We stayed in a tiny house near Lake Texoma over Martin Luther King Day weekend. It was FREEZING cold when we arrived, but warmed up enough for us to hike and bike the day we left.

1/16/22

1/17/22

On the 15th, when we left Colleyville, there was a hostage standoff taking place just blocks from our house at the Congregation Beth Israel Jewish Synagogue. That morning, before we knew what was going on, I drove through that area to pick up Raine for her YW basketball game. There were police cars blocking Hardage Ln at Pleasant Run, so I turned left on Waller and tried to come up Cooks Ln, but there was a police car there as well, so I cut through the Pleasant Run Baptist Church parking lot and got onto Pleasant Run just long enough to turn onto Shelton Dr. I assumed the police activity must be centered closer to Hardage; I had no idea that the problem was at the empty-looking synagogue when I saw it along my detour.

By the end of the basketball game, we knew there was something wrong and shortly after we arrived home, we knew that there was a hostage situation. DJ called his co-worker who attends that synagogue and he told us that their Rabi and two other church members were taken hostage by a Palestinian. Throughout the day, additional law enforcement agencies arrived and staged in the school parking lots near our home.

The hostage situation ended late that night when Rabi Walker threw a chair at the gunman and he and the 2 other hostages ran out a side door. The federal agents then stormed the building and the gunman was killed.

When we returned home Monday, the media was all over Cooks Ln and the Pleasant Run Baptist Church parking lot. It is very unsettling to see an international terrorist situation happen so close to home.