E, J & AJ: Tornado

As you all know, Alabama was hit by deadly tornadoes last week. It was not an experience we wish to have to go through again, and we are so thankful for our safety and that our house did not have any significant damage.

Eric will blog about the more technical details of the tornadoes and the damage. Here is my perspective about our past week.... Eric was out of town Tuesday night, so I was a little nervous to be home alone as tornado sirens woke Alex and I up at 6:00 on Wednesday morning. I admit we have heard sirens many times over the past several years and don't always take them seriously, but I did get up and start watching the weather. One of the first tornadoes came through around nap time - so I had a tired baby, a dog and lots of blankets and pillows in our small bathroom downstairs. Eric was driving through some of the storms to get back home to us and I was so thankful that he was there to spend the rest of the day with us.

At little before 5:00 we were watching the weather coverage and they said a tornado was heading in our direction - so back in the bathroom we went. Eric, a storm chaser at heart, was watching out the window and came quickly in the bathroom saying "HERE IT COMES!". We sat in the bathroom and prayed and it was quickly all over and quiet and dark. We went outside to assess the damage. I will let Eric take over on his blog - but again we were blessed and our neighborhood just had a lot of trees down, fences down, a pool chair flew over the fence into our neighbors yard, a trampoline flew from a couple blocks away, etc.

This begins our 5 days without power. Again, we missed the everyday conveniences of having power, but seeing all the damage around us we were just thankful for our safety and our home. We are also thankful for our neighbors who brought us over a battery powered radio (our only source of information for 5 days), ice, water, and who invited us over for dinner.

Looking at the positives - we can also be thankful for a very clean refrigerator :)...

One person who didn't mind the power outage at all - ALEX! He thought having Daddy home for a week was GREAT! Thankfully the weather for the first 5 days after the storms was beautiful so we spent all day, every day outside.

Alex and Daddy did a lot of chores together - Alex's favorite is mowing the grass. He is obsessed with lawnmowers. He spots them in people's garages when we go for walks at night. He is definitely Daddy's Little Shadow!

Helping to change the oil on the van ... had to do everything just like Eric!

Our friends, the Lopez's, had the great idea to head up to Nashville on Saturday and take the kiddos to the zoo and get away for a night and enjoy some electricity for 24 hours and thankfully they invited us along. It was a great little reprieve. We left on Saturday morning, went out for lunch and then spent all afternoon at the zoo. The weather was perfect!

That night we headed out to dinner in downtown Nashville. We had a wonderful dinner at The Big River Brewery. The kids behaved well - thanks to suckers and movies on the ipod ;).