What a weekend. Friday was such a mess. Between a heavy work load, finalizing details with Gina and the hotel and having to get out of the office at 2:30 because of a 5:30 wedding, I was definitely looking forward to a few days off! {Which BTW, we still have not confirmed with the hotel if we will still be charged for the 2 additional days . . . the billing department has yet to call Tony back.}
It was great to see friends Friday night at the wedding. Sad to realize how old we are, although we'll gladly take it. The first dances were just getting under way at 9:30 when Tony and I packed up Isaac to go home. Nursing in public is growing increasingly more difficult, as Isaac
hates to be under the blanket. He just gets too warm after 5-10 minutes and will repeatedly break his latch, only to pop back on. His flailing arms aren't to be messed around with either lol!
Minnesota has been unseasonably cool recently, so the rush of warm air and humidity Saturday morning produced a pleasant early morning thunderstorm . . . although it did push out my planned run. This crazy girl attempted to complete a 9-10 mile run in the high humidity and 87 degrees at 12:00 noon. I finished out 5 miles, made a deal with myself that I would do 6-7 that night and called it a day.
Upon returning home to my two lounging boys, Tony got up and mowed our monstrosity of a jungle . . . while I did 2 loads of laundry, put away 4 loads of laundry, did the dishes, put away the dishes, swept and vacuumed. You better believe Tony got the evil eye when he only noted that I vacuumed lol!
My plans to run again were foiled by Tony's desire to lay some extra sod that my father in law had given us. I made peace with the fact that I wasn't going to run and we made plans to use the gift card my Mom gave us for our anniversary. The 3 year anniversary is apparently either crystal or leather and my Mom loves to put a little spin on the traditional gift. She opted for a gc to
T-Box Bar & Grill, as a gift card for a meal would be easy on our wallet {leather}. :)
We headed out a little later than we wanted, but got to Ham Lake around 8:00 or so and opted to sit out on the patio. The flowers they had were so beautiful! Tony was a little anxious about the rain clouds coming in, but I thought for sure that they would only produce a drizzle, if not missing us all together. As they got closer they grew more ominous and we agreed that we would move inside at the first rain drop. Within minutes our plan was acted on and we moved into the restaurant.
It's a fairly small restaurant, so the the bar and it's two tv's were plainly visible to all patrons and it was acutely obvious that we were in for more than a drizzle. Basically the whole central portion of Minnesota was under a tornado watch, which turned into a warning within minutes. Simultaneously the whole restaurant asked for their checks and boxes. We headed out the door as the sirens were blaring. Tony and I were both speaking with our Mom's trying to decide whether we should attempt to make it home or sit it out. We finally decided that a tiny ground level restaurant with good sized windows on all sides was not where we wanted to sit the storm out.
As we whipped down 65 we were unknowingly headed straight into the thick of the hook echo, the worst possible area we could be. I kept checking in with my Mom and she updated us that there were funnels that had touched down, as I impossibly tried to scan the dark clouds for a twister. I authorized Tony to run 3 red lights at intersections that were devoid of vehicles and we roared on home, all the while I was wishing I could do more to prep Isaac for the rush inside.
We finally made it home, just minutes before the hook was to travel over our house. We somehow managed to secure Isaac, the cats and the dog, a flashlight, weather radio and situate ourselves in front of the treadmill tv. Both of us were thankful that we had decided to turn the air on for the first time in months, as there was no need to scramble and close open windows. We settled in and waited for the impending hook, as it was honestly just minutes between our arrival and it's.
Unfortunately my mind played tricks on me for those 120 seconds, as I focused on the grill just outside the window. I kept waiting and envisioning it moving in the wind I felt sure would come.
And then it was over. And nothing happened. Remarkably, all of the touchdowns were minimal and there were no reported injuries. It took us awhile for our nerves to calm, but we finally ate our boxed meals around 10:00 or so and had crazy dreams that night!
Yesterday we went to our new church again, celebrated Tony's sister's birthday and our anniversary at my in laws and then made it home to complete our first family run! We kept toying with the idea of running a shorter distance, but finally decided to go full out and completed a 5 mile run with Isaac on his first jog! My brother even ended up joining us! It was pretty challenging, but Isaac did amazingly well.
After our family run, we joined my Mom for some dinner and had a great conversation. All in all it was a pretty fantastic weekend!
I'll have a picture post of Isaac to follow shortly! :)