I forgot to mention...

Micah graduated from Pre-K on May 17th. Next year, he officially starts Kindergarten.

What not to say

After the EF-4 tornado hit Harvest on April 27, 2011, there was a house on Stovall Road where the survivors erected a hand-painted sign with the words, "GOD SAVED 6 PEOPLE HERE." It sat across the road from where a man died.

It's been two years, and that sign and its implications haven't stopped bothering me.  At the time, I wondered what the family of the man who died made of it.

Personally, I'm pretty sure God had nothing to with anything that happened that day. Some people were just in the right place, others were in the wrong place, and it was all horribly arbitrary. If I had to go further, I'd say that geography, wind patterns, home selection, home construction, the National Weather Service, and probability did most of the saving that day. Regardless, there is never a situation where, "nah, God just likes me more than that 6-year-old crushed by her house," is an appropriate response.  Even if you truly believe the dead would have been saved too if they'd prayed harder or gone to church more or "just listened to the Lord" when they bought their house or left work that day or whatever, it's just not something you say out loud.

Every time a disaster comes around, I just want to tell people, look, if  you think God reached out His hands and saved you, fine. But if you feel compelled to say it....don't.  Just don't.  Especially not while they're still uncovering the bodies of children.  If you have to say anything, stick to "I was lucky."

In the Garden

I am sorry to say that, up until this weekend, we made very little use of the Huntsville Botanical Gardens. I did a summer work project there back in college and I've visited as part of a professional function. Todd even took Micah a few years ago, but we've never been as a family, unless you count Galaxy of Lights.

Saturday, we finally took the plunge and purchased a family membership. And even though it was chilly and wet, we had, as Micah said later, "A BWAST!"

How can you tell it's Spring in North Alabama?

You spend part of your evening hanging out like this:

The kids don't mind the storm shelter much. After all, it has candy and unlimited access to mom's iPad and phone. Next time, though, I'll try to make sure everyone has shoes and pants.

Whoosh

I kind of didn't have a March. Instead, a coworker and I spent 23 days working on a single monstrous project. Starting on March 5th, we created a report format from scratch describing the efforts of eight different municipalities. On March 28th, we submitted the 791-page behemoth to ADEM.

Somewhere in the middle of the month, we also squeezed in a bit of watershed monitoring, which was good since the results had to be included in the report.

What would normally take three months or so, we squeezed into three weeks. I'm not exactly sure how, I just know I never want to do that ever again.

Of course, in the meantime I've missed birthdays and friends and all kinds of news. But I'm back in the world now and although I'm having trouble remembering what month it is, I plan to be here for a while.