More Tornado Adventures

Jess was gone last week to Orlando.  He left Tuesday and came home Saturday night.  We were on tornado watch Wednesday through Friday, so that was a great time.  Couldn't even leave the house to entertain ourselves in any way.  Well, we could've if we wanted to be the people all stuck in traffic on a freeway during a tornado.  We didn't want that though, so we stayed home with our bags packed with flashlights, snacks, and toys.  The kids painted, watched some tv, wrote a few letters, built things with Legos, wrestled...

and each night we rented a movie.  Then they all slept with me.

Thursday morning I think it was, we woke up, but were still in bed, talking.  The baby started kicking a lot, which he doesn't usually do in the mornings, so I told them so they could feel.  Paige felt my belly and he kicked her hard right away.  She was excited.  Then Cason took a turn, and he got a REALLY hard one, and then even Neely felt one, but wasn't that impressed.

We did go out one night, about 10 seconds down the road to Sonic, for food and ice cream.  (I think this was our first Sonic ice cream since moving away Grama-the kids don't care as much if it's not a date with you)

 

Friday we were supposed to be on watch, but it looked less severe than the days before.  I took the kids shopping in the morning for some food, since Cassie and Alex were coming that night.  I got the city's call as we were finishing up, saying to be prepared for storms starting in a couple of hours.  We went home and made sure we were ready.  It didn't start raining, but got a little darker, and windier, and those crazy clouds started.  We had the news on, and turned up pretty loud, so I could clean in the kitchen but still pay attention to what was happening.  There were like seven tornados, and I think I heard later that 5 of them touched down somewhere in the area.  The kids sat on the couch, snacking on apple slices and staring seriously at the screen.  Even Neely looked like she knew just what they were talking about. 

Neely of course decided she should be completely naked most of the afternoon.  I kept trying to dress her so we'd be able to leave quickly if we needed to.  Soon I got another call from the city, saying the public shelter was now open.  I told the kids to get their shoes so we could run next door if we had to.  Neely got her stuffed puppies, a crocheted hat, and her tennis shoes.  Completely naked otherwise, she stood up, a puppy under each arm, and said "I'm ready to GO!"  Haha.

About a minute later, sirens went off.  Cason and Paige are experts now, so they each grabbed a bag and ran to the front door, while I threw Neely into a diaper and pajamas in about 5 seconds.  We all ran next door, and Cason charged in without knocking. 

We went into their shelter for a couple of hours.  It was so muggy in there, and they'd already had the dogs down for a while in case, and they'd peed on the floor.  So we were packed in like sardines, hot and sweaty, smelling dog pee.  It was torturous.  The kids each had a flashlight and had them all on at the same time. 

Kevin was all into it as usual, standing on the stairs and watching and yelling about it "Swirling right there above us!" and getting video.  (It never touched down too near us).  Eventually we got to get out and go inside. We stayed another hour, until the news said we were past the danger of a tornado, although we were still going to have crazy rain all night.  Then the power went out.  I'd had so many texts that my phone died just after the power went out, a bit inconveniently, so I couldn't text Cassie and Alex to find out where they were or anything.  We ran home, lit candles, and I read to the kids out on the couch until they fell asleep.  I moved them into our bed, and stayed up until about 1:30 because I couldn't sleep.  The power came back on a bit before that.  I slept until 3:48 or something, and couldn't sleep again until 9 am.  I slept another half hour and then just got up for the day.  I was a bit tired all Saturday.  Ha.  Cassie and Alex had arrived safely and were asleep in the living room when we came out.