Murfreesboro Tornado

Photos from www.dnj.com

Many of you may have heard about the devastating tornadoes that hit Rutherford County on Friday. Wesley & I were traveling to Alabama to visit my grandparents when I received a text message from my brother "BIG tornado in Murfreesboro." As I reached to answer the text, my mom called with the same information. Within a few minutes, we were entering Muscle Shoals (where my grandparents live) welcomed by numerous tornado sirens. Numerous counties in Middle Tennessee and North Alabama had terrible storms-some including tornadoes on Friday.
Thankfully, we arrived safely at my grandparents' and I was able to talk to several friends in Murfreesboro to find out that they were safe. Nearly everyone I have talked to in the following days has said, "I watched it from my front door," or "It turned before it got to my house." We are so thankful and blessed that none of our church family or friends were injured in the storms.
One of the hardest hit areas is located in the Northfield Elementary school zone (the school where I worked for 6 years).
My kindergarten class at Ridgeview has been email pen pals with Brittney's class at Northfield. Today, they sent the sweetest email asking if everyone was okay (from families to houses to pets and cars!) & wrote cards to send to them. We also will be hosting a money drive to benefit the families at Northfield who have been displaced from the storms. We are hoping that everyone will help by bringing loose change, cash, or even checks made to Ridgeview Elementary. If you would like to help the Northfield families, you can get your money to me or take your donation to Northfield if you are in Murfreesboro.
They are also accepting gift cards to benefit the families.
There were two deaths from the tornado in Murfreesboro-Kori Bryant and her 9 week old daughter, Olivia. The husband/father, John Bryant, is in the hospital with injuries he sustained. If you would like to help this family, you can click HERE.

I know that our church family at East Main worked hard this weekend to help with clean-up and providing care packages for victims and workers. If you would like to help with that endeavor (as I am sure it will continue for quite awhile), please email me (denise@skeltonphotography.com) and I can give you more information.

Win a Lifestyle Family Session

My school-Ridgeview Elementary-is having a PTO Winterfest this Saturday (the 7th) from 12-4pm. There will be food, games, and best of all-a basket auction. Each class is able to have up to 5 baskets-with ALL MONEY from the baskets going to OUR CLASSROOMS! This is HUGE!
Of course, my class is doing 5 baskets! The baskets we have are: Polka Dot Fun (comes in a super cute Polka Dot bag with all kinds of girlie stuff and gift certificates to different places), Par For the Course (awesome golfing basket!), Ultimate Sports Basket (with ALL KINDS of tickets and sports paraphernalia), Mountain Getaway (2 Nights to Sugar Mountain Ski & Country Club), & Capturing Your Life, One Moment at a Time-Can you guess what that is?! - 1 lifestyle family session (& other fun stuff). If you want to see a full list of what is in each basket, click HERE.
Now's your chance to get that lifestyle family session you have been wanting AND help out our classroom fund! The money will be used for wonderful things like books, learning materials, and much needed classroom items.
And because every post needs a picture, and I can't post pictures of my students.........Here's a photo from The Day I Learned I Was Not Destined to be an Olympic Skier (you can see more pictures on my Facebook page by clicking that link). I have had wonderful snow days 3 days this week-Wesley had a snow day yesterday too, so we went to Sugar Mountain to ski! (Yes, it was my first time, and I spent a LOT of time on my tush!)