High Winds

Thursday, March 13, 2014 - Last night a quick-moving storm came through and toppled trees and sent power outages soaring.  The airport recorded a wind gust of 61 mph.  Duke Energy had 350 customers still without power from the Friday ice storm and by 9:30pm last night their number had gone up to 9,700 people without power.  At the bus stop this morning we learned that our neighbor 3 houses down had a huge tree fall our their house.  It hit on top of their daughter's bedroom and cracked all 4 walls and hallway.  That could have happened to any of us.  There are so many tall trees around.  So thankful no one was hurt.  The neighbor across the street could hear the crack and crunch when it happened.  The family inside the damaged house could feel the whole house shake.

Storm clean-up

Monday, March 10, 2014 -  No schools today due to 18 of the county schools without power.  It was a beautiful day, high near 70.  The kids and I headed to Mom and Dad's and helped pick up the hundreds of limbs, branches and chunks of trees that had come down because of the ice.  All the towns are waving their usual limb collection restrictions and saying, "just get the limbs to the curb in a pile and we will come collect them".  From 12:30-3pm Mom, Dad, Brittany, Nathan and I worked in 4 yards hauling branches to the curb.  3 of the 4 yards are theirs and the 4th yard we cleared out their cedar tree limbs that had fell in the neighbor's yard.  Dad had the chain saw and would cut and we would all haul.  It was such great weather to work in.  So amazing though the damage that the ice caused to some many trees.

Scene on 220

Afternoon with Youth

Sunday, March 9, 2014 - Made pancakes for our company and then they packed up and headed home.  They figured that if the power had come back on then they would have church service (Dad teaches Sunday School).  They got back home and no one was in the church parking lot and no messages on their machine about service.  Oh, well, so glad they have their power back on!  Lots of area people did get their power back on Saturday evening and Sunday throughout the day.  There were some people though that were without power for 5 days.  Tough situation.  This afternoon Brittany starts Confirmation Class at church.  After confirmation was youth (UMYF, United Methodist Youth Fellowship).  Chad and I provided the meal and were the chaperones.  The picture below is after we ate and ready for the program to start.  Nathan got to hang out with us.

Our lovely house guests

UMYF

Day Two of Power Outage

Saturday, March 8, 2014 - Mom and Dad headed back home 6:30am this morning to see about saving food in their refrigerator and check on the flooding in the cellar (water was pouring in the wall from the melting ice).  The kids and Chad headed out and had fun making small snowmen from the chunks of snow left from the snowplow that came through last night.  Once they had all the snowmen lined up they had fun destroying them.  Nathan threw snowballs at his and Brittany karate kicked hers.  I don't have a picture of this because I was videoing it.  Nathan did karate kick his big snowman down before any cars came through.
  Grandma hung out with us all day.  Later Chad took the kids on "Daddy, Daughter, Son Night" & they went and saw Mr. Peabody at the movies.  Mom and Dad arrived after dinner & relaxed after working hard all day.  Around 7pm their neighbor called to say their power had come back on.  Yeah!  Initially Duke Energy was saying power back on by Wed. at 11pm.  So glad it did not take them that long.

Louie enjoyed spending time with Great Grandma

March Blizzard

Friday, March 7, 2014 - School called 5:20am, no school today!  Back to sleep...we woke up a little after 8am, big flakes of snow were coming down!  Still snowing big flakes at 9am.  Nathan went out to explore and go sledding with our neighbor, his friend Dylan.  We only got a little bit of ice on the trees and then after a few hours it was melted.  We did get over 4 inches of snow on the ground.  After talking with my mom on the phone realized that she was not looking at a white winter scene at her house 33 miles south of here, she was looking at ice covering everything.  I was seeing on the news and on Facebook about lots of trees falling and power outages across a few counties.  Well, mom and dad lost power about 8am today.  They were running a generator and had the refrigerator and one heater on it.  Grandma had also lost power a few houses down.  During the course of the day over 400,000 people were without power.
   After lunch I started shoveling the driveway....so if Chad's plane did get in, and he made it on the roads and down through our neighborhood he would be able to pull his car in the driveway.  4:30pm my mom, dad and grandma arrived to spend the night with us...we did not loose power.  Chad had to take a different flight instead of flying through Detroit he went through Atlanta & made it home about 8pm.  I was thankful that he made it home at all today.
  So many people are without power, even our old neighborhood 14 miles from here.  So thankful my family could drive on the roads and come stay with us for heat.

Only a little more to shovel!

I am finished!

Another storm

Thursday, March 6, 2014 - Chad left for Canada yesterday for work.  Just a normal day for us here today.  After school Nathan's good buddy came over for a play date.  The weather was calling for freezing rain, sleet and possibly turning into snow.  We were starting to get the freezing rain around 7pm.  And later in the evening it did turn snow.  The weather man was calling for 1/4 inch of ice to accumulate on trees and power lines and 1-2 inches of snow accumulation.  Different sources were saying different information on the amount of snow accumulation we are suppose to get.  I studied with the kids for their Friday spelling tests and we headed to bed, after talking with Daddy on the phone.  We will see what the morning brings.

Winter Weather = No school

Tuesday, March 4, 2014 - No school for the kids today.  This is what it looked like at 5:30pm today, almost all gone.

March and we are getting snow

Monday, March 3, 2014 - Well, the kids headed to school and then Nathan was getting off the bus at 11:15am and Brittany 12:45pm.  The schools dismissed early because of the wintery weather on it's way here.  We were getting a few flakes when Brittany got off the bus.  The bottom 2 pictures were taken at 6:30pm.  We were really getting the snow!

Day 2 at the Beach

Sunday, March 2, 2014 - We slept in as much as we could and then packed up for check out.  Then we headed to the Golden Griddle for breakfast, in business since 1975.  It was a 20 minute wait, but boy was it worth it.  Yummy!  Then we played some Pirate putt-putt.  We each got a hole in one on the course!  Yeah!  Then back to the pool and beach.  Beautiful day, high near 70, we didn't want to leave.

North Myrtle Beach

Saturday, March 1, 2014 - Well, Hello and Welcome to the Secraw Family Blog Site!  It has been over a year since my last post and I decided it was time to get back in the groove!  I love sharing our life with family and friends far away (and near by).  We are an active family and we love living life to the fullest that God has given us.  We are never guaranteed tomorrow.
    Chad and Nathan just finished up with their winter basketball season last weekend.  They won their first tournament game, but were not able to get a win with the second game.  We had the team over for an end of season party and everyone had a fun time!
   Soccer season is starting up and Nathan's first game will be this next weekend so we decided we needed to get away.  Last night we drove to North Myrtle Beach for a weekend get away.
   Today we have had fun eating at Dunkin Donuts, shopping at Tanger Outlet stores, walking the beach and looking for the perfect sea shells, swimming in the huge indoor pool, resting in the huge hot tub, dinner buffet and movie in the room (Free Birds).  What a fun day as a family!
  This family sure does love the beach!  Chad and I say that we would love to retire to the beach someday.  Side note...we just found out today that my college campus minister (and he married us) is retiring the end of June and his wife and him are moving from the NC mountains to North Myrtle Beach!  How fun!
  I hope you will keep up with us on this blog and comment when you want to...it will help to encourage me to keep posting...if I know people are reading, Ha!  Enjoy!  God loves you and so do I!