I knew all along we'd be watching the royal wedding, but I had no idea we would become so fixated on all the details...but it was SO MUCH FUN! Because of it's ability to capture all of my attention, it delayed the posting of this stormy night until today.
I'm now having royal withdrawals. It's painful.
Easter weekend was a success albeit very very fast and even though I usually like to take things in order as they come, I'm skipping Easter for now and addressing the events of April 26, 2011.
It started out as a beautiful day but very blustery as it's been for weeks. The forecast called for thunderstorms and tornado watches but the evening was calm. By 9:00 the lightening was putting on quite the show and the wind was occasionally punching my car as my girls and I sped down the rode to get ice. We made it home safely, tucked the cars in for the night to protect them from any possible hail and by 9:20, even though it wasn't raining, our electricity went out. @*$#. Within 5 seconds of the air going off, I was sweating. As we stumbled around in the dark looking for candles and flashlights, (sidebar: we were not in emergency preparedness mode...no emergency candles or batteries at the ready). We scrounged up 3 candles to light, all with different fragrances which was a really bad idea, and 5 minutes into our "disaster" Owen was calling for playing board games in the dark. It took 2 1/2 seconds for his idea to be shot down which caused him to pick up his cell phone and begin to play Who Wants to be a Millionaire by calling out the questions to the room. Those of us armed with flashlights made finger puppets on the walls and took turns trying to blind people with fresh battery filled hand lighting as we sat in the dark sweating and fighting to be the first to answer questions in order to win our fake million dollars. It was an extremely primitive situation with no fast finger buttons, so as the questions rolled out, the air became tense with competition as the 6 of us would quickly yell out an answer. One memorable question was, "In what war was the battle of Hamburger Hill fought?" Caitlin's answer, "The battle against obesity." Fake million dollars here she comes.....
By now it was 9:45 and the battling candle scents were making people swimmy headed and making me wonder if darkness would be better than succumbing to what started out as a lovely fragrance but had become the most hideous odor. At this point the question game had broken down into anarchy and Emma and Owen were ready for bed, but I was insistent on the 6 of us sticking together until we had a clearer picture of what was actually going to happen. By this time the rain had gone from sprinkling to rain drops to sheets of water pummeling the roof of our house. Monsoon conditions had kicked in.....although I'm not certain what those are......and Emma made a pallet in the hall with some pillows and blankets and as she was declaring she was going to sleep there, Owen chimed in that he'd sleep there as well, and as if he thought this would be a selling point announced he and she could snuggle....and with that statement, the storm inside my house....named Emma......declared to her younger brother....not just no....but....... Well, as Emma was settling into her pallet, the hail began. At that point, because we had no idea what was coming in the dark, we made the decision for the first time in 26 years to take shelter in the hall and bathroom of our house. Emma abandoned her pallet for the bathtub where she was joined by Olivia, as we gathered 6 people, 2 dogs, one cat, 4 purses, and closed the doors to the world. Now, Addy the dog hates Willie the cat and having the 2 confined in an area with a total square footage of 15 feet made for a tense situation. The other tense situation was when John announced to the 2 girls in the tub that he had to go to the bathroom. Emma put the kibosh on that function ASAP.
After 10 minutes of being "gathered together" in the hall/bathroom we decided the "crisis" of hail/tornado was over and redispersed into the den area. By this time, the house was hot, so in order to cool it off a bit, Owen and John opened the carport door and the back door in order to create a cross breeze situation. Well, it worked quite nicely until Caitlin, sitting in the green chair, (about 10 feet from the back door) stated that she "could feel the mist" coming in the house from the driving rain falling. This was not normal rain but crazy rain that was OUT OF CONTROL. Due to the inside moisture issues, the doors were shut and we went back to sweating.
After 2 hours of crazy rain, the water in our backyard was coming closer and closer to the back door, and John and I were getting nervous. We'd seen this same kind of rain a couple other times since we lived here and we were praying for it to stop. Finally, as the water was lapping at the doorstep....and I'm not even kidding....the pouring rain slowed down and eventually stopped. Thank the Lord above. With this respite in the rain, our kids headed for their real beds since Willie was enjoying the pallet in the hall immensely.
Just as the kids were getting comfy in the hot house beds, the bottom fell out of the sky again and crazy rain was falling once more. It's amazing how much rain can fall in such a short period of time, but fall and fall and fall it did. In another hour's time, the waves of water were once again lapping at the back door and once again we prayed for our house not to flood. Just when we were thinking, OK maybe flooding is just gonna happen, the rain stopped.
Thank the Lord for keeping our house dry one more time.
After checking the radar and discovering the worst had passed us by, it was about 1:30 and we were exhausted. John was so stressed it took him 2 extra seconds to fall asleep in the den. I felt so sorry for him, sarcasm intended. I on the other hand slept all of 7 1/2 seconds and by the next morning at about 10:30, the electricity was restored. It was quite a heart stopping night with fear and panic built in just to make it a little more fun. I never again want to see streets that look like swimming pools, but that's not very likely. Here's to hoping it won't be soon.
I'll be posting my photographic evidence of the stormy night, pitch dark photoging is not easy so don't be expecting much.
Coming soon...
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