If ye are prepared ye shall not fear

We woke up this morning at 6:00 sharp to a piercing, loud, long siren. We'd heard it before, but not for a few months. We started grumbling about why we randomly hear that noise when, a few minutes later, my mom called to tell me a tsunami was heading to Hawaii.

We then waited and watched the news for hours, hoping and praying for what ended up being a very favorable tsunami event. Hawaii was very, very fortunate today.

I started thinking about emergency preparedness. We have 10 gallons of water, plus a box and a half of Costco bottled water. We have a year's worth of food storage. We have 72-hour emergency kits. We have batteries and portable radios. We have lots of extra toilet paper. Today I filled all of Nadine's bottles with water, just in case we lost service.

I am so grateful we have had and do have living prophets on the earth who command us to be prepared for an emergency. I know Thomas S. Monson is a prophet and that God speaks to us through him. I know it is important we be prepared for all kinds of disasters; financial, natural, emotional, spiritual, etc. (have you read this month's First Presidency message?).

Doctrine and Covenants 38:30 says, ". . . if ye are prepared ye shall not fear." I felt that today. The idea of an incoming tsunami was frightening, but I was comforted. We are fortunate to live on a hill and we are outside the "inundation areas;" further, as I stated earlier, we have stockpiled most of the supplies necessary to help us through a disaster.

When the tsunami warning was issued, residents flocked to the grocery stores, Costco, and gas stations to get food and water supplies and gas. The lines were horrendously long. I am so grateful church leaders have, for years, implored us to be prepared for emergencies. I was worried, but I wasn't fearful. Todd was home; we were together and we were prepared, and I knew we would be ok no matter what happened.

Today we were quite lucky and definitely blessed.

Our adventure in babysitting

I can't do it Captain, I don't have the power

I miss this blog. And I am lame because I tried to get rid of it just two weeks ago. Dangit. I'll try to be strong and not post too often. But post I will.

Apparently I am just antsy. I'm not sure why, but I seem to be taking it out on my blogs. I am lame. And weak. It reminds me of the title of my first blog post: "But I also know, that you know, what a weak-willed person I am."

But, and also, I can't post pictures of spiders on the baby blog. Not next to cute Nani.

This spider was sitting on the plants outside our gate--the very same plants we brush against when we take Nani out in her seat. I saw it early one morning when I returned, luckily empty-handed, from the trash ("rubbish" in Hawaii). I screamed, then ran into the house to get my camera and the Raid.

Then I stood as far away as possible, and then I contorted my body to keep it further from the spider while allowing myself to get a good picture. I think it's a jumping spider, and I swear it was preparing to pounce. After I took a picture I sprayed the spider. And screamed when it fell, continually screaming as I ran into the house. Ugh. I think it's dead, but I didn't stick around to check, so who knows. I dare it to cross our pest controlled barrier, though.

The body of this thing is the size of my pinkie to the first knuckle. No lie. I don't know what kind of spider it is, because I learned not to Google spider pictures. Here it is compared to a penny.

I'm not fat, I'm just big-boned