Tornado mania

Tuesday was a crazy scary day for me. We had our first tornado warning since moving to Oklahoma. I was home alone with the girls and I was a little freaked out. The day started out really nice and sunny and even pretty warm. Around 2 pm, I was feeding the Brinkers and the tornado siren by my house started going off. So I turned on the news and watched as they tracked a storm that was headed my direction.

For the next two or three hours I ran around not knowing what to do. They said on the news we should get in our shelters or closets, but I was scared to go down in the shelter alone with the girls. About ten minutes after that storm passed over me, it touched down about 5 miles north of me. It stayed on the ground for about 10 minutes and damaged over 50 homes but no one was seriously injured. While that one was still on the ground the siren went off again. They had another storm cell just south of me and moving my way. That one passed over without actually turning into a tornado. Then the first storm touched down again in the county north of us. Right after that, our siren went off for a third time. There were two more storm cells just south of me coming right at us. The first of the two touched down for only a few minutes, damaged some businesses and apartments and then weaked and disappeared. By the time it got anywhere close to me it was already just a thunderstorm again. After that the storms all weakened and pushed north.

The very first tornado that touched down about 5 miles from me was an EF-2. Around 7pm that night another huge tornado touched down in the southern part of the state. That one wasn't close to us at all, but very destructive. It was on the gound for over an hour. It was 1/2 mile wide, and it killed 8 people so far and injured many. They classifed it as an EF-4 (which is really huge), it had winds over 100 mph. They said it was the 7th deadliest tornado to ever hit Oklahoma. And all of this comes a month before the actual tornado season is supposed to start. Yikes!! It was scary for me, but we are fine. We didn't even get hit with the big hail.

Hail that fell during these storms. Up to the size of baseballs in some areas

The EF-4 right before it touches down.

some of the damage from the EF-4

This is a link to a video of the EF-2 (the closest one to me)
Link to this video



More destruction from the EF-4


Fun Facts: The movie "Twister" was filmed in Oklahoma in Wakita, Ok. And Oklahoma City has one of the highest rates of tornadoes.

Randomness

Lately I've really been thinking how sorry I feel for poor little Brinkley and how neglected she is compared to how much attention Ady got (and still gets). Poor little dolly. She is so sweet and patient mostly, and it just makes me feel worse that I can't give her the attentions I want to give her. It also makes me feel sorry for myself...I mean I was the youngest of five. I have like two pictures from my babyhood days, I think that translates to very little attention. I'm so sad for me and for all children who aren't born first. I really do love my second one just as much, but it's so hard to give them equal attention (specially when the older one screams as loud as she does).

Air Force Update

I just wanted to let everyone know what is going on with Zack and the Air Force. We finally heard back from the recruiter, and Zack was picked up as an alternate. He's number 23 on the alternate list. What this means is that all the scholarships were already given away (he was late for the first deadline because of the whole being a women thing and having to have a "sex change") and so now if an incoming dental student doesn't get accepted to school, then that scholarship goes to an alternate. We're still hopeful that he'll get in; the recruiter said they got to alternates in the 50's last year, so we'll keep our fingers crossed and keep praying for the best.