Crowded? Nah

When Faith and her family dropped off my kids after a great day of fun at Silver Dollar City in celebration of Z-man's birthday (Happy Unbirthday Z!!!) the other day, we did what we usually do and stood around for a few minutes to share a quick rundown of the day and say our goodnights.

As they were getting ready to head home, however, the sirens went off.

Tornado sirens, that is.

In my family, we usually check the Doppler radar on the computer when we hear a siren, to check and see if the storm is anywhere near us when we take shelter, or slightly before (if there is no active t-storm activity outside, we'll check before huddling in our safe room.).

In Faith's family, they hear the sirens , grab the kitties and emergency kits, and head for their safe-room with their trusty weather radios to ride out the warning.

So out of respect for their family, we grabbed some folding chairs, a sheet for holding in front of the toilet in case someone had to potty with us all in there, a blanket, some pillows for the kids to sit on in the bathtub, our wind-up weather radio, and a couple of oil lanterns, before we all crammed into our bathroom.

I sat on the closed toilet, using the sink as a desk to check the weather, Keeb, Faith and her DH sat in folding chairs against the wall across from the bathtub, and the kids hung out in the tub, tickling, giggling, and generally making a happy nuisance of themselves. It was cozy, but not too tight, and we all would have been rather comfortable, but for Keeb's tendency to smoke in the bathroom. See, Faith's allergic to smoke, and the lingering chemicals in the air, as well as the smell, got to her, and she started to have an allergic reaction. I hope that convinced Keebler to not smoke in the bathroom anymore, as that room really holds in the scents, and old, stale smoke isn't an odor I want permeating any of the rooms in our home.

The kids had a blast, which is to be expected, and embraced during a tornado warning. Hiding from the storm should be something fun, with special storm-only games, songs, and the like, in order to make the hiding experience less frightening. We didn't get to do any of our regular silliness because most of our things are still packed away, but we did get to do a fun little meteorology lesson, and it was still a pretty good time.