Weddings, Camping, Tornado's, Oh My

Lots of things have happened since my last blog! Dawn, my sister, got married to Ryan Kellogg! Pyper and I moved to different locations, see "It's Moving Day" for more details. I went to girls camp as the Stake Certification Director. Chanda, my friend, and new roommates sister go married! To top it all off we spent last Saturday night, 2am to 3:30am in the basement watching the news to make sure we did not get hit by a tornado. Only to find out the next morning that it touched down only a few miles from us. Then jumped about 60 blocks to take out a few businesses by my work. Then last night, I am sure you all heard, we had some insane weather around here. Again we spent about 3 hours in our basement watching the news and playing games while we prayed the weather would bypass us.

Prior to that Vao, my new roommate, and I went to Bellevue to visit Dawn at the salon so I could get my hairs cut. (It has been way over due) Then we went to visit a friend of mine, Josh Gillette and his family who were in town for the day. All the while the weather was getting worse all around us. Deciding it was time to leave we grabbed dinner at Subway for the three of us and headed home on hwy 370. For those of you not from around here we headed straight into the thick of the stormy weather! As we drove down the hwy the radio announcer told us that there were swirling around and beginning to form tornado like conditions. Yeah, 15min go drive home still. Then a crazy, scared lady in a white SUV started running red lights, and darting around traffic to get home. When I turned onto the road to get us home I started watching the clouds, SCARY! I could see them swirling around above us, just waiting to form a funnel and come thrashing out of the sky! So, I drove faster, got us home in about 10 min to our quite, dry basement.

While it did miss us it hit different areas around us. The Scout Camp that was hit really bad was where I was only a week ago at Girls Camp. Where it surprises me that every building at the camp was destroyed, they are/were very spread out around the camp. It almost seems like the tornado just danced around in circles through the camp. That is the only way all of them could have been torn down! Sad, scary stuff, considering that we had tornado watches almost every night I was there. Lots of prayers going out to those boys and their leaders!

On a brighter note, here are some pics of Dawn's wedding

If you're going to throw a water balloon...

be ready to run! So I went to FHE all on my own tonight (I'm really proud of myself)...and was pretty content to miss out on the activity...but it involved a 3 legged race and water balloons...(plus wheelbarrow race...I was the wheelbarrow...and I'm broken). My partner and I did pretty good in the 3 legged race, except that we were attached by 2 heavy rubber bands...both snapped and left welts on my ankles. OUCH! Then it was off to the water balloon toss...we were doing so well and it was down to us and another team...despite the attempts at distraction by Dan, we were sooo close. But alas, we lost.
After it was all said and down, my partner and I each got a left over balloon and snuck up to Dan...mine hit it's mark soaking his shoulder and back. My partners broke in mid-flight but still managed to get him. I took off running...I did pretty good, until he rounded the far corner of the institute...but I was pretty fast and made it inside before he tossed his ammo. But he followed me in and tried (unsuccessfully) to force me outside. After hiding out for a little bit (and a brief moment sitting on a trash can...it was an accident) I snuck out the back way, up the side of the building and with my keys in hand unlocked my car from there. I started to calmly walk towards it and he saw me...so I ran...I got to my car door right as he let his balloon fly...poor Dan, it hit my windshield leaving me nice and dry. I thought I was safe...oh how wrong...after a brief moment of peace he chased me again and grabbed me from behind intent on sharing some of the moisture from his soaking wet shirt.
Ahh good times at FHE...apparently now I owe him cookies...again.

~Pyper