I had big plans to go swimming last Tuesday and my friend, Steph, told me that her husband was sent home early from work because the conditions were perfect for another "May 3rd" tornado. Little did I know that the May 3rd tornado wiped out an entire town in Oklahoma with an F5 tornado. Josh was sent home a little early from work also and suggested that we prepare and pack the car. SERIOUSLY? Is it going to get that bad that my husband, who has lived here his whole life, told me to pack some of our most important things? I started to get a little nervous.

I packed the hard drive, camera gear, fire safe box, an extra change of clothes and got the dogs prepared to load into the car if the tornado came within 30 minutes of us. It was weird to have time to prepare in case our house was wiped out. I love all of my cute worldly things, but strangely wasn't attached to them enough to take anything more into the car... not even anything from Solomon's room. 

I gassed up, got some Wendy's (with a chocolate frosty for my stress eating:) and when I got home we were glued to the TV for an hour before Mike and Laura came over. There was an F-4 wiping out El Reno, Piedmont and Guthrie and coming straight for Stillwater. We decided to go to the Sheriff's department instead of driving around and I sat in the "command" room in the basement and watched three spinning Ts with red circles around them approaching Stillwater. Luckily I couldn't hear anything down there; no hail, no wind, no creepy tornado sirens or rain. It was eerily calming. When we came out of the basement we heard that there were a few reports of damage but nothing too bad. I was relieved that our house was still standing, but as we began to drive around we saw huge trees down everywhere. 

The next day we heard of an F2 coming through south-western Stillwater and demolishing about 9 houses. This morning Life Church got together a group of about 45 volunteers to go out there and help the people pick up the pieces. I wasn't much help being 36 weeks pregnant, but was able to photograph and bring yummy donuts...