Now on to the worst part of the trip...
One thing I forgot to mention was that Sunday was spent in the ER (we left Monday). I've been sick off and on since I was pregnant with Brody and now I've started running fevers (I never run a fever). So, Chris took me in early Sunday morning and my parents came over to watch the kids. We still don't know why I'm sick but I see a specialist next week. Anyway, I just mentioned that so you know that I was also sick this whole trip!
We knew that the weather at home was supposed to get bad, and we thought that we'd be avoiding it during our trip, since originally, Dallas was supposed to be missed by the storm (or so we heard). So, we headed out and did some stuff on Tuesday and then decided to go eat at one of our very favorite restaurants, Fogo de Chao (it's Brazilian). Mercifully, the children behaved and we had a great time.
We went out to get our car and noticed how bad the sky looked and so we headed back to the hotel. As soon as we got to the room we started pulling up radars and checking the local news. The weather was getting increasingly worse. Then we lost power. By this time we were all in our PJ's, I had no makeup on and the kids wanted to go to sleep. The power came back on for about 15 min's in which time we found out that there was GRAPEFRUIT sized hail above us and it was coming our way. We called downstairs and they said we needed to get in the safe area.
We loaded up a bag with bottles, diapers and our iPads and headed downstairs. Chris moved our car under an awning so that it didn't get beat to smithereens. We were ushered into the safe area which is all concrete hallways that run behind meeting rooms etc in the hotel.
So, picture this. Us, our kids, hotel guests and patrons of the hotel bar (who, by the way, are singing LOUDLY) are in a concrete hallway, sitting on the floor, in the complete dark, with tornado sirens blaring. Doesn't this sound like a good time?
Ironically, tryouts were apparently taking place for the X Factor tv show in the meeting room behind us, and they saw no reason to take cover, so we did get serenaded by some really talented singers, while sitting in the dark.
So, a tornado hit about 12 minutes from where we were, and then the storm passed, but we still had no power which meant we got to haul ourselves, 2 kids and our bags back up 5 stories of stairs. At 10 something at night.
Good times.
All was not lost. The next day, after deciding we were heading home on Wednesday instead of Friday, we went to the Zoo. Thankfully, fun was had by all. So, to end on a good note, here are some pics!
The four of us - see the elephant behind Brody?
Chris feeding a giraffe:
B and me:
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