Tsunami...

Well, in the time period that we have lived here this was our second tsunami warning. Thursday night I was at the relief society activity on campus. At around 9:15 I left to go home, the minute I turned out onto the highway, I saw cars lined up all along the road on both sides trying to get into the gas station. I immediately knew something was wrong, and I got a really sick feeling in my stomach. I knew it was either a tsunami was coming, or gas prices were going to go up even more, we are already paying $3.94 a gallon. So I tried calling Taylor, no answer, so I called about 4 times and he finally picked up. I told him I was really worried, and that something weird was going on and asked him to hurry and check on the Internet or something. A few minutes later I pulled up to the house, and Taylor was waiting for me outside talking on the phone and ready to jump in the car. He said, "there was an 8.9 earthquake in Japan, and we are on tsunami watch." He was going to take the car and try getting gas, our neighbors were on their way out too to get gas. She was telling me her father is a geologist and has been telling them for days now something was going to happen, and he wanted them to leave the island. Anyway, Taylor left and asked me to get the house ready by filling up ever bucket, cup, anything we could find to fill with water. He was gone about an hour, I am surprised at how fast the line went. He said it was crazy over there, he was the last person to be able to get money out of the ATM before it ran out.

We are very very blessed to live in a location were we are in the safe zone, so we didn't have to leave our house this time like last time. The other amazing thing is, earlier that week Taylor and I felt impressed to get our food storage, so we ordered our kits from the LDS distribution center, and while doing so Taylor accidentally ordered an extra set of stuff. It was shipped out on Tuesday, and miraculously arrived to us Thursday afternoon. Just in time for our crazy weekend.

So I tried getting a hold of family, while I cleaned the dishes since our water was going to be shut off, and could potentially be out for days. Oh ya, the first wave was suppose to hit around 3 am and it was around 9:45pm so we had time for preparations. I filled up everything imaginable with water. I got on facebook to wait for our Bishops guidance on what we should be doing. He was telling all the off campus families to head to TVA and find shelter on the 2 floor with everyone else. Since we were far enough from the ocean we decided we wanted to stay home and let our girls sleep through the craziness. But I remembered our friends the Hitz's that live on the same road as us, but they are close to the beach. We called them and offered them to come on up so they could put there kids down here. They took us up on our offer, and they brought along their brother and his wife who are also in our ward. So in total, we had including us, 6 adults and 6 kids going to be staying in our tiny place. I had been talking to the vacation renters upstairs and they offered room to anyone that needed it, since it was much bigger and there was only 3 of them. So I asked if it would be alright if the family coming over could use a room of theirs. They were very kind and allowed us to stay there as well and watch the TV they had. Another funny thing is they were all from Alberta Canada, 2 from Edmonton (Millwoods area) and the other aunt was from Calgary...small world.

So while all of this was happening the tsunami "watch" turned into a full blown "warning" with sirens and all. I felt very at peace the whole time, and felt prepared for it. We had almost everything we needed. The only thing I was in fear of was if something really bad happened, that we wouldn't have enough for our family plus helping those who had lost homes or whatever it might be. But as you all know, we were very blessed and only very minimal damage happened in certain areas. But you can't take any of these things lightly, especially after watching the footage in Japan. My heart aches for all those people, the ocean is such a very powerful and scary thing. I pray for all those who lost loved ones, homes, and are still in desperate need of help.

Well as the night went on we kept our eyes peeled on the TV watching and waiting. The first waves didn't appear until around 3:30am or 4 ish. All the while, I think every person in Hawaii was awake waiting. It was so crazy watching the ocean suck back the water leaving only the ocean floor. So crazy, but we were so blessed that even though it was receding back the length of a football field, the water didn't rush in as fast or as high as expected. So by the time most of the action settled down, it was around 7am, just in time for our girls to wake up. Haha, needless to say we did not sleep that night! But I am so grateful it didn't turn out anywhere close to as devastating as the Japan tsunami.

But those are just some of our adventures here in Hawaii. I told Taylor that if we ever end up living here long term, I refuse to live anywhere near the beach, and I want to have a HUGE food storage! All in all everything turned out better than we could have hoped for, for us at least, we were well prepared and were in a good location with amazing neighbors and friends. So even though it didn't end up being huge, I sure hope everyone doesn't start ignoring these warnings. I am glad for the peace and comfort I felt throughout it all, and for all the prayers.