Welcome June... Welcome Tornado Season

Yesterday was full of tornado warnings all over Iowa, Nebraska, and surrounding states. I honestly thought that we were quite lucky at mid-day when the first of the warnings hit in Northwest Iowa. It was sunny here. A little while later, the warnings got lower down towards our part of the state. But the sun was still shining here. Odd, I thought.

Charles got home and we wanted to head to the store right away because the storm clouds were moving in and I was getting nervous about having the girls out in the rain. We made it to Fareway and out again without getting rained on too terribly. I ran Rosalie out to the Jeep and Charles looked like a mad man running with Caity in the cart! The poor Fareway kid had to stand in the rain and load our groceries in the back of the Jeep. Bless his heart! And his job! Not to mention that I was standing right next to him helping! My job: Being a Mom!

We went to Hy-Vee next to try to find Ziti for the Chicken, Broccoli, Ziti One Skillet Supper I was going to be making for supper. That's when the first Warning in our area went off. There was a tornado about 20 miles east of our town. The sun was coming back out while behind us, it was almost black. That tornado hit a farm and caused over 3 million in damages. The family lost their home, machine shed, 2 combines, livestock, etc. After the tornado warning was lifted for that area, over 250 emergency response people and volunteers helped the family out and gathered livestock back into fenced areas. Photos and Story HERE.

We got home, I packed a "tornado diaper bag" for the girls and I started dinner making the comment, "I don't want this to be my last supper!" Dinner was amazing, by the way! I love America's Test Kitchen recipes! I kept an eye outside and watched the clouds.

It was about 7ish when I had the sudden urge to go look outside. Freaking-A... HUGE black wall cloud. By the time it took me to turn around to tell Charles about the wall cloud, the sirens started going off. The city JUST put a HUGE siren right outside our house, so it was hella loud. Charles and I looked at each other, I grabbed Rosalie and the diaper bag, he grabbed Caity and we ran downstairs.

Charles ran back up to get a sheet, the car seat, and some toys for Caity. The "rotation" was north of town so he felt safe enough to run up really quick. We stayed down in the basement for a good 30 minutes until the "all clear" was announced.

We eventually calmed down for the night, had family prayer, and put the girls down. We had an uneventful night... I thanked God! Now that we had a crash course in "running with the girls down to the basement", we are now fully prepared with our bags downstairs and a path cleared to run if needed.

Please pray for the family who lost their home and for safety over our area. No tornadoes, please! I didn't have babies to come into this world and be harmed by mother nature. Please keep us safe!