Severe Weather

We have had some exciting weather here in the last couple of weeks that we can do without. In fact, they were tornados!

Last Monday afternoon it was a typical cloudy day. Bobby had picked Ashton up from school at 3:00. He brought her home and had to run to Kinkos and Sprouts (a grocery store). Ashton was on my bed with me watching her two after school shows Clifford the Big Red Dog and Arthur. I was feeding Landry. It begins to rain really hard. The weather ticker on the tv is saying there is a tornado warning for two counties which weren’t ours so I didn’t worry because they weren’t near us. All of a sudden I hear our sirens and the man comes on the tv and says there is a tornado warning for Northwest Denton County and I panicked on the inside because that is us!! I was on the phone talking to my sister Jenn at the time and had to hang up quickly with her. Ashton does not like loud noises and that means every time we have a thunderstorm I have a shadow or a child attached to my hip. We went to get her “blankie” and we headed for the closet. Buster would not budge off of his bed…luckily his bed is in our laundry room which is an okay place for him to be. Bobby is not home at his time and I am freaking out on the inside again…I don’t want Ashton to panic…I think she was in some kind of shock….she laid on my lap and didn’t move…she didn’t cry …she didn’t talk….just laid there and asked where Daddy is. I call Bobby, can’t get him and become VERY concerned. He finally calls me back (the sirens are still going off).

He thinks I am kidding because where he is, it is not even raining. He begins to drive home and sees the wall cloud and tells me to stay in the closet with the girls. He is hauling hiney to get home. He arrives and says he can totally see the clouds and the funnel cloud. The wall cloud passed right over us and luckily nothing touched down. Needless to say, we were all quite scared…I haven’t had a tornado since I was a little girl in Missouri.

Tornado number 2 occurred this morning. At 4:00 am Bobby is awakened by thunder and is lying there waiting for Ashton to call him to come get her….This is typical for very severe and loud thunderstorms at night. She didn’t call for him. He hears the sirens and I am not awake (my girls are the only thing that wakes me up these days…having a baby can make you sleep very well). He wakes me up and says there is a tornado we need to get the girls and get in the closet. He and I bolt across the house…he grabs Ashton and I grab Landry. Ashton is very concerned as to why Daddy is carrying her. She didn’t panic at all. She had been asleep with her hands over her ears. We gather in the closet with a bunch of pillows, our big quilt and the radio. We stayed there for about 20 minutes then we all piled into our bed and tried to sleep. We checked the news and computer. The storm was a wall cloud that covered the entire DFW area from the Oklahoma border down to Waco. We did not receive any damage at our house but not far way had lots of wind damage. Many neighborhoods had trees and debris. Our good friend Gina’s parents live in the city of Allen which is about 15 minutes away and they had some pretty good damage to fences, and roofs, and even some homes. All of our friends are safe and not much damage. We haven’t heard if there was an actual tornado that touched down yet or not or it was just really severe thunderstorms with some rotation.
I am so proud of Ashton…she has done great during both of the storms. This morning she was all snuggled up against me in the closet shaking…she was so scared. When we got up to get ready for school this morning she was quite chatty about the storm. She must have used the word amazing a dozen times or so.

Again we are so thankful that everyone is fine!