We did not have anything going on this weekend. Sometimes that's a good thing and other times it's not:) Saturday was rainy and windy, and it was dark by like 3:00 PM. No lie. So we hung out around the house, went to Chick-fil-A for lunch, and made a trip to the library. But by 5:00, it seemed like it should have been Sunday already. I texted Scott that I confessed the kids had watched too much TV. It made me feel a little better.
Come Sunday, I knew it was going to be sunnier and warmer, so I thought we would go to a state park to do a little nature hike. After a little researching and checking the weather, I decided we would go to Route 66 State Park. Sounds interesting, right?
Well. It took us a while to find where we were going (the directions have you get off and on the interstate to go in the direction of the exit. That's always fun), and we still didn't even really find what we set out to find. And it was SUPER windy. But then I saw this playground and decided we would just stop. Close enough.
The kids played their hearts out...
for about 5 minutes...
Then Nate said, "Lila do you feel that?"
Lila didn't feel anything.
But I looked up and thought oh my goodness gracious. I told the kids to run to the car because it was raining. Inside I am praying, "Dear Lord, please do not let us be in a tornado." But I totally felt like that was what was getting ready to happen. "Mom, are we in a tornado?" No! Of course not. Gulp.
So we piled in the car at the same moment the wind picked up to like 100 miles an hour and the sand was pelting against my legs. I told the kids they could eat their lunch while I figured out if we were going to drive or stay put.
And then I just felt like I needed to get out of there. So I buckled Lila up and we were out of there. I knew it was a straight shot to get back on the interstate (thankfully), so we got out there quick. The driving was better than I expected, but the conditions were not good. I slowed way down and we watched the rain go sideways across the road.
I thought to myself, my mom would be so mad if she knew I was driving in this. So I called her. In my most up beat happy voice, I asked her to check the weather to make sure we were not headed into a "situation." For Nate's sake, I was not trying not to use the word tornado. He was already freaking out and Lila was already calling him a Scaredy Cat. Oh my..my children are so different.
She reported that she thought it was north and east of us, so we kept on driving. It lightened up as we got closer to town, but we saw downed trees and power lines on the way home. It was sunny and fine again when we got back to Maplewood, so I stopped into McDonalds for a much needed diet coke.
They had no power. After I got over being irritated, it dawned on me that this might mean that we didn't have power. So I did what any concerned person would do. I drove on to Sonic to get a diet coke.
We got home safely and found we did have power. It had gone off but was back on. Thankfully. There were many sirens going off and the wind had not died down. After checking around the house, Nate found that a huge branch had fallen in our backyard.
I thanked God that we were safe.
The moral of this story..Some days you just need to avoid the nature hike and curl up and watch TV.
