Storm update..

Hi all. Well, Seattle area got hit by a really hard windstorm last thursday. The Gronquist house survived well, we expected problems but lucked out bigtime. Our friends the Millars however got hit really bad. Two trees crashed into their upstairs kitchen around 1am, while they were up checking out the storm. They managed to avoid getting hurt, thank god, but the house is really in bad shape. If you know the Millars, send them your best wishes, I'm sure they'd love to hear them. They've got someone to stay with, and their neighbor's showed up in quantity to help out with moving things to shelter, so most of the logistics of their disaster sound handled okay. Will update more as we hear it.

Right now we're spending Saturday night in a Hotel. We got really lucky, and just pulled in to the third one we tried at the same moment someone called in to cancel a room. Within seconds after Kim signed up for the room, someone called asking if there were any available.. We really can't believe how lucky we were through this all.

We're calling all our friends who don't have power and inviting them over for showers and warm coffee..

This storm really was something else. We weathered it out during the night cowering in our darkened basement because we were sure the ancient giant trees around our house were going to come down. At the peak though, I just had to go upstairs to listen and watch it all, and I swear I've never seen anything like it outside of hurricane country. Peak wind speeds were in the 70mph range, with averages around 40-50mph. Volcanos and earthquakes we're used to, hurricanes just aren't Seattle's thing...

Anyways, hope you and yours are all doing okay. If you need any help once we get our feet back under us, JUST ASK. We feel blessed beyond our measure for making it through this storm so well, and just want to give back to the world some of the good kharma we've received.

Nite, John.