EARTHQUAKES!

                                   

For the last week or more we have been having lots of little earthquakes...like hundreds of them.  I don't feel most of them.  They are usually less than 3 magnitude and they happen all day and all night.  The kids have started to notice them--and like them.  

One day, Will was working from home.  Every so often he would call out to me "did you feel that one?"  Most of the time my answer was "no".  He was sitting in a quiet room with fewer distractions while I was bustling around with kids clamoring for my attention.  Each earthquake was really small and only lasted a second or two.  Late in the afternoon, when all the kids were home from school, we heard a big boom sound and the whole house started shaking.  I was standing next to Lorien near the tall book shelf in the living room.  All of a sudden as the house was shaking I shouted and shoved Lorien "get away from the book shelf!" Then I remembered that I have several other children and maybe I should try and keep them safe too.  This all ran through my mind in a second and by the time I had those thoughts (and shoved Lorien) the earthquake was over.  It ended up being a 3.5.  That same night, around 10:00 pm, we had another big shaker.  But over all, they were pretty small and all were uneventful. 

We all learned that you can hear an earthquake before it hits.  There is usually a big or small booming sound.  The times I heard the quake before it happened I thought it was a kid closing a door or something.  But knowing that just ended up causing unnecessary paranoia.  Now, everytime I hear a booming sound (a kid actually closes a door, the garbage truck goes by etc) I get jumpy--expecting the ground to start shaking.

*post edit* we ended up having over 200 mini quakes over the space of two or three weeks.  They were all centered around and in our neighborhood.  It was weird and kind of cool.  It made me get our emergency kits together and go over some disaster preparedness stuff with the kids.