Auntie-Em Auntie-Em

Last night was  interesting. My girls and I are quite the weather buffs. We love storms, track hurricanes and are obsessed with tornadoes. On any given afternoon Emma is outside studying the clouds. She watches their form and will let you know where the storm is coming from. Its no surprise that I will make sure we spend a lot of time this coming year learning about weather patterns across the world. Last night was no different. I decided to take the kids for a quick swim before Jason came home. It was about 3 p.m. They swam for about 45 minutes. I noticed how unusually windy it was. I stopped swimming and sat by our table to make sure the wind didn't flip the umbrella over. The clouds came and went and small rolls of thunder could be heard. No big deal. This is how summer is in the Upstate... well, SC in general. Its really hot during the day and a small passing storm in the evening. Emma was the first to point out the changing weather. We scurried out of the pool and headed home. We quickly forgot about the storm and continued on with our evening. Jason came home, dinner was consumed and baths were given. The older girls played with friends outside till it was time to come in for showers. Around 7:30 Jason put the babies to bed and the older girls waited for their ice cream. I stepped outside because I saw some flickers of lightning. Jason joined me and we sat on our patio in awe. We saw the dark clouds quickly move in and could not keep up with all of the ground strikes... Then things started changing. In a blink of an eye it was black, the wind was so strong and the thunder got worse. We just looked at each other and knew this was not going to be a simple storm. Jason ran outside to make sure all toys were put away. The rain came down and the wind blew even stronger. At this point it just seemed too dangerous to stay out. We gathered by our big LV window and watched as the tree blew sideways and things flew through the air. I turned on channel 4 for any weather warnings. The girls were scared . The lightning was so strong and bright we closed the curtains and watched tv until it blew over us. The night was exciting to say the least. Do we get tornadoes you ask? Well technically we don't BUT for some reason they seem to blow thru all the time. Hmmm, makes me wonder. But don't worry. I will train my kids well and pretty soon we will be able to predict our own forecasts and never be caught off guard again!

P.S- This picture was taken seconds before the storm changed and we ran for cover...