Over the Weekend

Mom and Dad surprised me by coming on Friday! They were supposed to be getting in mid-afternoon on Saturday, but decided to show up early - which I was ecstatic about! I was out running a few errands and received a photo text message from my dad of a landmark near our place. I immediately knew they were here and raced home!

{the girls were so happy to be together - they took a break from playing so I could snap this photo}

Friday night was pretty exciting. We were under a tornado warning for a couple hours - and heard the tornado alarms all night. We were so lucky here - the bad weather hit above and below us. We completely dodge all harmful weather. It was a blessing!

Saturday we had a large breakfast and then headed out to the grocery store to stock up for the week! (yes, they were planning for an extended visit!) The storm that hit us Friday night was making it's way up to NC. We began to watch the weather channel and see that it was getting worse as it got to NC. I started getting live updates on twitter about the tornadoes. The reports indicated they were getting closer and closer to my hometown. Within an hour we received a phone call from my cousin that a large tornado had hit a portion of my hometown - and that portion involved the street my parents live on. A tree had fallen on their house.

I think we were all in a bit of shock. We received a few text messages of pictures of the damage. It wasn't pretty. We all kind of knew that their trip here was now cut short. The damage was pretty bad and they needed to get back home. It was definitely a bummer as we all had looked forward to this week - just hanging out and spending time together. I hadn't seen my parents since Christmas, so even the super short visit was wonderful, but a long week would have been much better.

{watching as mom and dad pack up the truck}

Their week long visit turned into a less than 48 hour visit, but I'm just so happy that they were safe during the storm! The damage is bad, but it always could have been worse. The best picture of the ones we received is definitely the one below. While my parents were ten hours away and worried about their home, they had loving family, friends, neighbors, and even strangers working together to get the fallen trees out of the yard and off the house and get a tarp over the damaged roof. Such a blessing for my parents and a bit of relief as they made their trip home.

Update// Below is a picture of the house before everyone came out to help.

Also, it was determined that a F3 tornado hit the area.