Family + Friends | Campmeeting 2012

Knoxville Campmeeting 2012
Annual Thursday Night CiCi's Pizza outing.

Every year during camp-meeting, Thursday night is (was) dedicated to some sort of young people outing. However over the years its become more of a family thing, than a young persons things. :-| We rent out a CiCi's after hours, stuff our self with cardboard-y pizza (which tasted a bit yummier this time around, but COULD be due to the fact that I was DYING of hunger by this point)

The original plan, developed by myself, my friend Jennifer and my sister Robyn, was too go up to groups of people, and have Robyn and Jen stand there posing by the unsuspecting victims. However, It soon became a free for all with everyone grabbing people and snatching them into group photos. Hilarity ensued.

April 27, 2011

It started as another typical Wednesday morning. My alarm jars me a awake, and I push through the sleep induced brain fog, to solve the math problems that will give me 10 more minutes of blessed sleep. 15 minutes later, I force myself to slide out of bed, as I realize I now ONLY have ten minutes to get dressed, let the dogs out, feed them, crate them, do my hair, gather my supplies, and get to work at a reasonable time.  


I noticed it was really warm for 7:40am...


As usual, I dawdled a *little* and made it work 5ish minutes late. On the way over, our local radio host did bring up the possibility of sever thunderstorms later on throughout the day, which, of course, filled me with *joy*. 


Rainy days + Three dogs + Finals = Miserable me. 


I was shocked, when the Chief of our department, sent out a campus wide alert, about Tornados being spotted about sixty miles away. My first thought was: "Really? Its SIXTY miles away, why are we worried?" But I did get out and go into another room, to see what the Weather Channel was proclaim. Satisfied that we were just under Thunderstorm warnings, I went back to work. 


In fact when I left two hours later, the sun was shining, the birds were singing..(and it was hot as all get out) which quickly lulled me into a false sense of security. 


Oh those weather men. What do they know with all their radars and fancy equipment.... 


I thoroughly enjoyed a day of procrastinating, on the porch with a book, soaking in all the sunshine I could get, before laying down for a "quick nap". I don't normally take naps,but up with finals, you need all the rest you can get. It was during my repast that the rain started. First heavy, the lightening up when it came time for me to, once again, pry myself from the depths of my mattress and make hurry to class. 


I skipped out early, since all they were doing was watching our final Powerpoint presentations, and because the weather reports were starting to turn dire. 


And because I didn't have my laptop with me.. 


As I was driving home, is when we started getting Tornado warnings for surrounding counties..the rain was coming down in sheets, lightning cracked across the sky, starting fires.. and I was starting to get a little nervous. They don't get Tornados around here..right? 


It was around 8:00pm when the storm hit full force, my family, and friends were all in church when we heard the "THUNK". I had just gotten an update from Twitter that a funnel cloud had been spotted, about 30 miles away...and the only thing I could think was, the winds were so strong, it was blowing debris around. A few second later there was another THUNK, then with a roar, the HAIL came down with a vengeance. Our speaker who has a very loud voice, was yelling as he prayed for our safety. 


Children were freaking out, and some even dove under benches. All I could think about was, one the cars getting PUMMELED and my poor puppies all alone at home. 


Five-extremely-long-minutes later, the hail slowed down, and we all poured outside to see the damage.

Golf Ball sized hail 

Golf Ball Sized Hail on the Ground

 Of course all the cars had poc marks, and broken glass..but a couple were completely missing windshields.
The wind and lightning were crazy, at this point, so my father sent everyone on home... However I was far from ready to turn in for the night. At this point we were getting tornado warnings, and all I could do was pray  that we wouldn't actually get one, as I knew our trailer would not be the place to be. 


My roommate and I finally convinced ourselves, to abandoned ship (and TWO of my puppies!?!?!) and go hangout with her sister and roommate, in their slightly more solid structure...at this point, the Tornado warnings had stopped coming for our county, but were still every 2-3 minutes for outlying counties. 


If this had happened during the day, there would be some small measure of safety in being able to see, but not being able to see, or know really what was going on was terrifying.


At 10 pm, the warnings for our county started back up again, and all four of us, abandoned the house, and moved up to the church cafeteria, as it had no windows and was more stable than any of the four houses on our property. At this point, I made my friends help me gather up my other two, (having three dogs is kinda of a pain in times like these...) and we all migrated up to the cafeteria, where the rest of my family sat listening intently to the radio.   

Our Neighborhood Storm Shelter

We stayed up there for about another two hours, loosing power once, before calling it a night. Or morning. I stayed up for another TWO hours AFTER that, as lets face it, the warnings had ceased but the storm was still raging around us. I was NOT about to wake up, to my bed floating around in a dark swirling cloud. Could you imagine sleeping on wet pillows? 


When we got up the next morning, the sun was shining the birds were singing as if nothing had every happened. Yet mentally we were all still reeling.. reading my twitter feed, I wanted everyone to stop and mourn with us, however life goes on... I feel for those in Alabama who got the brunt of the storm. 

Hail Damage to my parents car..and I don't have one. Woo! 

I'm thankful God saw fit to spare us, and all of our Alabama friends...


I was walking back to my house the other day, and looked all the trees surrounding my humble abode. Not one of them even bent during the storm. That my friends, is God's mercy, as right down the street a huge tree was UP ROOTED. 


Makes you look a life a little differently...