surrounded by many of the volunteers that came to help rebuild our community and so they knew the damage done, they knew what the pictures looked like and they would just gather me in a hug and say "You are being prayed for." How special that makes me feel! Thank you friends! I believe HUGS ARE THE BEST MEDICINE!!! It was fun to have many in church come up and say the first thing they do in the morning is check the weather in Galena. Funny. First thing I do in the morning is check the weather in Texas. And lately with all the snow and cold they are having, I am glad I live in warm Galena! Seriously while the Polar Vortex is having a vacation in the south, we are enjoying the "warmer" weather here in Galena. 24 degrees was our high yesterday! When our February is normally -40 degrees I am really enjoying this spring like weather. I think God new our wood supply would not have held out if the weather would have been normal so he gave us a break. Snow forts and ice skating have been our daily play times. And the sun is coming out again! We are enjoying the warm sun shining in our windows again. And this morning it actually woke me up shining in my window. YAY for the Sun! My Avocado tree is soaking it up!( Yes I do have an avocado tree growing in my window. It makes me feel like the Tropics are in my living room. 7 more years and maybe I will get some fruit off of it! ... Maybe not. We will see.) So after a month in Texas I returned, very reluctantly if I am honest. At the airport I did NOT want to come back to Galena. Yes I said it! I didn't want to leave the comfort of "home". It was TERRIBLE standing in line at the airport security with my 2 kids crying for their Oma and Opa. I wanted to cry and it never fails that I get the longest line and it takes twice as long standing there with my parents so close but still so far away and my kids crying to go stay with them. Goodbyes have always been a part of my life but they never get easier! I think they get harder with kids. But I know God has a plan and I think one of the reasons he made Alaska so far away from anywhere is that by the time we get to Seattle, we are so ready to be off the plane for good that I am ready to get home that we forget that just some hours ago we didn't want to leave in the first place. And by the time Galena come into the window of our Beech Craft 1900 it is a relief to say we are home. We are back to the routine of life here.

Do we still have flash backs to the Flood? Yes all the time but we are getting over it.

Am I back to my Tabbyness? Getting there!

I know many of you follow our blog and I have not been good about blogging the going ons in Galena. I am very far behind in things that we have been doing so hopefully I will get caught up. My blogs may not be in any order but hey, that's the way I am. People who know me say I write like I talk. So I am going to talk! hehehe I can see my husband's eyes rolling already. But seriously I am hoping to get back in to the groove of blogging the exciting and maybe the not so exciting things going on in our lives. So here is to the honesty and the getting back to the Tabbyness that was BF. Before Flood.  See you all soon!