busses don't go in cul-de-sacs . . .

so, it's in the news and it is all the talk in our neighborhood. but i thought i would share it with all of you. crazy, scary, surreal - i don't know the right word for it, but holy cow!

so, ethan and our cute little neighbor, calvin, were playing at our house. they decided they wanted to play outside or go to calvin's house. they made it to the big tree between jenn's house (neighbor to the west of us) and our house when i called them back to our house. we got inside, and the boys were running around and i heard a loud noise and thought it was the garbage truck, so i turned to look. i noticed that it was a big yellow school bus. so i told they kids "hey look there's a school bus in the cul-de-sac." all the kids went running to the window and reagan says (so innocently) "it didn't stop". which is when i ran to the window and saw the back half of a big yellow school bus between my house and jenn's house.

(this next picture is basically what i saw from my front window. this picture was taken as they were towing the bus back out of the backyards.)

i stepped out on my front step at the same time as jenn and she asked me what the noise was. i told her "there is a bus in your backyard." (side note: i'm laughing as i type this.) so jenn and i both went running to the back yard when she told me to call 911 (another side note: this was my first time ever calling 911.) so i ran back into my house and grabbed the phone - counting children as i did so. then i counted kids again and told isaac to watch the kids. then i went running to the back yard not knowing what to expect. our neighbor, jill, came running with her phone in hand and i noticed lisa, another neighbor, hanging out her window with her phone in hand and sarah, the neighbor who was now staring face to face with the front of the bus, with her phone in hand as well.

jenn checked to make sure there were no kids playing in any of the yards, made sure there were no more kids on the bus, and checked on the bus driver. while i was on with 911, they had me trailing the driver to make sure he was okay . . . he kept getting on and off the bus, walking around the bus, sitting down and standing up, opening and closing his cell phone. 911 asked me to find out if he was okay . . . which i asked him 6-7 times, to which he never answered . . . then 911 told me he was probably in shock and i needed to get him to sit down, which he did, but then stood up again . . . and then they wanted me to find out how old he was, which i asked 6-7 times, and he never answered . . . so i tried asking him if he knew how old he was, and he nodded and finally told me he was 69 (or 68 - now i can't remember).

the emergency vehicles finally got there and i backed away. at this time, most of the neighborhood had showed up and it was crazy for the remainder of the night.

this was a really long version of the 5-10 minute happening. basically a big, yellow bus entered our cul-de-sac, didn't stop or turn and went up jenn's driveway, through her front fence, down her backyard hill, took out her shed in the back corner, where it hid the concrete base and took a hard right, out the back fence, into the braby's backyard, and through the braby's / dimitrech's side fence and stopped about 20 feet from sarah's back deck where she was standing and watching the driver come at her.

crazy . . . we are so grateful that no one was hurt, no homes were damaged, and really the only damage was to three fences, a shed (with lots of stuff) and one little tree got bent. we hope that the driver is okay. all day today, ethan has been telling us the "busses don't go in cul-de-sacs." your right ethan. that is why we have never seen one in our cul-d-esac before and i hope we don't ever see one again!