Churches and Tornados

What a day! We got up this morning and went to 2 different churches again. The first (Eastern Hills) was one that we attended last week. We really enjoyed the worship and the pastor is a great teacher. We are a little uncertain about how BIG the church is though. The second (Colorado Community Church) wasn't quite as big. This pastor too is a phenomenal speaker. The church is very multi-cultural; different for us but we enjoyed it. The worship is full of energy and "soul". We will probably visit here again too. There are a few others churches we'd still like to check out, but we are excited for the ones we have visited so far and how God is leading us.

This afternoon, while eating lunch on the deck, we watched a storm front roll in over the mountains. As the rain began to fall, Chad wisely watched for updates on TV and online. When the sirens sounded, we weren't surprised. We were discussing if we should wake the boys from naps and go to the basement. We looked out back -- nothing serious. We went to the front door and .... VERY SERIOUS! A funnel cloud was swirling about 2-3 miles south of our house. It was dropped down and much too close for our comfort. I ran upstairs to get the boys while Chad locked the door and gathered the radio and blankets. We snuggled in downstairs and waited. The boys were startled to be so quickly awakened and not thrilled to be in the basement just sitting still. We sang some songs and prayed for protection. The rain fell, the hail came, and the tornado moved to the south -- away from our house. We found out later that it touched down and caused damage at the mall about 10 miles south. How thankful we are for God's protection and the distance between us and the tornado. Braden had so many questions about why we were downstairs and why it was raining so much. The only way I could think of to explain it to him was to compare the clouds to his dancing (he loves to spin in circles). We said that the clouds were playing and dancing so we had to stay downstairs until they were done in case they crashed into anything. He thought that was pretty funny.
Here's a link to the news story:
http://cbs4denver.com/weatherupdates/weather.tornado.funnel.2.1035133.html

This is the hail that was on our deck after the storm passed. The hail was pea to marble sized.

Hopefully this will be our last weather adventure for awhile. I'm very thankful that Chad was home during this. I've never seen a tornado so up close and personal. It would be fine if this was my last time too!


A few other pictures from today:

Dylon decided that he needed to shave with Daddy before church. He is such a little copycat.



Dylon was talking to MaeMae on the phone in the car.

Braden got a special treat tonight (vanilla shake) after dinner. He ate like such a big boy ... no coaxing, bribing, warnings ... just a BIG boy eating his dinner all gone! I love it when that happens.

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We just watched the evening news and found out that the tornado was on the ground for over 30 minutes, did serious damage to the mall and other stores (10 miles south), produced baseball sized hail (about 3 miles south) -- and yet NO one was seriously injured! We are SO thankful that God protected our family and our home!!!