Weekend Recap

Hey y'all! We had quite an eventful weekend and Baron even had a surprise three day weekend! We were expecting rough weather on Friday afternoon so Baron went to work that morning to try to get a few hours in before the storms came through.  I sent Baron this picture and said, "We're ready for the tornadoes!"

Well imagine my surprise when at about 9 o'clock I heard tornado sirens!  I flipped on the TV and was instantly sent into a frenzy!  We were under a tornado warning and the weathermen were calling for people in my area to take cover.  I grabbed the dogs and my phone and hopped in the bathtub.  I called Baron and because they were reporting a tornado between the two of us, he stayed put while I waited in the bathroom with the dogs.

It was really scary and I may or may not have been crying on the phone with my husband.  Finally, after the worst was over, Baron raced home and we were glued to the TV for the rest of the day.  There was a break around lunchtime with no storms so we drove out to check on our new neighborhood and grab some lunch.  When we drove past our lot there was a huge truck dropping off a dumpster and a Porta-Potty!  The first action on our property, hooray!

There was another strong string of storms that went through that afternoon but thankfully we were safe.  I cannot wait until our storm shelter is built!!  This was the view from our apartment right before the second string of storms came though.  We were really lucky!

On Saturday we had plans to drive to Birmingham to see Flying Monsters at an IMAX theatre there.  Baron had the opportunity to help in the production of the film about two years ago so we were excited to see the finished product.  We had lunch at The Fish Market, in downtown Birmingham and it was really good!  It's hard to find good seafood in northern Alabama but we were impressed with this place.  Did it help that everything we ate was fried? Probably.

The best fried pickles I've ever had! Yum!  Baron was excited to see his movie!!

After lunch we headed to the theatre and settled in for the movie. Unfortunately none of the parts that Baron worked on made the final cut but it was still neat to see the final product, since he had gotten to see behind the scenes!

Sunday was a very lazy day, Baron made breakfast and was in the kitchen for a looooong time just to make a bagel, but I understood when he came forth with this little masterpiece.

How sweet!  I hope you all have a great Monday! 

Making an Emergency Kit

Welcome back friends!  Today I want to share with you how I put together an Emergency Preparedness Kit for our family.  I've been putting off assembling it because I was overwhelmed with how to make a decision about what should and shouldn't go into it.  I finally realized that something was better than nothing when it comes to an emergency so I should just jump right in!

I visited the FEMA website to get some ideas for our kit, then I headed to the store and dove right in!

First things first, water!  The FEMA website says that you need one gallon of water, per person, per day.  There's no way of knowing how many days you're emergency will last so just grab a bunch of water from your local grocery store and hope for the best.

I picked up four gallons of water to keep with our emergency kit.  We always have lots of bottled water, sodas, and sports drinks at our house so most likely we'll be able to use those too.  Did you know that water has an expiration date?!

Hmmm. My plan is to replace everything when the canned food expires.  So we may just end up having to drink expired water, I think we'll live.

Max is here with a friendly Public Service Announcement:

Speaking of pets, don't forget to pack some food for them!  Our dogs normally eat dry dog food, but it was easier to store and keep canned dog food.  I grabbed a few cans of their dog food and also picked up a bowl for them to use at the Dollar Store!  I was able to buy a lot of our supplies at the Dollar Store, which is nice because I didn't want to spend a lot of money on things I was hoping to never use!

I realize that three cans of dog food is not the equivalent to the seven days of food that FEMA recommends, but again, I'm just packing the bare minimum in our emergency kit.  In the case of a loss of power for a week at a time, we have other food that the dogs can eat.  The canned dog food would only be if we had to grab our emergency kit and leave our home to evacuate for some reason.

Okay, now that we've gotten the dogs taken care of, let's talk about human food.  Things like ravioli, fruit, and vegetables are easy things that don't need to be cooked in order to be scarfed down enjoyed in case of emergency.  I bought about ten cans of various items to have in our kit.

Along with all the canned food, you're going to want to have a can opener and utensils on hand, unless you want to do it cave man style and try to bust open cans of ravioli with a rock...no fun!  I found my can opener at the Dollar Store and threw in a couple plastic cutlery sets that we've collected along the way.  Things like garbage bags and wet wipes may come in handy too! 

The FEMA website suggests having a whistle to alert rescuers in a case where you are buried under a pile of ruble.  I couldn't find a real whistle but thought that this one (which sounds like a duck) would work just fine.  Let's just hope we never have to open up our emergency kit because I can just see my husband's face when we pull this out.  Ha!

Last but not least, you want to have plenty of candles and flashlights on hand!  These went into the kit last, so they would be easy to grab in the dark if necessary. 

I bought quite a few candles and flashlights (not all pictured) because I don't think you can ever have too much light in a case where you've lost power.  Make sure to have extra batteries and lighters on hand too.  If you choose regular matches you should put them in a Ziploc baggy to make sure they stay dry. 

I have a few more things to get for our kit, like a weather radio, a couple pairs of cheap rubber flip flops, and a first aid kit. You may also want to throw a bottle of this in your kit:

Kidding.  Kind of.  You may need a bottle of something for entertainment or to work as a disinfectant too! Ha!

So I piled everything into an old Rubbermaid bin that I had and made sure to put the flashlights on top!  I shoved the whole kit in the back of our closet where hopefully it will remain, untouched, until I need to replace the food because it's all expired.

You should also put copies of important paperwork into your kit.  Things like birth certificates, marriage certificates, social security cards, etc.  We have all of these important documents in a fire/water/kid proof safe that sits right next to our emergency kit in the closet.

I hope that this helps you and your family to at least think about getting prepared for an emergency.  It is overwhelming to think of all of the things that could go into an emergency kit.  But the fact of the matter is, you'll be better off if you even have the bare minimum put away in case of an emergency than if you let the task overwhelm you and never get around to it. 

Have a wonderful Tuesday!

April 27th 2011

Hi friends! I hope you all had a wonderful, relaxing weekend!  Baron had to work on a project for work all weekend so I busied myself preparing for tornado season here in Alabama and made an emergency kit for our family.  Tomorrow I will share with you what exactly went into our emergency kit, but today I would like to share why it is so important to us to be prepared for anything.

When Baron accepted his job here in north Alabama I had never been here!  After my last night of work in Jacksonville, Baron and I left the very next morning to make a road trip to Alabama for me to see where our future life was taking us and to find an apartment for us to live in. 

We nailed down our apartment choice early in the trip and were planning on having a relaxing, touristy day on our last day in Alabama before driving home.  That was on April 27, 2011.  You may or may not know what else happened on that day in northern Alabama.



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April 27th was the deadliest tornado outbreak in decades.  Although the city we were in wasn't hit as hard as many neighboring cities, there were dozens of tornadoes that touched down and totally tore neighborhoods apart. 

Baron and I had heard from countless people on our trip that the tornado sirens went off all the time and it was nothing to worry about.  If there was actually a tornado, it was a really small one that would go through the farm lands and not do much damage at all.  The night before the tornado outbreak we actually had dinner with old friends of Baron's and they said not to worry about the sirens at all, the weathermen here freaked out about everything and they went off all the time.

On April 27th I woke up at about 4 am and heard tornado sirens.  I chuckled to myself and tried to go back to sleep.  I tossed and turned but never could fall asleep; the sirens, wind, and thunder were just too loud.  I posted this on facebook, not knowing yet what was in store for us that day...

"Woke up at 4:30AM to the loudest thunder I've ever heard & tornado sirens. Ack! Welcome to Alabama!"

Later that morning Baron and I decided we were going to just drive and try to find our way around our new city.  It was cloudy and drizzling outside, but nothing too bad.  The weathermen were just saying to stay tuned and be ready for storms later that day.  I was actually driving when we started noticing that the clouds were getting darker and darker.  We were about to run out of gas, so we decided to fill up before heading somewhere close to our hotel to grab something for lunch.  As soon as we finished filling up, the clouds really started rolling in, the thunder claps were deafening, and the wind and rain were getting intense.  As I was hurrying back towards our hotel it got really bad!  I was so scared and wanted to stop the car and let Baron drive.  I'll never forget as we turned a corner and could barely make out a street sign that was bent in half and blowing sideways because the rain was falling so hard and fast, Baron said, "We don't have time for that!"  I knew it was serious then and put the pedal to the metal!  By then we both realized that it was really serious and there may by a tornado seriously on top of us!  Baron yelled, "Turn left! I think there's a Kroger in there!" 

Keep in mind that we could not see a thing, I could barely make out the roads but I barreled into the Kroger parking lot (thank goodness!!) and for some reason I was trying to actually park the car and Baron said, "It doesn't matter, put the car in park, let's GO!" 

We ran into Kroger as fast as we could with just my purse and a towel we happened to have in the car.  When we made it inside it was like a scene from a movie.  The place was deserted.  The lights were flickering and someone was yelling over the intercom "Code Adam!"  (which is usually a missing child, so I'm thinking they were just panicking).  Then we saw the manager and he yelled to us, "Get to the back, QUICK!"

Baron and I were soaked and we ran as fast as we could through the aisles into the back warehouse of the store where there were employees who grabbed us and hurried us in.  There were about 200 other people in the back seeking shelter.  I started crying as soon as we found a crate of dog food to sit on, I literally thought this was the end of us.  I tried to text our parents and tell them that we were okay for now and we had found shelter but our cell phones weren't working. 

I will always remember how calm and professional the employees were.  They were hugging people, passing out water, and making sure that the elderly had places to sit down.  After what seemed like hours, the manager made an announcement that there should be a break in the storms if we wanted to try to get home.

Baron and I went straight to our hotel room and watched the news all afternoon.  Luckily, we were able to communicate with our parents via facebook and let them know we were okay.  I posted this at some point that afternoon...

"Survived our first string of northern Alabama tornadoes, in the back warehouse of a Kroger, with about 200 other people, soaking wet, thankful for a generator & very nice manager passing out water, crackers, & hugs. Storms expected all day. Looks like we'll be spending our last day in the hotel lobby :) Good thing I love this boy!"

At about 6 o'clock that evening the weathermen started saying to seek shelter, these weren't normal Alabama tornadoes, and that things were about to be really serious.  We headed down to the lobby to ride it out, and spent about an hour in the bathrooms with some other people before just making a spot in the lobby.  We lost power and sat in the dark for hours. 

Photo taken from the lobby of our hotel sometime that afternoon before the weather got worse

Baron and I in the hotel lobby after losing power.  We wanted to show our parents that we were still smiling :)

We thought about trying to leave that night after all the storms had passed and just getting somewhere where they had power and we could get something to eat.  We went upstairs to our room and packed up all of our belongings in the dark with just the light from our cellphones.  Baron decided (thank goodness!) that it would be best to wait until morning when we could actually see the roads.  I whined more than I should have, admittedly.  I was terrified, tired, shaken, and hungry.  We charged our phones in the car for a little while before heading upstairs to go to bed.

The next morning we woke up bright and early to make the drive home.  It was terrifying to see what had transpired the night before in broad daylight.  I am so thankful for our safety.  We had an uneventful drive home and were so happy to be back in Florida! 

Our new city would be left without power for a week.  People were left to clean up with  no gas, electricity, stores, or restaurants that were open. We learned that it was important to have at least a minimum supply of emergency supplies in case of that ever happening again. A priority in building our new house was that it had to have a storm shelter of some kind!  We decided to have our master closet made into a storm shelter and are so happy with that decision. I think it'll make this storm season a little easier for us.

Come back tomorrow and I'll break down the ingredients to our Emergency Kit!

Have a happy Monday! :)


It's Snowing!

I'll admit it, I've been dwelling on the house drama all day. When the snow started falling it was a nice break!!