Wednesday

Hi - I have a couple of minutes to post before Kelly comes to get me on her lunch hour. I have to go to Rapid City for a meeting and Kelly is going to drive me back to work to get the state car so I can leave my car at home for Caleb. Faith needs a ride to school tomorrow am, so Caleb will drive her. Will be fun for both of them, I'm sure :). Caleb's response to the request to help out Faith was - do I seriously need to get up that early? Typical!

Yesterday was a bit frightening as a parent. At about 11:45 am, I rec'd a text from Caleb that the school was in lockdown. He didn't know any details at that time, but seemed to be a bit scared. Of course, he denies that now! Come to find out, someone was seen at school with a gun, so they locked it all down. When I drove by the school, there were cop cars everywhere. Very disturbing. Caleb & some of his classmates were stuck in a large storage closet as they had been outside walking for their cardio class right before all this happened. Thankfully, they had a very nice student mentor (an older student) who allowed them all to use their phones to communicate with their parents. Not sure if any teachers would have allowed that.

They spent about an hour in that closet, but Caleb assured me it was all fine. This is the closet where they store all the candy - hmmmm do you think some of it was missing after all this :)? And, Caleb assured me they were safe because there were a couple of really "big" boys and a new kid from LA. Funny how a teenager's mind works when it comes to safety. After all was done, they arrested 3 kids & the gun that someone saw was a toy. However, according to Caleb, during the vast locker searches by the SWAT team, they identified 3 other weapons on school grounds - all of them were knives. Scary.

We definitely didn't have these issues when I was younger - especially in Akron. Monday was the anniversary of Columbine, so this was very clear in many parents minds yesterday. My prayers are with those parents of those students that went through this experience so many years ago. I'm sure what I felt was no where near the terror that they went through, but I can definitely get a small sense of what it must have been like.

Positive for the week! Caleb & all the other students are safe & unharmed after this horrifying incident!!