In case you didn't know, the surrounding areas where I live were ravaged by tornadoes this past Wednesday. The storms came in waves, and just when I thought it would let up, another wave would come across the region. The kids and I ended up in the baby's closet, our "safe" place, two different times that day. We probably should've gone in there a third time when the wind blew our front door open and the branches of the tree in our front yard were completely horizontal to the ground, but we didn't. When all was said and done multiple tornadoes had ripped across the Tennessee Valley leaving so many people with out homes, cars, electricity, and more. This is what the National Weather Service charted for our area alone. This doesn't include north Georgia, which took a very hard hit, and the northeast corner of Alabama that was hit hard as well. Actually the entire north and central regions of Alabama were hit hard as well. It's just gut wrenching to see the destruction and the devastation that's left in its wake. We're extremely thankful to be home, safe, and with extreme minimal damage.
When I see what happened across the state of Alabama, and my heart hurts. It's still "home" in so many ways. All of my family is there, and many many friends as well. Thankfully, and I don't say that lightly, all of them are safe. This is video from the F5 that started in Tuscaloosa and stayed on the ground all the way to Birmingham (45 min. away), clearing a path at 1.5 miles wide.
So while trying to wrap my head around all of this, I've been extremely busy managing life. It truly does go on, and I've had to too.
The girls finished up ballet this week. It was a week filled with lots of driving to and from rehearsals that were 30+ min. away, photo shoots of many very pretty ballerinas (I was the official photographer ;) ), costumes, backdrops, tutus and make-up. And at last, today was the big day--recital day. They were so excited they were beside themselves!
It was Sarah Kate's first time to perform and she was just darling, grinning from ear-to-ear the whole time. (Can't you tell by her expression in the pic?) Caroline did very well too. She was determined to be in the correct spot every single time, it made me laugh. Seeing both of them up there dancing for the Lord brought huge amounts of joy to my heart! :D (And let me say, that while their hair HAS grown out, it's no where NEAR the length I needed it to be to put it in a bun. We had to fudge it, which is why poor Caroline's hair matches the color of the backdrop. Just imagine wet, slicked back, and FULL of bobby pins. hee!)
And then lastly, yesterday was the Royal Wedding. It's actually hard for me to wrap my head around the juxtaposition of all the glitz, and glamour of the royal wedding when I know that 5-10 miles down our street is shear devastation and people are without their homes. But I do have 2 little princesses at home, and honestly all the happiness and celebration was a nice getaway from everything else we were seeing on TV. So we watched the highlights of the wedding online. At one point Caroline said, "I want to see them kiss. It's SO womantic." I have NO CLUE where she got that, and while I was shocked that she said it, it DID make me giggle.
She also told me the other night that dinner was "scwumptious". Where in the world is she learning these big words?!
So anyway, that's been our week. Crazy, I know. One for the record books for sure and in more ways than one. And I wanted to document it here so that one day the girls would know exactly what it was like.
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