Firefighter Combat Challenge

On a warm Saturday afternoon more suited for sipping lemonade under a shade tree, scores of sweating firefighters wearing 50 pounds of gear hauled hoses up a five-story tower and dragged a 175-pounder named Rescue Randy. But it was in the name of competition, not rescue. There was no smoke, no sirens and Randy is a weighted mannequin. (from the Evansville courier press)

Men and women from all over the US, including Alaska, came to compete in the Firefighter Challenge today here in Evansville IN. Here are some pics from the day. My neighbor's son was amongst the firemen competing.

The local football team helps out, and gets in on the competition. Offense vs Defense.

The firemen from Alaska enjoying a nice, warm day in Indiana

My friends son, waiting to pull a very heavy weight up the 5 story bldg

My friend's son racing down the stairs after his pull to tag the next guy

Friends son cheering on his team mates

My local fire department My friends son, heading home after a long, hot day

Spider's

I'm going to admit something to you, I love to photograph spiders. Oh, I do hate them, they creep me out! But something about seeing one spin a web, draws me in and I have to go and get my camera and try and catch it. Here's a not so little fellow spinning his web on our boat.

America's Next Top Model

I snagged Isaiah to help me practice using my bounce flash techniques. He sat only for me to take one picture. Good thing it turned out!

Ike- You Shouldn't Have

Remnants of Hurricane Ike passed by yesterday, knocking on our door with 60 - 70 mph gusts of winds. We sat in church while the winds howled and the power flickered. It sounded like there was a helicopter landing on top of our church. A sliding glass door to the church blew off. But the large brick building remained unharmed. We drove around looking at the trees down, power lines down, the roof of the gas station had fallen on a truck filling up with gas. Our neighbor called us to see if we were home. Oh no, I knew it would be bad news. My first thought was it was our trees. Sure enough I was right. We arrived home to see several of our trees snapped and one large tree on our neighbors property laying across our yard, just missing our shed by a few feet. We had no power for 6 hours, so the kids had to occupy themselves with games and homework. About 5 hours after the hard winds started they died down and the neighbors began to emerge from their homes to access the storm damage. I, of course, emerged with my camera. Here are some photos of our yard, as well as our schools that were affected. Needless to say they cancelled school today. Look at the right side of the picture and you will see Dennis. This shows how massive this tree is
When the tree fell, it hit a few of our trees. It split this one right down the middle.


A view of our yard from the fallen tree. Thank goodness it was way in the back and far from our house. And praise the Lord that the trees near our house are still standing!



The lightpost in our front yard also fell in the high winds


Our utility trailer is pretty much burried
It's a massive mess of branches out there


The wind blew the top of this tree right off. It's now laying in the creek.


Our side yard
Side yard looking toward our house
The fence that is around the High School football field is now on the ground
This is Logan's Jr. High school. It picked up the roofing shingles and turned them back over the building like a page in a book.

All this, and not a single drop of rain!