Texas Tornadoes

Recently we moved to a different suburb of Dallas, and we are LOVING it in our new place. We feel like we're in a little oasis of beautiful houses and parks. Perhaps it's because there hasn't been any Texas summer weather since we've been here, just perfect-mid-70s weather. Yeah, perfect weather, ahem. Except for one little incident. I'll get back to that later.

As I was saying, we love it here. The people we've met and befriended are incredible. We have three bedrooms (yay!) which makes bedtime lovely. We have a ton of ward members in our apartment complex and lots of friends Cruise and McLayne's ages. One of my favorite things is that I can walk or jog to several playgrounds, the library, a huge jogging path around a lake full of ducks, and a water-park. Heck, I could even walk to church and the grocery store if I wanted. Having that kind of jogging stroller freedom makes me grin. Especially in 75 degree weather. We'll see if I am walking to any parks in June.

So, the "incident" I referred to was the tornado/hailstorm we had a couple weeks ago. We were watching the storm's progress on the news and saw one tornado heading right to us. One of my friends who lives upstairs came down to our apartment because it's best to be in the lowest place available. Eric moved one of our cars under covered parking. Only one. I don't know what we were thinking, but I guess something like, what could really happen?

When the sirens started going off we were like, okay, do we really go in the bedroom and sit on the bed and be ready to go in the walk-in closet? Do I really wake the kids up from their naps and bring them in with us? =) Does the risk outweigh the pain?? (Just kidding!)

We sat there a little while and then the hail started hitting. We immediately grabbed the kids and went in the bedroom. About 2 minutes later a piece of hail broke McLayne's window. (Don't worry, it was just a small pane. But still.) The sound of the hail coming down was thunderous...and the thunder was even more so...haha...we looked out at the pond in front of our place and it looked like a blizzard of baseballs crashing into the water. It was a crazy sight. The ground was completely white in minutes. The power went out. Note: it's important to not depend on lighting to find your matches. After about 20 minutes the hail stopped.

Thank heaven the tornado didn't touch down on us.

Unfortunately the cars in our complex sustained a ton of damage. Many were totaled. I'm sure the car we left uncovered would have been deemed "totaled" but since we didn't have insurance to cover the damage anyway, we just got the necessities fixed quickly and now admire the new "character" it has. In other words, picture what a car would look like if it had acne really severely as a teenager--that's what it looks like. Cute. The front and back windshields were shattered as well as the inside rearview mirror and one of the side view mirrors.

The view from Cruise's bedroom

This is a piece of hail after it had been melting for an hour (and keep in mind it was almost 80)--and I didn't try to find the biggest one, either. 20% of them were that big.

All considered, I think I'd choose an earthquake.