A storm...the likes of which we've never seen before

First, before I continue trying to catch up with myself, I want to give a shout out to my mama and my papa as it was their 33rd anniversary yesterday. We had them, John Paul and our very own progenitor - grandpa g - over for lunch this afternoon. Afterwards we watched most of the opening ceremony of the Olympics that I had recorded earlier...for those of you who saw them, let me just say WOW!!! Just as mom and dad were leaving I had them strike a pose. Those crazy kids!Alright, back to my regularly scheduled catch-up...On Monday, yes, that's last Monday, we went to my friend Erin's mom and dad's house in South Bend to swim for the day. When we got up it was quite dark outside and there was to be scattered showers throughout the day. Well, the kids were already pumped about going swimming, so we were going to take our chances. There was no rain all morning, until just as we started loading the kids up and then wouldn't you know it, a torrential downpour. Oh my word was it crazy!!!

It was just over 65 miles to get there which ended up being plenty of time for the rain to come and go, which it did. Not even 10 minutes after getting to Erin's parents house it stopped raining and the sky even started to reveal some pretty blue. Eden started out a tad bit shy, but it wasn't too long before she was jumping in the water like a pro. What's with the legs? None of the kids know how to swim as we don't have access to a pool that often, but Elijah was determined to learn anyhow. He decided to take off his floaties and see what would happen when he jumped in. I got in the deep end and waited for him, just in case he needed assistance. As he is swimming, he looks as though he is struggling, but he made it from the diving board all the way to the shallow end of the pool. Not bad for a kid who has only been swimming a small handful of times ever. I don't trust his ability to swim completely yet, so he had to put his floaties back on after a few rounds of free swimming.

My little football player, his little brother ObiWan Kenobi and Jackson and Abby. What a little crew.

Let's not forget Ty-Ty and Makenna, the dynamic duo of disaster. They fight like brother and sister half the time and get along like best friends the other half. It's an interesting relationship those two...

We decided to go home after dinner so that those who didn't nap would be ok to fall asleep on the way home without ruining them for bedtime. Tim called me as we were 45 minutes from home to tell me of some crazy storms going on in Chicago with tornadoes and tons of rain and lightning. He said drive as fast as you can until you hit the rain then drive as slow as you can. We didn't hit any bad weather until we were withing 1 mile of home and then the rain came as heavy as that morning, but with all the wind of a growing tornado. Freaky! My orders were to go immediately down to the basement. Ugh!

For those of you who know me, going to the basement stairs was the furthest thing from my mind, but when big daddy speaks, I listen. So, here we are with my 5 kids, Erin and her 3 and some blankets. No one was about to move, except for me. I wanted my camera and to see what was going on outside. The lightning was amazing to say the least. It was continual and I thought for sure I was going to see some in my own front yard. We lost power for a few seconds...long enough for Micah to fall down a couple of steps that started a chain reaction of kids crying, most of them for no reason other than someone else was...20 minutes or so later we got up and Erin took her kids home (they live less than a mile away as the crow flies).

Tim has to stay downtown Chicago once a month for a mass recording session of InContext with Michael Easley and Bob Lepine, and tonight happened to be the night, so our lucky kids got to sleep in our room with Micah in our closet, but that didn't leave much room for me. I went ahead and stayed up for a bit to watch some TV before bed, but by around 11:15 I took the 3 younger kids to their own beds and went to bed myself. At 12:15 I woke up to Levi in my room crying and Titus at the top of the stairs crying because there was another wave of the storm, this one sounding more fierce than the first. You know how sometimes you feel as though God is allowing something to happen for the sole purpose of you to personally learn something. I don't believe God was too impressed with my lack of concern for the kids and my arogant attitude toward the storm and all, so He decided to give me a bit more storm to endure and put a little fear/respect for His power in my heart. I thought for sure that something was going to come through Elijah's bedroom window during that second wave. I voluntarily (that's saying a lot!!!) brought all the kids back down to my bed and I slept at the end of the bed until morning. What a night!!!

Does anyone believe that I was a tad crabby the next day??? Naaah...