Sweet Sunday Sketch #108 and Tsunami Update

Well, what a week we've had! I will get to the Sweet Sunday Sketch in just a bit. But first off - thank you for the e-mails I received from a few of you concerned about us the last few days during the Tsunami. We are OK. Our hearts and thoughts go out to our friends in Japan who are dealing with this terrible disaster. Hawaii has very close ties to Japan and this hits close to home for many of us. It was a little too much excitement around here. Our sirens started blasting around 10:00 p.m. Thursday night and continued to blast every hour until the first waves hit Maui around 3:25 a.m. I did not sleep at all Thursday night and finally got about 3 hours of sleep around 8:30 a.m. Friday morning. We did not have to evacuate our house as we are outside the evacuation zone - we live a few miles from the ocean in Kahului. My Mom lives very close to the ocean (about 200 yards) in Kihei and her house is actually right on the line of the evacuation zone. She debated for several hours whether or not to evacuate. She did not want to leave as she has 5 cats (yes, she's one of THOSE people), 3 of which were roaming around outside and she did not want to leave them. Civil Defense knocked on her door around midnight though and she was forced to evacuate. So she loaded up the 2 other cats and came to our house. In the meantime, we had started filling our bathtub with water along with every Sigg water bottle, empty glass juice bottle, camel pack, and a few Homer's buckets (from Home Depot) we could find, and we each took a shower around 12:45 a.m. just before they turned off the sewer system (Maui's sewer system / water treatment plant is in the Tsunami Inundation Zone, so there was a very good possibility of it being damaged, so the County decided to shut it down to try to minimize damage as much as possible). I was facebooking like a madwoman in between conversing with neighbors - about half of whom stayed put and half of whom decided to drive up the mountain to higher ground (we stayed put). I had sent Joel to the gas station as soon as we heard they had issued a Tsunami Warning - along with everyone else on the whole damn island - he waited in line for over half an hour to fill up his car and several gas cans (and that was BEFORE the lines got really bad - and for the record we've been paying about $4.27/gallon for regular gas on Maui for over a week now!! ugh.). Fortunately, we had just made a Costco run earlier in the week so we were stocked up on Toilet Paper and other necessities that seem to fly off the shelf in Hawaii at the mere mention of impending weather or possible disaster. (There is good reason for this as we have a fear of our harbors being damaged. We live on a small island and receive almost all of these goods by boat. If the harbor is damaged, we can't get those supplies and that is BAD. This goes for toilet paper, food, and gasoline). So finally around 2:00 my Mom had arrived with her cats, all of our preparations were done and all that was left to do was wait. We were glued to the TV (well, I was. Somehow Joel and my Mom managed to fall asleep and pretty much slept through the whole thing, waking periodically for me to give them updates), just waiting for it to arrive and to see how bad it would be. So the Tsunami did arrive and we did have damage to all of the islands - it seems like Maui and the Big Island probably got it the worst. Although it's hard to tell as the reports have been conflicting. I've heard in Kahului harbor (where we live) anywhere from 7 ft to 12 ft. But water came inland about 1/2 mile. On Maui some homes and businesses were flooded, our harbor sustained damage (and remains closed as of Saturday night - which is not good as I mentioned this is how we get all of our supplies), there was damage to infrastructure, a couple of very large (70 lb) sea turtles were found washed ashore about 75 yards from the ocean, and it continued to surge most of the day on Friday. Friday everything was pretty much shut down. The Kaiser clinic where I work was closed, schools were all closed, Joel's offices were closed, all state, county and city employees were told to stay home (actually everyone was told to stay home), even the post office was closed!! The Big Island got it worse with several homes being destroyed and a couple of houses being completely swept off their foundation and out to sea. It was all very scary. Fortunately though there were no injuries or loss of life. People in Hawaii take these things quite seriously and don't mess around! It was somewhat reassuring to know that in general we seem pretty prepared. And even though there are upwards of tens of millions of dollars in damages, really it's more of a mess than anything. And looking at the situation in Japan we are reminded how much worse it could have been, especially being on such a small island!!

OK, anyway, that took up a little more space than I had planned. Sorry! Now, on to the real reason you all are here - It's time for another Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge!! I have to say that the sketch Karen created for us this week just might be one of my all-time favorites! I was intimidated at first, but once I got to playing, I quickly realized how AWESOME it is!!


Here's a look at my birthday card sample using a bunch of neglected PTI supplies:


I strayed a bit from the sketch, but I think it's close enough to count! I used a Smoky Shadow (PTI) card base and the circle is actually a Parisian Lace Doily die cut (PTI). I added some pom-pom trim from my stash and then instead of a rectangle panel, I went with a die-cut Mat Stack 1 shape with the outline stamped from the Mat Stack 1 Collection stamp (PTI) set in Versamark ink and clear embossed. The sentiment is from the Simple Sentiments stamp set (PTI). I added some swirly bling from my stash, another one of those glittered stars from Etsy (MemrieMare), and a felt rolled 3-D flower cut from a Sizzix die. That's it!

Be sure to stop by all the Sweet Sunday Stampers' blogs and see what they've done with this week's sketch.

• Dana White
  
• Karen Motz
• Karen Giron
  
• Lynn Put
• Sarah-Jane Kale'
  
• Vicki Burdick

Then play along with us and post your own creation using InLinkz over on today's post on Karen's Blog!