Counting my blessings....

Well, I don't even know where to begin...
well as most of you know, I live in Jacksonville, NC
and this past Saturday, they were calling for nasty
thunderstorms and tornadoes.  I think I watched the
news channel pretty much most of the afternoon, just
keeping an eye on where they were hitting...well, most
of the day, they were mainly north of us...at about 7:15pm
you could see the storm cell on the tv showing that a storm
was coming our way and just about all of these storms were
producing tornadoes!!  The hubby and kids were outside playing
football in the cul-de-sac, so I yelled to them, that a storm was coming
this way and about 10 minutes later, they all came in...it was starting
to rain.  The storm was coming into J'ville and they were calling for it
to hit the Piney Green area around 7:45pm...so we headed into the
bedroom closet and I just sat in there with the two kiddos.  Of course,
you could hear the storm, rain coming down along with lightning...we lost
power and of course hubby being from Iowa, was outside watching the storms,
basically listening for anything...he came running in, threw the mattress over the kids and I and
told us to stay down....the storm passed, we were still out of power and had no idea
if any tornadoes had hit anywhere...well they had, apparently right in some neighborhoods
right off of Piney Green.  So the storm had passed and we never heard anything else come our
way that evening, so we played a good ol' game of Charades with the kids in the dark and then
watched a movie on our laptop(thank goodness it was charged already).
Well, come to find out on Sunday morning, once power came back on...the tornado
first touched down on Camp Lejeune, Tarawa Terrace I and destroyed some of the
base housing before jumping across Hwy. 24 and then destroying a trailer park and then
onto the neighborhoods by my house.  The destruction is about 2 minutes from my house, but
at work on Monday, a bldg. inspector came in with his tornado path map...

Apparently, that tornado was alot closer then I had originally thought...My house is on the left hand side, in that neighborhood, I live in the culdesac...this is about a mile from where I live...Unbelievable.

I'm so thankful that we
are fine, but so many others in my community are homeless and have lost everything...so sad.

On to other news,
I was recently asked to be a contributor to one of my friends
scrapping blogs "What's Scrapping"....I just love all the inspiration you
can find over there...You need to come and check it out...
Today is a NEW Ad Challenge that is up and its an awesome one...
and Michelle is giving away an awesome prize, so get to it ladies....

"Wherever you go, go with all your Heart"

Here is my recent layout that I did for the Survivor challenges that
are going on over at Tallyscrapper...and what a doosey, this challenge
was that TracyP gave us...

• Were mid way through Survivor ladies! Give yourself a pat on the back!
  I am anticipating the release of the latest Pirates movie next month. In honor of my admiration for Capt Jack Sparrow use a Bird on your LO.
• I have been rofl at Charlie Sheen! Other peoples Drama is way more funnier than your own.So incorporate one of these into your title.My top 10 Charlie Sheen Catchphrases, Tweets Or Sheenisms:  I went with "Duh Winning"
• And use this sketch as Inspiration:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Here is my layout for this challenge...
"Duh Winning"

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Also, a Sketch Challenge is UP over at "What's Scrapping"
using one of Our Guest Designer's, Shawn's Sketches from her site "Nuts About Sketches"...

"At the Beach"

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
And Don't forget the gorgeous May KIT from Tallyscrapper is UP for Pre-Sale right now
and I just got this kit in the mail and its fabulous ladies, a MUST have...

  Thanks for stopping by my blog....
Have a blessed week!!!
~Laurajean