It's a Twister, It's a Twister

Let's just say Friday was very very interesting!

Friday started out great. Claire and I went to some yard sales with my mom. I got some great deals on kid books. Claire's library is getting bigger! My mom then dropped Claire and I at my parent-in-law's house. My mother-in-law, sister-in-law, niece, nephew, grandma, and two cousins from Florida all decided to venture to the beach. We decided to stop at a little hot dog stand right by the beach for lunch. It was super hot out so we ate our lunch faster than normal. We got to the beach and were already sweating as soon as we got out of the car. We finally got to the beach and found a great shady spot under a tree. We all went down to water and the coolness of Lake Michigan felt great because of the humidity of the day. I call Claire my little "water whore" because she loves water but only warm "bath" like water so she sat on my lap and enjoyed the view. The kids played, ran up and down the sand dunes, and had some snacks. All of a sudden the lifeguard blew their hone and said, "out of the water due to lightening strike!" Everyone exited and luckily grandma was listening to the cubs game so she heard that we were in a thunderstorm warning. We packed up pretty quickly and made it to the beach shelter right before it started raining. It rained for a second and then it stopped. We thought that was it! We made it back to our cars, when my brother-in-law called and said "it's bad and it's coming your way!" We were all a little scared as we exited the beach!
As my sister-in-law, niece, Claire and I were turning on to highway 20/12, I mentioned how weird it looked and was wondering if we were in any other type of warning. Not three seconds after I said that, I saw what looked like "smoke". I mentioned to my sister-in-law that it looked like "smoke" was coming our way. She said, "that's not smoke!" She called her mom and said, "I know what it is, pull over now!" She pulled over on the road and my sister-in-law and I pulled into a parking lot. It was a tornado and it was coming straight at us. All we could do was pray and hope that we would be okay. We say the tornado coming at us, the trees bent sideways, the derby was flying all over and all of the sudden the wind picked up. The SUV shook like crazy and we just sat their in silence. Finally it started to clear but the rain and wind stayed.
We felt comfortable to start moving again, making our way back to the expressway. We were following my mother-in-law as we got on the entrance ramp to interstate 94 when all of a sudden she stopped. We didn't know what she was doing but as we looked down the road we saw why. There was a huge tree blocking the road so we all had to turn around and take the back roads home. The wind was crazy, the rain was coming down in buckets, there was flooded roads - it was a crazy mess outside! Mother Nature wasn't messing around! Finally the weather started to clear and the rain slowed. We all made it home safe and sound. Sadly, when we arrived at my in-laws house they had no power! Power didn't return until the next morning!

Friday was an adventure, one for the baby book for sure!