A Busy Weekend!

We had a wonderful Christmas time last week, with lots of food, family and good times!  For those of you who aren't aware, I'm from Pennsylvania, and my entire family still lives there.  Therefore, we make several treks to and from PA each year in an effort to keep our kids familiar with their grandparents and extended family.  Besides that, my family is pretty close and I enjoy spending time with them, especially over the holidays.

So, on Christmas morning in Iowa, we awoke early, and opened our Christmas presents as a family, and that afternoon we headed for grandma's house in PA with Jodi feeling very nauseous and weak.  We drove thru the night and arrived in PA about 8am Friday morning, and went to bed! Jodi awoke feeling much better, and Friday night, we were off to our first family Christmas of the trip.  After taking my first bite of amazing smoked ham and gourmet potatoes, my stomach began to churn.  I tried to survive the evening by taking walks outside to get fresh air, popping Tums like nobody's business, and drinking water.  Finally, I succumbed to a nap on the couch while the family played games, and I made it home okay.  

***Gross Side Note:  I absolutely hate puking.... with a passion... and I avoid it at all costs.  While it may make one feel much better, it is so nasty that I actually prefer feeling sick to throwing up. Anyone else??***  

So I went to bed, and could not sleep.  I was supposed to help shoot a wedding on Saturday for my friend I've never met Andrew Bryant, so I got my cameras ready, confident that I would feel better in the morning. As I was packing, I was checking for directions online, with Jodi watching a movie on a different laptop, and my dad reading Drudge Report on a third computer when suddenly a slow rumble started underneath us and became very loud and frightening for a grand total of about 3 seconds.  I was sure the furnace exploded and was waiting for a fireball to shoot thru the floor boards at any moment.  Dad thought a car ran into our house and he bolted out the front door to see what happened.  Jodi took out her headphones and said "what was that?!"  We looked around and nothing was out of place, and no car had hit the house, so we introduced the idea that it may have been an earthquake.  After 10 minutes and a quick Google search, our notion was confirmed by the US Geological Survey Earthquake Hazards Program as a 3.4 Magnitude earthquake centered about 4 miles from where we sat. 

Saturday morning came early, and I was still not feeling very well, so Jodi went to second-shoot the wedding instead of me.  That night, I was feeling much better and we all played some Scattergories at which I kicked serious rear-end.  I'm actually pretty smart, despite my dashing good looks and fantastic personality.  ;)

Sunday morning, my brother Greg and his wife were commissioned by their church to serve as pastors at another church and it was awesome to be part of very special moment in their lives. Right after church, we had a bunch of people over for lunch, including my grandparents.  As we were sitting around after lunch, talking and watching football, a fire engine screamed past, led by an ambulance and fire police.  We are a nosey family, and I own a large camera.  Put two and two together and Dad, Greg, Grandpa, Jackson and I were piled into my brothers car in about 30 seconds to follow the sirens and the billowing smoke we could see over the top of the trees.  About a 1/2 mile from our house, we came upon this scene:

We were about 200 yds from the barn and not even close to the action, when the fire police yelled at us and kicked us out the field, citing the "wind direction" as the reason we were to move, much to our amusement.  Look at the pictures and it's clear which way the wind was blowing... not towards us! Anyway. :)  After we returned home with our stories and our images, the TV News vans roared past.  Mom suggested that we send our photos to the papers and tv stations since the fire was out by the time they would have arrived on the scene.  We immediately contacted them, and arranged to send our images to them.  That night on the 11:00 news, the story came up and so did 3 of my images!  The newsanchor said "These images were taken by Rodney Gehman".  I did a Tiger Woods fist pump, and my parents embraced in a moment of pride for their son's astounding accomplishments.  Haha!  Then today, my images were in two newspapers.  While it's really not a huge deal... it was pretty sweet. 

So that's how the last 4 days have gone for us!  Sickness... Earthquake... Commissioning... Fire... Name on TV/newspapers... Introducing my mother to Starbucks... Craziness!  

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We didn't forget about the Christmas Contests (although some of you obviously did!) and will be announcing winners later this week, along with another spotlight story.  I'm trying to get our main computer set up here, and so far it's being difficult, similar to the support guy I called today.  I will not be using the word "helpful" to describe him.  

So long for now...