Insane Kentucky Weather

Matt had left for his boy's golf trip (to Hilton Head this year - so jealous!) on Tuesday, so the boys and I were missing Daddy, and doing our best to stay busy to make the days go by faster. 

One night, I took the boys out for a gorgeous drive in the country. 

One my favorite things to do. 

We had to run to Kroger after that, but first we stopped by the Pet Smart near by to check out the animals. 

I was contemplating trying to talk Matty into buying one of these sweet puppies! Until I remembered we have a humongous puppy already ;)

The parrots in the store whistle, and say Hello to you...and this was Rhett's reaction! Hee! 

Other than our little country drive, and adventure out to the Pet Store and Kroger, our days had been pretty uneventful so far. The only plans for the week were that Friday, Amy and I were going to have a girls night at my house. We were going to order in dinner, and watch movies after the kids were in bed. Well, Thursday evening, I was on the computer checking the forecast, when I noticed that we might be getting some scary weather the following day. 

So Friday morning, I checked my phone again and saw this...

Umm Hi white blob right over our house. 

I called Meteorologist Matt Williams (my forever nickname for him, as he loves to track every storm) and he had me download a Weather App on my phone that he already had. It would alert me if we needed to take shelter. Our safe place in our house is our downstairs bathroom, it's under the stairs, but very small. Too small if we needed to stay there for an extended time. So, I texted Amy while she was still at work, and asked her if we could go to here house since she has a basement. She of course said that was fine, so that was the plan. I watched the Weather Channel all day, and they were predicting that we would get the worst of it around 1 or 2pm. I planned to head on over around noon or so. I packed up the car, with the pack n play for nap time, snacks, diapers, wipes etc. The whole day just had a creepy feeling about it. The skies were an odd color, newscasters were stating over and over again that "there will be dangerous storms today", and that it shouldn't be taken lightly. After seeing the damage done last Tornado season, in places like Joplin - I do admit I take it much more seriously. Especially after watching a youtube video last year. Someone too a video with their phone, right in the midst of a tornado wreaking havoc right about them. Hearing babies crying, and people screaming and crying - I just balled my eyes out, as I can't imagine how terrifying that would be.

I set Gunner up in the crate, in our safe place, I even took down the picture frames on the wall behind him, in case things did get bad - I honestly kept thinking, "What if our house is gone after today?" 

I was so divided, on one hand I just knew we would be just fine, but on the other, all I was thinking about was getting to the safest place possible.

I said lots of prayers, that's for sure. 

We ended up heading over a little earlier than noon, because Rhett was showing the tell tale signs that he needed a nap. Before we headed over, we heard the news that school was letting out 2 hours early. That was when it got even more real for me. 

So before long, we were all in one house, the weather channel, rumored to be sending their guys to our town, actually headed north of us, but still it was all happening so close to home. Hours went by, without any alerts to head to shelter. So Amy's older boys ended up going on and going to their friend's houses as earlier planned. (Both friends had basements, so she felt comfortable) We were in and out of her bedroom checking the weather (we had it on back there so we wouldn't scare Avery, storms are already a little scary and getting out of school earlier didn't help to make it any less scary!) 

As time went by, we started relaxing a little, thinking about dinner. Talking about whether we were going to stay at Amy's or head back to my house...when my phone went off.

 It was alerting our specific location to head to shelter NOW. 

We grabbed our babies, and the little bag of snacks that Amy had packed and went to the basement. I had the pack n play, blocking Rhett into one corner of the basement, I tried my best to keep the boys happy with toys and snacks as we waited. We turned on our local news channel, waiting to see what was going on. 

Sweet Avery was really freaked out by all of this, we comforted her, and assured her that we were just being as safe as possible - that we were going to be just fine. 

Thankfully (Praise the Lord!) the threat did not last long at all. We had no damage whatsoever. 

Eventually, the entire threat left our city - and just like that the creepy feel of the entire day just lifted off of our shoulders. 

We took some deep breaths, and decided to head back to my house to continue on with our girls night. 

We stopped by McDonalds and Chili's on the way home though. (I'm surprised they were even open!) 

We were so hungry by this point, and our nerves were completely shot. 

A day of waiting for something scary to happen, is just exhausting. 

However, we are unbelievably thankful that we were only waiting, and never had to experience it.

Those only a couple of hours away from us were not so lucky. Some people lost their lives.            

 Towns, houses, cars, buildings, trees, just completely destroyed.

I can't imagine going through any of that, I only hope that my faith would overcome all of the sadness, and that HE would get us through it, as I hope and pray the people that are dealing with this are. :(

...

As if, a tornado in March isn't wild enough. Monday morning, the morning of Rhett's weight check, we woke up to this...

Seriously Kentucky? Well you always keep us guessing.

After Rhetter man's weight check, he was ready for a nap, so Case and I headed out to build a snowman.

He was just a little guy, but we had fun! 

 After this, his neighbor friends came out, and they had a blast having snowball fights and building snow forts!

Just my kind of winter, ONE snow day, with some good snow to make a snow man, and the next day was in the 70's. NO JOKE.

It was one wild week, but the best part about it, was when Daddy came home from his golf trip the Sunday night before all the snow...

 
Precious.
... Mommy missed Daddy too! 
:)