All in a day's weather

The cliches about Texas weather are so old and tired, I'm not even going to go there. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:

Here we are at the park after school today. It is partly sunny and a bit windy, but nothing this crew can't handle!!

Here Emma swings like a champ!!

Landry likes to swing at just faster than a stop!!

Abbee, Parker, and Luke look for tadpoles!
Emma had the fabulous idea for her and Landry to pose in front of the fountain!! Great idea, Emma!!

But as soon as we got home from baseball practice, the weather changed dramatically!!

In all my wisdom and years on this earth, I have observed that in every couple, there is usually one person who is typically more calm about storm situations and one person who, I'll just say, isn't so calm! I don't want to name any names, but I'm usually calm!!

My calmness found me in the closet under the stairs with four different levels of scared little boys. Alex was the voice of reason and coolness - very mature and helpful with the younger boys. Parker alternated between panic and being ok. Luke was totally and completely freaked out at all times!! Landry just seemed inconvenienced by the whole thing!!

When I got in the closet, they had taken my whole basket of clothes that needed to be ironed (and there are many!) and had strewn them all across themselves, in an effort to shield them from the upcoming damage from the F7 tornado. It was quite a site!

Alex asked if we could pray so the two older boys and I prayed that God would calm the storm and keep us safe. I mentioned in my prayer about the time in the Bible that it was storming and Jesus said, Peace be still. So, after we all prayed, Alex asked if he could read that story in the Bible. He read it and we talked about Jesus' words that calmed the storm.

Miraculously, Scott came in after we prayed and read and said that the worst of the storm was over!! So, I was able to talk with the boys about the power of prayer and how God had heard their cries for help!

Now, if all prayers were answered like that, wouldn't that be cool??

To keep this really long post going a little longer, here are some pics from during and after the storm!

This is the hail that really looked like snow!!

Here are some of the after effects:

And one of the worst parts of the storm is that this now lays in the ditch in front of our house.

I thought it was so funny when this happened to Emily (see here) but now, it's not so funny!!

The saddest part of the storm was what it did to my daisies!! I was so excited about how they were looking. They struggled all last spring and summer and had about 3 flowers, at the most. But they survived the winter and came back strong. This is what they looked like just a few days ago. There are 3 plants and each one had 15-20 buds!! So excited to see what they would look like in full bloom!!

Here's what they look like now!! Darn storm!!

My car took a pretty good beating so we'll have to see what we're going to do with that. All in all, we survived this storm and I think we all learned a lot in the process!!