Project 366: Days 105-106

The news wasn't kidding when they said we would have an eventful day on Saturday, April 14. They weren't specifically referring to our day, but I'll get to that part later. Our day started with Michael running a 5k. He is training to run a half marathon in September, Run for the Rocks and he wanted to see how he would do.

 When we left the house at 7:30, it was fairly nice outside. It was overcast, but temperatures were in the mid-60s. Then the wind picked up and it got cold!

 

 

 Michael is in the white shirt and navy shorts. 

His sergeant is behind him in the grey and navy.

After the race, we went home and put on some warmer clothes. A friend had organized a community clean up day along the Arkansas River (or as we say, the ARE-Kansas). I thought it would be a good opportunity to talk to Tate about cleaning up after yourself. I didn't exactly plan very well. I figured Tate would find some "treasures" for art projects, so we took his treasure bag and we also took a trash sack. I wish I would have had a bag for trash and one for recycle. That would have been a good part of the lesson too.

 Tate chose bottle caps as his treasure. I asked him what his plans for them were and he said he wanted to paint them bright colors, bury them in Mimi's and Papa's sandbox so he could dig them up!

Mayer got put in the Ergo after this picture so he didn't end up IN the river!

After lunch with the in-laws, it was time for Tate's soccer game.

I timed my shots pretty good. He was running full speed to the ball... and straight into the pack! He got pretty serious for a minute because he really wanted to score a goal, but never really lost the excited look on his face. I could definitely use a different lens for sports shots.

Now to address the part where the news said we were going to have an eventful day. The meteorologists were predicting some very severe weather for Tornado Alley and they were correct. There were 121 reported tornadoes and 96 were in Kansas! This is a great chronology of events.Wikipedia also has a long list.

We went to my parents' house to celebrate my sister-in-law's birthday. My niece, Lily, knew that we were supposed to have some severe weather, so she decided the fairies needed a storm shelter too.

Lily and the fairy garden

The Fairies' storm shelter

 We took the kids to the basement to "do some art" (aka so they don't freak out just in case the sirens go off). After basement time, the boys helped Mimi clean up cake crumbs (by vacuuming the table). Then it was early bedtime for my boys since they hadn't had naps. Since I had put some bedding in our basement and was prepared, I figured we wouldn't have to go down there. I was right. We escaped any severe weather.
My in-laws weren't as lucky! They had tickets to the Miranda Lambert concert in Wichita and had decided to go since most of the severe weather seemed to be staying to the north. Around 10 PM, it was apparent a viloent storm cell, including tornado was headed for the city of Wichita. At one point, it was tracking directly towards Intrust Bank Arena where the concert was being held. Thankfully, it stayed south of the downtown, but an EF3 tornado still did some major damage to the southeast section of the city. Here's a decent video of the tornado shot by a storm chaser.
There has been some amazing footage captured of various tornadoes and funnel clouds. Thanks to the storm chasers and the meteorologists, everyone had plenty of advanced warning and there were no deaths reported in the state of Kansas.

 Day 106: Calmer weather

The boys learned to play duck, duck, GOOSE!