AUGUST 24th

Not only is today my second day of freedom, which despite the lack of knowing whether or not an alarm clock was going to go off this morning (I'll explain more), but it has been a very successful day so far... AND it's Colin's 12th birthday!!!!  Just last week we reminisced about his "FIRD" birthday party, which was a swimming party at my parents' house.  We've come a LONG way since then!

Well, yesterday about 5:19 I started receiving the "Severe Thunderstorm Warning" texts on my phone.  It sure was a nice break from the 50 "Heat Advisory" texts I receive each and EVERY day.  But these thunderstorm warnings are so often that I just shrug them off despite receiving about 20.

SIDENOTE: I only subscribe to receive the weather texts just to receive the heads up if there's tornado type weather... imagine trying to collect 3-5 kids and 5 animals (bc I know the kids would not rest easy if all the animals weren't safe too) once you've got the "train" headed straight towards your house.  Just wouldn't happen.  So, I suffer through the enormous numbers of monotonous texts telling me the same things I already know... just to be safe when we really need to be.

So, when the storm hit yesterday it was actually quite surprising because it was quite a STORM!  The trees were scratching the roof of the garage and for those of you who know how tall our trees are in the back yard... know just how shocking this is!  I actually felt the need to keep the kiddos away from the windows in the house, which can be hard to do with all our windows!  It really felt as though Ike was ripping through our neighborhood again (and the amount of debris on the ground made it look like it too!) but there was no tornado, despite many people believing there was.  I would be really mad if there was because if there was one that close to me and I didn't get pictures of it.. well, I'd be really upset! =)
If I wasn't a MOM, I'd definitely be a STORMCHASER!!!!!  =)

Well, the storm left just as quickly as it came (taking our power with it - for 8 HOURS!  It wasn't even out that long with Ike!) leaving us with a double rainbow. The girls just had to see it... right after their shower!  ahhaha!!!

Aedin in her towel with the rainbows!

Dylin in her towel with the rainbows!!

So with the power out, and my phone dead, I had no way of setting an alarm clock for this morning.  Fortunately, Terry had a battery powered alarm clock for us to use.  Otherwise, we'd probably be crawling out of bed right now, hoping that school had been cancelled because they didn't have power too.  Oh, wishful thinking.  HA!

Off to figure out with to do for the preteen's birthday tonight!!!