A Memorial Day Weekend... tornados, our Burmese family, and gardening

Wow... this is going to be a long one...

This past Thursday I was in NE just finishing lunch and I received a phone call from Alan that his parent's home and business had been hit by a tornado. I had no idea about how much damage there was, but headed straight to Platteville when I got off work that evening. It was pretty dark when I got there, but Al and I headed back down on Friday to help cleanup. Here are some pictures from a helicopter that surveyed the damages.







The Hunts lost about 1/3 of their roof and had some structural damage. They lost almost all of their windows and some furniture was damaged. A horse trailor from 1/2 a mile down the road was found in their yard and strangely a cow vertebrae was sitting on their couch. The storm was really odd. It seemed to really damage some things- like warping metal machinery on the feed lot, but leaving crushed corn lying perfectly untouched in an outdoor pile. Everyone was fine, but a little shaken up. Al helped a lot with repairing the feed lot, I helped with cleaning up all the dirt and broken glass in the feed lot office and cleaning out the Hunts' fridge and freezers. It has been really cool to see how many people have called and come to help them out.

So, Friday night after helping out in Platteville, Al and I headed over to make pizza with the Kyi's (the Burmese family we are mentoring). I took a couple pictures just because they are so beautiful and so everyone can see who they are.

This is Etong and Atu (as good as I can write the pronuciations). They are so rambunctious and cute!


This is the whole family... Atchi, Mulay, Etong, and Atu


Okay... finally... the gardening section of the blog. I don't actually have any pics of the new veggie or flower garden beds, but I do have a couple pictures (they don't really capture the essence) of my wildflower/bulb bed. The pics are early when my tulips and daffodils were starting to bloom and one is current where my wildflowers are starting to come out and the tulips are almost gone. Yea for flowers! It's the small things in life, right?!