The Calm after the Storm

This was one of the best shots I could get....but imagine this happening to a tree over a foot in diameter! There were several of them!! One tree split three ways, was probably a lightning strike.

Stephanie's new favorite place to color and eat her snack, haha!

Well it's still not quiet around here! The storm rolled through Wednesday evening and another STRONG round Thursday morning (4-8 am, NON stop!!). Today I woke up again to the sound of chainsaws and tree grinders...ugh! Driving around it looks like most people have cleaned up their tree's and have everything stacked for whenever the city is able to pick everything up. Power is back in all our area, downed power and phone lines are repaired and life is pretty much back to normal....just with HUGE stacked of tree limbs and stumps lining just about every curb you see! Here is how our Wednesday went:

I had a dr apt at 4:30 in Denton to hear the heartbeat. Knowing it would probably take MUCH longer than normal since I was at the end of the day we left Stephanie with mom. Josh and I finally saw the dr at 5:30. He used the little doppler thing to hear the heartbeat.....HELLLLOOOOO little monster, we would like to know you are alive and well.....NOTHING! So he has to have the big ole sono machine rolled in and we wait, nothing like sitting there waiting to see if you are still prego or if you lost another baby....NO BUENO! While waiting Josh comments on how dark is getting so early. I said it looked like storm clouds over the hospital, he said no....it was just cloudy, whatever! The dr finally came back in, glooped the lovely sono gloop on me and in about 2 seconds we see our little one....alive and well. Then our little monster starts to KICK AND JUMP AROUND, so much like his/her sister :)



With the good news we head out to the car (about 5:45-6pm). Wow, prego was right! Those ARE storm clouds over the hospital....and then we see a HUGE strike of lightning, good thing we brought his car (my tires are a little bald). We turn on talk radio and he figures we have plenty of time to stop and get a burrito at his FAVORITE place. I give him my order and sit in the car calling family to let them know this little bit is doing fine. In the middle of my conversation with my Papa and Grandma I let them know I need to get off the phone....there is a bunch of lightning and it's making me nervous (not that it would come through the car and strike my phone, I'm just not a fan of any electronic with lightning around).



Just then Josh gets back to the car "Did you see that?", Uh, yes....I've been sitting here watching it! We head home and again are listening to talk radio. Usually it's lovely political shows that get Josh all worked up....not today. The weather was so bad that all they were talking about was the several storms heading our way. Turns out the storm over the hospital with the amazing lightning was not our real concern! There ended up being a storm heading in from Ft Worth, around the Speedway and then right up Main Street....ugh! I call mom to see what dopler looks like and if we have time to get Stephanie and make it home (with Josh making fun of me in the background, "Of course we have time! Look at it") I discuss options with mom anyways :) We get to her house and all decide we have time. I scoop up Stephanie and all her gear, quickly load her in the car and we head home. As we are sitting at the signal to leave moms neighborhood Josh says "Man, that looks really close, I think it's moving faster than they expected" I sigh (but not out loud :) Now it's about 6:30pm)



Remember, we live like 5-8 minutes away from mom.....sometime on our drive home it starts to rain HUGE drops, but not many. By the time we are in our driveway we have discussed our plan. (everything between now and us in the bathtub happens in like 10 minutes) Josh gets Stephanie and all her gear inside, I'll get the carseat out of his car. We get in the house and turn on the tv just as the sirens outside go off. Josh gets all nervous and I am telling him in my Science Teacher voice "sirens don't mean there is a tornado, it just means everyone outside should go inside...bad weather is coming" I barely get the last part out of my mouth as our weather radio goes off....now that is something I take very seriously! It says tornado warning for our county....no biggie, we are a big county. I go ahead and put Roxy in the laundry room and toss some blankets and toys in the bathtub knowing that if something does come we usually get about 10 seconds warning....I'm one to be prepared :)



Our weather radio continues to go off and spit out warning after warning....I change the tv channel and see that yes, there is a tornado on radar and it's heading right through the center of town. In about 2.5 seconds I have Stephanie in the bathtub happily coloring, I am ripping her mattress out of her crib and setting it in the bathroom and I'm in the tub....seriously! I can't believe how fast this all was! Josh is watching out the back window waiting for the "sound of a train".....I hear the house creak and moan and very nicely (as nice as a panicked prego woman can) to come into the bathroom NOW. He and Boulder are quickly in the bathroom.....the house creaks, groans, the power fades in and out a few times and then it's out. I feel a very strange calm come over me as I grab Stephanie and have one hand on the mattress (to pull it over us if need be).....Thank you God for that wonderful calm :)



We stay in the bathroom about 20 minutes while the house just creaks. Eventually Josh and Boulder go to check things out. It's still very windy so Josh decides to come back in the bathroom. We are listening to our weather radio (lovely hand held, battery powered one :) and it says the tornado is gone, headed right for Josh's parents and then his best friend....sigh, this is going to be a long night! He stays in the bathroom while I go check things out. I say we are good and Stephanie can come out. She was HAPPILY playing with her itouch....peek-a-boo barn is a lifesaver!!!



I checked on the neighbors and we all talked about what happened. I FINALLY got a hold of Mom and Kimmi after about 30 minutes of panic. Cell phones were beyond jammed and it was almost impossible to get a call out. Mom didn't think it was that bad, she watched the whole thing, Kimmi was in the bathroom with Dakota, Daddy and Michael were at the gym waiting for it to pass. I finally got text messages out to Josh's parents and best friend. His parents didn't get much at all...10 minutes of bad rain. His best friends live in the 2nd hardest hit area (ours being the first). Luckily they were in Dallas at the time and missed the whole thing :) We waited an hour for power and then loaded up the car for moms (she never lost power). We spent the night there which was a blessing....ac and we weren't alone when the second round came though.



Well that's our story. Boring to most, but I know the fam wanted to know. It's the worst winds we have had in the 26 years I've been here! The only storm to top it in my book was the hail storm April of 08....that got me a new roof and ac unit :) We did get confirmation that a tornado did touch down in our town and then we had sustained winds of 70-80 mph. The second round of storms that came through around 4am and were non stop until a little after 8. Tons of flooding, INSANE amounts of lightning....SO glad to be at my parents!! Here are the few pics I took. Some are blurry because I was shooting as I was driving.