Tornado Video

Enjoy!

Tornado Scare

6:00 pm I message Todd at school and tell him they are expecting baseball-sized hail. He says he's coming home.

6:10 Rain starts

6:20 Hail starts...first its just small hail, then it gets larger and larger and larger...

6:40 By now, the sirens are going off, the weather guys are talking about funnel clouds and possible tornadoes being spotted. The hail is hitting the roof so hard it sounds like it's going to come through the roof any minute. Todd grabs the camera and we can see the funnel cloud just above our apartment's office. The hail is tennis-ball sized. I'm calling my dad to let him know what's going on and that we are okay. I head for the closet (Todd is cooking dinner...he wasn't too worried obviously!)

6:45 The reports keep coming in about funnel clouds and possible tornadoes. The hail is still thunderous and the tornado sirens are going off. We are keeping the TV on so we can hear it's progress. I'm terrified because the cross streets they keep mentioning are between .5-1.5 miles from our home.

7:00 The sirens turn off and the hail and rain has stopped. Like several others, we head outside to assess the damage. Our Honda is covered in leaf debris, but both cars are fine...just some dents. There are five or six cars in our parking lot with their back windows completely shattered. We feel lucky!

7:05 Sirens go off again...we head inside, but the worst seems to have passed. We keep track of the progress for a few moments, and we finally feel better. There is still some leftover thunder and lightning, but I am so grateful it wasn't much worse!

I've heard the sirens go off before, but we've never had a scare this close to home. I'm so grateful that Todd was home, and that the funnel clouds above us never touched ground near us. We're also grateful that our cars are safe and intact, and that our friends here are also safe!

Anniversary!

(we can't resist a Ben and Jerry's sale!)

Todd and I celebrated our fifth anniversary on Thursday. It was so nice to have him all done with school, and even though I'm not done yet, the end is close enough that I'm happy :)

After coming home to a SPOTLESS house, flowers, candy, and a sweet letter, we headed off to a local hibachi style restaurant. We haven't been since we lived in Boise, and it was a lot of fun, not to mention delicious!

We had a great time and were able to come home and still have time to relax and finish a movie. It was a great day...typical of the days I get to spend with hubby :) Love you!

P-Day in KC

When you are a teacher, a P-day (or personal day) is great because you get time off, but you get paid for it...unlike sick days! Well, silly me, I had two saved up, and if you don't use em, you lose 'em, so I thought that Todd and I would celebrate the end of his finals and the near-end of my school year with a quick trip to KC. We of course hit up Oklahoma Joe's for some DELISH barbecue before we hit the Nelson-Atkins Museum.

Of course, when you go there, you have to take your photo op with the famous shuttlecocks. Originally, they were supposed to look more like stretched out basketball nets with a basketball going through the bottom, in homage to the fact that James Naismith invented basketball here. But, I guess the sculptors went with giant shuttlecocks instead, and here they are!

I know I shouldn't have leaned on it, but they are HUGE and there are no signs saying "Keep off." Apparently, I am one of the un-smart people who forgot that it is ART, and so I leaned on it for a picture and got barked at by an automated voice that scared me nearly to death. Needless to say, I will NEVER lean on a sculpture, no matter how giant it is, again!

There were some other sculptures outside in the sculpture garden, including this really weird one that looks like a bunch of headless zombies. Hence, Todd's zombie pose.

The museum is really cool. It took us four hours to walk the entire thing, but it was cool to get re-acquainted with some favorite artists I had grown to like during my Art History days :) I remembered that I liked impressionism and post-impressionism art and hated medieval and renaissance art :)

After the museum and an unsuccessful attempt to find the new Kansas City temple, we headed to Em Chamas for some Brazilian rodizio. Now, we won't be eating like this in Brazil, but Todd did get to speak some Portuguese with several of our waiters while we ate our food. It was fun and VERY filling, but Todd brought me right back down to earth when he asked if I was okay, eating rice and beans for lunch every day. Sorta takes the fun outta a foreign country, eh, rice and beans everyday? Although, this time I think I am a little more prepared for the international cuisine, after all, in Guatemala, we ate a TON of tortillas, eggs, and black beans. Sao Paulo is known for its cuisine, so hopefully we can expand our palate beyond rice and beans every once in a while!
All in all, it was a great day, with wonderful company :) The weather was GORGEOUS, and I didn't have to work :)

Now, back to the grind for 7 more days (and then summer school, but I'm NOT thinking about that yet!)