Family Alive

Brian, Kristine, Analise, and Josiah Toone

“It’s a very rough night!”

26th February 2008

That’s what Analise said early last evening as she struggled to fall asleep.  They were actually very prophetic words.  Brian and I had planned a nice in-house date night with coffee, dessert and Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire on the agenda.  Analise was out of bed several times after her initial 8pm bedtime (half an hour late).  She finally dozed off, and something woke Josiah into a crying fit, of course waking Analise again.  Josiah needed tending to a couple times before we finally settled into the movie without interruptions at 9:45. 

Amazingly, the kids were sleeping soundly when Brian and I were jolted out of bed by the tornado sirens, which are less than a mile from our house.  I’ve always wondered if we’d hear them in the middle of the night.  NO QUESTION about it.  The kids still slept, somehow.  Brian decided to check the TV or computer to see if we needed to head to the basement.  Often, the sirens go off but the storm is in another part of the county.  It was very quiet outside, and the only sign of trouble was crazy lightning in the distance.  I listened to the storm pick up while Brian was checking things out, and about 10 minutes later, the power went off.   Brian came in to tell me that the storm was moving east at 40mph and heading our way in just a little bit.  There was no actual tornado, but something indicative of one on the radar. 

So we gently woke the kids, grabbed some flashlights, blankets and pillows, and made a big sleepy pile just inside the basement area, listening to the worst of the storm blow over us.  The kids were so good, and we stayed for about 20 minutes before heading back to bed.  The power was still out, and the storm was still raging.  I thought Brian’s parents were surely up, due to the sirens, so we called them to see if they had power and could tell us what was going on.  Whoops… they were still sleeping, and they had power and had never heard the sirens.  Tom assured me the worst was over (though I don’t think he got up to check!), and we tucked the kids into bed.  Josiah went right back to sleep, but Analise flopped around in our bed, scared of the thunder.  She finally fell asleep, and Brian took her back to bed, at who-knows-what-time-bc-the-power-was-still-off. 

Early bird Josiah decided it was time for us to get up at 7, and our power finally came back on at 8:15 or so.  Whew- the house dropped to 66 degrees!  We started a fire and heated water for coffee and warmed up our waffles on the stove 🙂  Analise talked about the nighttime adventure all the way to school, and I’m sure all her classmates and Miss Brenda got to hear about the thunder, lightening, ‘nado and the power going off. 

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