Pics of the Tornado

Welcome to Kansas

We arrived in Kansas on a Sunday night. On Wednesday we had a severe thunderstorm that really scared the kids....loud thunder, lots of lightning but that was about it. I explained to then that if it got bad the sirens would sound and we would go to the shelter. On Thursday we were hit with severe thunderstorms and then...the dreaded sirens indicating a tornado warning. Now for those of you who are not familiar with the terms..that is an indication that either a tornado has been spotted heading your way, or a storm that has produced tornadoes already in its path and is still indicating patterns of a tornado touching down is heading your way. Either way you are to immediately take shelter.

Now you may be surprised to hear this....but I am TERRIFIED of tornadoes. We have lived in Alabama and Texas in the past so we are not strangers to these storms. However, now my kids are old enough to understand so I have to put the brave face on. So we were staying in temporary housing and their storm shelter was the laundry room which was partially underground. When the sirens started the storm didnt yet appear to be anything to worry about. In fact Ben, who had not been sleeping well was sleeping soundly as were the kids. So what to do? I didnt want to scare them unnecessarily if the storm shifted paths. I looked outside and discussed with the neighbors across the hall what they planned to do. At this point the sirens turned off. I decided to go back in and wait and see. About ten minutes later there was a knock at my door. To my surprise the sirens were back on and I hadn't even heard them. At any rate the neighbor informed me there was a tornado spotted heading straight for us (about 10-15 minutes away). I decide I must wake up Ben. He totally thought I was kidding. I explained to him that there was no way I would wake him knowing how hard of a time he had falling asleep if this were not real emergency. He listens to the radio and decides that we do need to head to the shelter. Waking the kids was no easy task. I realized then I could not wait til the last minute with three sleeping kids. Just as we got to the top of the stairs for the shelter a huge bolt of lighting hit close to us and the thunder clapped so loudly I literally caught air when I jumped. We all made it safely to the shelter along with many other families and their pets. It was so noisy inside we could barely hear the storm. We had a radio and were trying to listen to find out where the storm was. Most of the explanations seemed as if it was literally on the post. Turns out it just hit the neighboring towns. It hopped over us. It hit SW Manhattan which is about 5 minutes from where we were. It hit a new home subdivision and about 30 homes were destroyed and only foundations remaining. KSU in downtown Manhattan also received a lot of damage. We later learned that it almost completely wiped out the city of Chapman (60-80% of the town was destroyed). The next day we went out to see the damage and found that Ben's fraternity (his chapter was at Weber State) house had lost their roof. He volunteered to help remove their belongings in case it rained again that evening. He also helped clean up the grounds a bit. The pics I am posting are from Manhattan. It was amazing to see the destruction in person. Thank goodness there were no fatalities in Manhattan. In Chapman there was one death..the man was found outside his mobile home. I met two police officers from Chapman as I was searching for a home. They had just rented a townhouse. Both families were in their basements at the time of the storm. It did give me peace to hear that is something you can survive.

Along the Way

Well we made it to Fort Riley late Sunday night. We saw some interesting things along the way that I thought I would share with you. Our first days drive was pretty uneventful and even though we got off to a late start we met our goal of making it most the way through Ohio.

Day two was a different story. We hit some flash flooding in Indiana. You may have seen it on the news. It was incredible to be driving through it and see the havoc it caused. If you look at the first pic i took that from the interstate. I-70 actually got closed at parts due to flooding on the road so we took a detour Ben navigated for us. That picture is of a field of crops now mostly under water. We listened to the local station while driving through, one woman called to ask for assistance in saving her cattle, They had rescue HumVs out and there was a report that one of them got carried off in the rising water.

Next just by chance we came upon the Cahokia Mounds in Illinois. I had never heard of them but my history buff Husband has. They are ancient Indian homes and burial grounds that have been grown over through the years...so they just look like odd shaped hills. I included a pic of one and then another view where you can climb stairs to the top of it.

We then came upon the St.Louis arch and spent some time there along the Mississippi river. It was amazing how BIG and powerful that river is. The arch was beautiful....massive once you are right under it!

We stopped that night in Columbia Missouri as we wanted a good nights sleep and we promised the kids we would have a fun day to thank them for being so good in the car. We spent the day at Science City at Union Station in Kansas City Missouri. They had a blast...then we finished our drive out to Fort Riley. Just before we got there we hit one more bad storm complete with Hail. We had to pull off because it was hard to see. Ben finally got his Sirius radio installed and that sure came in handy for this storm as he learned it was pretty stationary and the only way to get out of it would be to drive out. So we went slow with our hazard lights on and within five minutes we were in the clear. Looking in our rear view mirrors we could see this horrible black cloud of a storm that we had just been in. It looked very intimidating and I was so glad to be going away from it!

Anyway We will update you more when we have more time...we have severe weather on the way here tonight so I am going to turn off the computer to save it from the lightning! Stay Safe everyone and know we miss you!

Gettin the FROG outta here.....

One for the TOAD......(or should I say toads....6 in our case). We have a rentention pond in our back yard and with that pond means plenty of amphibians. It is very musical at night. One night Kellie was coming in and saw what she thought was a rock by our front door. Then the rock jumped and she realized it was a toad. She begged and pleaded and before we knew it we were heading to the pet store to buy supplies for our new pet, "Rocky". A few days later she coaxed the neighbor boy out of pet number two "Warts", before I knew it we had six in all.....we had to really put a stop to it or we may have had twenty. The others are Legs, Hopper, Jumper and Tiny. With no real way to transport them we decided to let the toads go in a nearby stream. The kids were troopers about it and I promised them we could get a new frog or toad once we get settled in our new place. I have attached pics of the kids with our pets who were thrilled to get away from them and into their new home. We could not put them back in the original pond as we have a neighbor kid who likes to catch and dissect them with his buddies. So we had to at least attempt to keep them safe! Right now it literally looks like a plague with all the toads and frogs around...the tadpoles just hatched and their are tiny frogs and toads everywhere! They look like little crickets they are so small and their are hundreds in our yard. Good thing we don't mind em too much....but it is getting ridiculous! It is so cute Olivia just runs over and picks them up. Last night we were getting ready to run an errand and she innocently looks up at me and says...."Mom, I don't have a frog in my hand." I notice her clenched fist and and find what I knew all along....she had a little friend she wanted to keep!

Packers are here today....Movers come tomorrow and we are off on Friday! Keep in touch!

Surprise Party!!!

Last night I threw a suprise going away party for Ben. The Army doesn't really do that sort of thing and I wanted to make sure he realized that he WILL be missed. The problem was, as usual, I planned it all VERY last minute so several of our friends already had plans. We had a great turn out though and had so much fun!

The funny part was that Ben was really getting upset with me because I was being such a control freak about what, where and when we were going to go out. He even started driving to a different restaraunt because the one we were supposed to go to (that I already had reservations for and guests waiting at) looked rather busy. I talked him into turning around and seeing what the wait time was. When we went it to the restaraunt I asked about the wait time and he suggested just waiting at the bar (as that was where the tvs were and all sporting events were being broadcasted at) finally I said "Well maybe we should just go back to the party room and see whats going on there".....to which he responded "You don't want to go to the bar and watch the boxing match?", I said "No, I think we should go and check out the Miller Party"...then I just started walking back there....finally he started to clue in. Its also funny to note that just prior to that we were dripping sweat helping his parents move. We had stopped at Wal-Mart and I picked up some deodorant and asked if he wanted to...his reply...."Who do I have to impress?" Poor Ben, he was really wishing he had not been THAT suprised! Still we had a great time! Thanks to those that came (and a special thanks to Heather and Christine for helping me to get the word out!). And to those that couldn't...you were missed...but we understand! XOXO