We're Still Here!

Hello Everyone! We are doing just fine here in Oklahoma. As most of you know, we got to try out our storm shelter for the first official time last night. I must say, being in one gives you a sense of security no bathtub with a mattress on top ever could.

I was actually at the girls school when the weather started getting hairy, doing my usual volunteer shift in the library. The weather was bad on the other side of OKC, so the sirens we going off, but there wasn't that much going on where we were. All the sudden there was a real pickup in activity in the school, because all these people had come to pick up their kids - the weather was heading towards us with baseball-sized hail, so folks didn't want to be stuck in the pickup line for a long time. Anyway, it was my intention just to stay until the end of school - after all, there is learning to be done, and it was still 40 minutes before dismissal! Before long though, it was apparent that there was no learning being done, with the administration trying to get kids to parents and not have the whole school be in chaos. The librarian told me just to grab the girls and go home, so I joined the queue of parents stretching out the front doors of the school and got the girls and we headed home.

By the time we got home the sky was black and the sirens were going off, so we grabbed the cat and got in our storm shelter (a.k.a. the hidey-hole). The girls were pretty perturbed, but calmed down once we were all in there. When the sirens stopped I told the girls I was going to go in and look at the radar, and they could come out. I heard their little feet going back and forth in the background while I watched the TV, and when I went back out there, they had put every blanket, pillow and stuffed animal from their room down in the shelter:

There were a few more storms to pass that way, so we watched the radar and whenever it got close and the sirens went off, we went and sat in the shelter. Once everything had passed we started out homework, and the calls from family started rolling in. By the time my sister called, I just answered the phone, "Yes, we're okay!" She said I sounded irritated that all of them cared enough to see if we were still there. It really wasn't that I was irritated - well, at least not about that. We were doing math homework! Anyway - thanks to all of you for checking on us. We're touched that so many of you thought about us!