Don't worry everyone... it's not "The Big One"!
You may have heard on the news that we had an earthquake down here this morning around 4:30am. And yep, it woke us up!!! Don't worry, we're fine and so is our house.
At first we thought that someone was in the house because we heard this loud banging coming from the middle of the house - sort of like someone was intentionally stomping their feet as they were walking down the hall. But we soon realized (after everything started shaking!) that it wasn't someone in the house - it was an earthquake!
It's a strange feeling to be in the middle of something like that - you feel completely confused, anxious, and out of control. We had no idea what was going on because we'd never experienced that kind of thing before. It seemed like everything was happening for a long period of time, bit it was only for about 15-20 seconds and then it was over.
Later this morning around 10:15, we experienced an aftershock, which I am assuming came because of another 4.0 shock near the epicenter on the eastern side of Illinois. It's a very creepy feeling, let me tell you! When you hear things rattle for no apparent reason... yikes! The aftershock was not as noticeable but I heard one of our shelves rattling as I was pouring my tea, which was just plain weird. Noah emailed me saying he had felt it too at work, and my boss's mom called saying she'd felt it too in a different part of town.
The epicenter was near the border of Illinois and Indiana in Bellmont, IL - about 128 miles east of St. Louis. The quake was felt or picked up on seismographs as far north as the UP of Michigan, Madison, Chicago, Kentucky and Tennessee. Indiana and eastern Illinois had some damage, but most people around St. Louis just felt the shaking - no injuries or significant damage here.
I was doing some research on the US Geological Survey website, and there had actually been a small quake, about 1.4 on the scale, on April 13th. Maybe it was leading up to this one? Hmm...
Most people don't know that the Midwest has a significant fault line - the New Madrid Fault. It is actually comparable with the big fault line out west, but we don't experience as much action around here (thankfully!). We have earthquake drills along with tornado drills in schools here, and also have earthquake insurance.
Here are a few links to what happened this morning and about the fault line that caused the quake:
Earthquake History of Missouri: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/states/missouri/history.php
List of Earthquakes that happened today, 4/18:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/Maps/US10/32.42.-95.-85_eqs.php
Photos & News:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24195650/ (FYI... the quake did NOT rattle skyscrapers in Chicago or Cincinnati. Don't you just love the media?)
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080418/NEWS06/80418008
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/nation/story/85FD230AAFCED4D08625742F003769F5?OpenDocument
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/story/254D71E25C1248C78625742F003D49C0?OpenDocument
Here are some photos - the sidewalk photo is NOT from St. Louis. It's from a Japan quake, FYI.
http://iwitness.stltoday.com/mycapture/photos/Album.aspxEventID=498374&CategoryID=21355
Friday, April 18, 2008
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
April 15, 2008
Taxes - did ya git 'er done? :)
Yes, it's been a VERY long time since our blog has been updated. Sorry about the wait, folks. Our schedule has gone from full to fast 'n furious the last few months! Here's what we've been up to:
Uncle Eric came to visit the week of February 18th, and we enjoyed dinner with him and some catching up. That weekend, my parents came down and enjoyed a weekend out on the town - going to the symphony, dinner on The Hill (an authentic Italian part of town which has lots of Italian restaurants, bakeries etc.) and we also went Bald Eagle and pelican watching! The weekend was perfect for the eagles and pelicans. Yes, we do have pelicans - the Great White Pelicans, which are the largest species of pelican in North America, stop here on their migration route each year, along with the Bald Eagles. We must've seen about 30-40 Bald Eagles and well over 200 pelicans. It was amazing! If you're interested, come down in February and we'll take ya!
The next weekend in February we went to Springfield, IL and visited with Noah's parents and the Boones, which is always fun.
We had an early Easter this year, and we spent the holiday up in Wisconsin. Of course, it decided to snow 15 inches our first day there! But we made a fun weekend out of it, visiting a lot of family.
The last weekend in March our church hosted a big men's conference, led by one of our pastors. We had a pretty good turnout of over 70 guys from all over come. Noah and I were involved in the group that put the conference together, and that involved mailing over 400 packets of information out to local churches, monthly and bi-monthly meetings, planning lunch, marketing and lots of other details. It was so much fun, we're going to do it again at the end of 2nd quarter! Actually, the pastor that is leading this mens group has a vision to take the conferences across the U.S. and grow attendance. It's an awesome opportunity to serve and our goal this year is to have one conference every quarter. We are truly looking forward to expanding the horizons of the conference!
April is another busy month for us so far. As many of you know, I helped organize a spaghetti dinner at our church that took place on Friday, April 4th. It was a blast, and I got to experience being a waitress! Noah collected tickets at the door, and helped with our raffle - the prize was a $100 Macaroni Grill gift card. Mac Grill is like a better version of Olive Garden - it's one of my favorite places! A member of our church is a regional director and worked with his boss to donate all of our spaghetti, bread and salad for the dinner. We raised a lot of money, which will go towards buying new equipment for our worship team. Yay!
The following day - Saturday, April 5th - was American Family Insurance's annual Spring Convention down in the Ozarks. This year we had a competition amongst all of the District Manager Assistants for who could design the best door prize drawing box. I am just a little bitter because I was one of two people (out of 9) that actually followed the rules, and didn't win. But... here are some pictures:
Mine is the one on the left.... with all of the little flags and guys climbing the mountain. It played the American Family Insurance jingle when you inserted your business card. :)
This year's Spring Convention was better than last year's - a little shorter and had a break in between the 2 1/2 hour awards ceremony. We ended it all with dinner and a very funny comedian as our entertainment for the evening.
The best part of the weekend was that we had a convertible for the weekend! Noah often has a rental car through work and can earn free days. We had 2 free days of rental car we could use, so we took out a shiny new Sebring Convertible and enjoyed a beautiful ride home with the top down. We stopped at a few wineries along the way and had lunch outside, which was great. I could get to liking that!
We have a few things coming up for the rest of April, but nothing too spectacular. However, come May 2nd, we will be heading down to South Carolina to attend Noah's cousin Marissa's wedding! We'll be driving down with Noah's parents, and staying the next week to hang out with all of the family that will be down for the big day. It will be a really nice getaway!
Noah is almost done with this semester of class and is looking forward to the summer and being off of school. He did great on his last test, and hopefully the rest will be a breeze for him!
We'll be sure to post pics of our vacation after we return. We hope everyone is going well and send lots of hugs your way!
Love,
Noah & Krista.
Yes, it's been a VERY long time since our blog has been updated. Sorry about the wait, folks. Our schedule has gone from full to fast 'n furious the last few months! Here's what we've been up to:
Uncle Eric came to visit the week of February 18th, and we enjoyed dinner with him and some catching up. That weekend, my parents came down and enjoyed a weekend out on the town - going to the symphony, dinner on The Hill (an authentic Italian part of town which has lots of Italian restaurants, bakeries etc.) and we also went Bald Eagle and pelican watching! The weekend was perfect for the eagles and pelicans. Yes, we do have pelicans - the Great White Pelicans, which are the largest species of pelican in North America, stop here on their migration route each year, along with the Bald Eagles. We must've seen about 30-40 Bald Eagles and well over 200 pelicans. It was amazing! If you're interested, come down in February and we'll take ya!
The next weekend in February we went to Springfield, IL and visited with Noah's parents and the Boones, which is always fun.
We had an early Easter this year, and we spent the holiday up in Wisconsin. Of course, it decided to snow 15 inches our first day there! But we made a fun weekend out of it, visiting a lot of family.
The last weekend in March our church hosted a big men's conference, led by one of our pastors. We had a pretty good turnout of over 70 guys from all over come. Noah and I were involved in the group that put the conference together, and that involved mailing over 400 packets of information out to local churches, monthly and bi-monthly meetings, planning lunch, marketing and lots of other details. It was so much fun, we're going to do it again at the end of 2nd quarter! Actually, the pastor that is leading this mens group has a vision to take the conferences across the U.S. and grow attendance. It's an awesome opportunity to serve and our goal this year is to have one conference every quarter. We are truly looking forward to expanding the horizons of the conference!
April is another busy month for us so far. As many of you know, I helped organize a spaghetti dinner at our church that took place on Friday, April 4th. It was a blast, and I got to experience being a waitress! Noah collected tickets at the door, and helped with our raffle - the prize was a $100 Macaroni Grill gift card. Mac Grill is like a better version of Olive Garden - it's one of my favorite places! A member of our church is a regional director and worked with his boss to donate all of our spaghetti, bread and salad for the dinner. We raised a lot of money, which will go towards buying new equipment for our worship team. Yay!
The following day - Saturday, April 5th - was American Family Insurance's annual Spring Convention down in the Ozarks. This year we had a competition amongst all of the District Manager Assistants for who could design the best door prize drawing box. I am just a little bitter because I was one of two people (out of 9) that actually followed the rules, and didn't win. But... here are some pictures:
Mine is the one on the left.... with all of the little flags and guys climbing the mountain. It played the American Family Insurance jingle when you inserted your business card. :)
This year's Spring Convention was better than last year's - a little shorter and had a break in between the 2 1/2 hour awards ceremony. We ended it all with dinner and a very funny comedian as our entertainment for the evening.
The best part of the weekend was that we had a convertible for the weekend! Noah often has a rental car through work and can earn free days. We had 2 free days of rental car we could use, so we took out a shiny new Sebring Convertible and enjoyed a beautiful ride home with the top down. We stopped at a few wineries along the way and had lunch outside, which was great. I could get to liking that!
We have a few things coming up for the rest of April, but nothing too spectacular. However, come May 2nd, we will be heading down to South Carolina to attend Noah's cousin Marissa's wedding! We'll be driving down with Noah's parents, and staying the next week to hang out with all of the family that will be down for the big day. It will be a really nice getaway!
Noah is almost done with this semester of class and is looking forward to the summer and being off of school. He did great on his last test, and hopefully the rest will be a breeze for him!
We'll be sure to post pics of our vacation after we return. We hope everyone is going well and send lots of hugs your way!
Love,
Noah & Krista.
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