Eddi Girl: Storm Damage & Blondie Day

We recently had tornadoes tear through our small town & the towns & cities around us. It was a terrifying night with Ginger Girl clinging to me, while I watched the wall of the storm go around our house. We are very lucky that all we got out of the storm that night was a ton of rain, thunder, & lightning. In the morning I found pieces of trees in places they didn't belong in our yard, but others weren't so lucky. Thankfully no deaths, & surprisingly fewer injuries than expected, resulted from this storm.

Downed trees
lined streets.

I have a tradition with my kids that they get their own shopping day before school starts. It's their day, just the 2 of us & we have a lot of fun. I hate shopping, but I love those days alone with each child. Blondie Day had been on the calendar for weeks & it fell 2 days after the storm hit.

We had to drive the path the storm took & it was a horrific sight. We had no words as we drove past cars flipped over, houses missing roofs, huge trees ripped from the ground, farms demolished, & my neighbor's church completely destroyed.

There are no words when
you see this in person.

Pieces of a farm torn apart.

This is parts of a shed, 2 miles from
where it originally stood.

Utility companies have
worked nonstop for days.

Driving down the highway, you could see the curvy path of the tornadoes as each took down everything in its way, leaving some things unharmed & others ruined beyond recognition.

Blondie took a ton of pictures with my phone on the 40 minute drive to the stores she had picked out. There was just so much unbelievable devastation. Due to the sensitive nature of these pictures, I chose not to share the worst pictures & to only post a few pictures that didn't show any identifying information (street names, house numbers, people's faces, etc.)

I love my phone camera. It takes awesome pictures & I adore the front facing function. I'm not the only one who appreciates that feature. I frequently go through my pictures to find some child had gotten a hold of it & turned the camera on themselves. Those are pretty entertaining.

While Blondie was taking pictures of the storm damage, I happened to notice that she was also being sneaky, flipping the camera back & forth. She got some awesome pictures of the 2 of us in the process.

I have NO clue where she
gets this from.

When I caught on to
her picture taking, I
played along. Naturally.

Awesomeness.
Pure awesomeness.

I need to learn to get the timing down
for this photobomb thing.

I got it that time.

And that time.

Normal people don't do
this in the car, you say?

Proud to be not normal.

My beautiful 13 year old Blondie.

This is the face she made at a lady
stopped in the lane next to us
at a stop light. Poor lady.

It's just as attractive upside down.

I can't really say that I don't understand her love of the selfies. And really, I was left alone with a camera & empty fitting rooms. Blondie was the only occupant in all those fitting rooms. I mean, what was I supposed to do with my time while she tried on all the clothes?