Scary day in Draper

I don't know how many of you heard of the drive by shooting in Draper a couple of weeks ago but Josh and I had a personal encounter with the shooting and I wanted to tell our story.

Thursday July 29, 2010

9:05 pm

I was standing in our bedroom next to the bed folding some clothes. Josh had just gotten out of the shower and was walking out of the bathroom just behind me when we heard a loud pop/crack in our room. I jumped at the sound and asked Josh "what the heck was that?" He walked over to the window and looked out through the blinds and saw our neighbors sitting outside and said "I think it's just the neighbors doing fireworks." I said to him, "That was not fireworks and there is a hole in our blinds!" He turned to see the hole in the blinds and then back to me and saw a hole in the wall just about a foot and a half away from where I was standing. He immediately yelled at me to get down and stay away from the windows. We realized then that it was a bullet that had come through our window and into our wall. I of course was scared that if we got shot at once, then there could be more shots coming and thought of the girls in the bedroom just below us sleeping right by their window. As Josh ran to get the phone to call 911 I went downstairs and got Rease and Rhen out of bed and away from the window. I took Rhen into the storage room and laid her down in the pack and play and brought Rease upstairs with me where I could watch her. I sat her on the floor in the kitchen with her coloring book and crayons to color and stay safe. (Cute story really quick. Rease was watching police officers come in and out of the house and finally said to me, without looking up from her coloring book, "Mommy there are a lot of fire fighters in our house!") There were no more shots luckily and Josh and I tried to sort things out. After that it was a whirlwind of police officers, detectives and neighbors coming in an out of our house trying to figure out what had happened. The first round of police officers came and got the story and then were off trying to find who had shot and where it had come from. I called my dad and asked if he would come take the girls to sleep at their house. He rushed over and was so glad we were safe and then took the girls with him so I didn't have to worry about them being safe. Another officer and detective came not too long after and we filed our report and talked for an hour or so about what had happened. Soon after the news cameras showed up as well and got our story. All I could say was thank goodness we were safe and the girls were okay. I didn't care about anything else.

This is where the bullet came through the blinds...

The broken window...
And the bullet lodged in our wall by the bed.

After getting our story the police office dug the bullet out of the wall. This shows how close it hit next to our bed. I kept thinking that if I would have been in bed, or leaning over to get the pillows off the bed or anything else a foot closer than where I was, I would have been hit. It really didn't scare me until we slept in our bed the next night and we could see how close a call it really was.

This is the bullet they dug out. They ended up finding the bullet shells about a half mile away on Highland Drive and figured out that it was a random drive by shooting and just happened to hit our house. The crazy thing is, if you stand on Highland Drive where they supposedly shot from you can barely see our house and window. It was just a very close call that ended good for everyone cause no one was hurt. Another house just up the road a mile or two was hit as well but they weren't home at the time luckily.

Since then, Josh and I have thought a lot about how precious life is and how quickly things can change. We really think about what we're saying when we ask for protection each day in our prayers and realize that we are being protected. Above all, we are reminded how important each day is and are even more grateful for the days, weeks and months we have to spend with our girls and the people we love most.