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! 
:)

Tornado Season

{Photo from Lex18}

This spring has been pretty wild so far. 
We have had several Tornado warnings - not watches. Actual warnings.

It has been very interesting this year with Case, last year he could care less about the Booms (aka thunder). This year though, it has scared the you know what out of the boy. The first thunderstorm of the year he screamed bloody murder the first time it happened - and to see his face when it happened was absolutely heart breaking. After that, we talked about storms a lot, reminded him that it was just a loud noise and there was nothing to be afraid of. There was a storm while the boys spent the weekend with Nanny & Poppy and Nanny taught him to clap after the thunder, that has helped, and it's pretty cute! He has gotten a lot better, especially if he's around us. If he is in sight of Mommy or Daddy he doesn't have a care in the world. If it happens when he's in the other room or sleeping, however, he runs as fast as he can to our open arms.

Last week, was the first threat of a tornado in...I can't even remember how long.
It was all over the news, it was expected to get pretty bad around 2 am. We were in our front yard talking to a bunch of our neighbors earlier that evening, and since we don't have a basement they told them we were welcome to come over if it got bad. Matt downloaded a Weather Radio on his phone (ha!) and we went to bed. Right around 2 am we woke up to his phone going off. Then came the thunder. The house rattling, window shaking, intense kind of thunder. Then Matt told me there was a Tornado Warning in effect for our county. I have to admit, I have never been scared of storms. I've always shrugged my shoulders at the Severe Thunderstorm threats, and Tornado Watches. I have never personally been hurt, or affected by storm damage or anything like that. Besides a leaky basement growing up, they've always been no big deal. That's why I was a little surprised when Matt woke me up, and told me to actually call our neighbors. She answered right away, and told us to come on over. So, we scooped up our sleeping babies, and ran next door in the rain. They have three kids, and three dogs so it was so funny all sitting in their guest bedroom in their basement! (We put Gunner in his crate in our hallway, the safest place for him) We had the TV on in the other room, and it seemed to be moving away pretty quickly. We were there for about half an hour or so, then despite their offer to let us spend the night we carried our babies back to the house and went back to bed. (After thanking them a gazillion times for letting us come over in the middle of the night!) Thank goodness the boys went right back to sleep in their beds. I didn't sleep hardly at all after, it was still storming here and there and I felt anxious the all night. I was worried Case would wake up the entire night, and if it wasn't that it was Rhetter man waking me up because he can roll on his belly now but gets stuck that way and wakes up mad! ;)
Although I felt extremely horrible for waking their entire house up, and going over there in the middle of the night, she assured me she was thankful we did, and she was so happy we took their offer seriously about coming over.

Even with scattered storms in the forecast for what seemed like the next month, I didn't even think about another Tornado Warning coming again so quickly. Amy and I had a sister date planned, and while out to dinner Matt called and asked where we were...we told him, and he was telling us to go the bathroom ASAP! What? Another one?? We kept up with it through texts from Matt, and eventually asked the manager to turn on the local news channel. It was expected to hit right in our area, eek! I took it a little more seriously this time with threat to our specific location! We never had to take shelter though, it passed quickly thank goodness. A few funnel clouds were confirmed only miles away though! We were nervous wrecks not being with our families, we are so thankful and blessed that everyone was safe and sound.
That night it stormed all hours of the night again, and around 6am we heard the heart wrenching wail of our two year old, and he climbed into bed with us for the rest of the morning.
Then, last night same thing except we woke up to the house shaking type thunder around 3am.
Followed by:
A two year in our bed, Rhett crying as well, Mama giving Rhett paci, Mommy and Daddy calming Case, Daddy getting stabbed in the back by Case's feet, Mommy getting smacked by Bob (Case's favorite stuffed dog), Mommy giving Rhett his paci again, Mommy crawling into Case's big boy bed alone, Daddy roughing the night with an apparently horizontal sleeping, restless two year old. (Sorry Matty!)

...and it's storming again tonight.