Surviving the Storm

Last night was absolutely frightening. At about 12:45 a.m. we had a storm come through Edmond and it was AWFUL! I have seriously never been so scared in my life. Our power went out and that woke me up. Then the storm hit us with literally the worst lightening and thunder storm I have ever experienced. I thought we were in the middle of a hurricane. The wind was blowing so hard against our windows I thought our house might fall down. The thunder was shaking our house and the lightening seemed like it was right in our yard. I went into Gavin's room to check on him and he was sound asleep. Since the power was out, my video monitor was off so I had to keep going into his room to check on him. I was having an internal struggle with myself because part of me wanted to bring him into our room so I knew he was safe but the other part saw how sound asleep he was and I didn't want to disturb him. So in the end I just ended up staying in his room and watching the raging storm outside. It was lightening so bad that the entire sky stayed lit up for I swear 30 minutes. The winds were blowing over 60 miles an hour and they said that there were 1200 lighting strikes in Edmond alone. YIKES! And just as quick as it came, it was over. No more wind, no more rain. Just silence. It was eerie.

Radar of the storm right before it hit us

So without power, we had nothing to do but try and sleep. I still can't believe Gavin slept through all of that. He never even stirred. We woke up a few hours later to a very stuffy house. I sweat half my body weight when the air conditioner is working. You can imagine how I was with it off. We walked outside and it was so nice. A very comfortable 70 degrees. That sort of temperature seems like a fairy tale around here these days. But our street was chaotic. Garbage cans everywhere. Chad's grill was half way across our yard. It is in pieces. Our neighbor's trampoline is completely gone. Chad found it way down the road when he left for work. He said it was destroyed. I had two huge flower pots in front of our house and they were gone. Of course tree branches and trash were everywhere. Roof shingles were all over the place. And someone around here drinks a heck of a lot of Sierra Mist because we had a ton of cans all over our yard and on our porch. It was just crazy!

All I kept thinking about was how I wasn't going to be able to stand it much longer without air conditioner. Gavin was already getting fussy because he was hot and having to manually rock his swing was just a pain in the butt. I was already forming a plan to go to Starbucks for my morning coffee since I couldn't make my own when I walked out into the garage. I immediately panicked. My car was in the garage. The garage door is closed. How was I going to leave with the garage opener not working?!? I yelled at Chad. "How am I going to leave?? I can't stay here!" He just looked at me and shook his head. "Claire, just open the door." "I can't!! The opener isn't working!!" "Do it with your HANDS!" I was SO prepared to argue with him and I just stopped in mid sentence. Oh. In my defense, I have never had a garage before so the fact that it can be manually operated is news to me. Chad is really just in disbelief at my naivety sometimes.  
So anyways, we survived the terrible storm that blew through here. Our power has come back on and I didn't have to take refuge at the mall after all. Darn!

Sleeping through a storm can be very tiring.