The Wildest Lawn Party We've Ever Experienced

I had never seen anything like it.

One minute, I was standing there watching Tobin happily climb down the steps from the dragon "roller coaster" at our local lawn party.  The next minute, a wall of wind like I had never felt before hit me out of the blue.  My initial thought of "wow, what a powerful gust" quickly changed to "woah, it's not letting up" and then "I'm going to have to help Tobin get off the steps because it's hard for him to push against the wind" followed by "yikes, I can't let go of Moriah's stroller to go help Tobin because the wind is literally moving the stroller" and "I've got to get Tobin and Moriah away from these booths because they might fall on us!"  After that, my head rattled with the overwhelming thought of "WHAT IS GOING ON?"

But let me start at the beginning, if I can.

Last Friday was Josiah's family night, which oh-so-conveniently landed on one of the nights of the lawn party at the Ruritan Park just up the road from us.  It wasn't hard for him to decide on his choice of activity for that evening!

We went after Jeff got home from work; and although the crowd seemed a little sparse, we blamed that on the heat and didn't think much of it.  When we did think something about it, it was to simply be grateful that there weren't many people there so that the boys didn't have to stand in line a long time for any of the rides.

It began as a "normal" evening at the lawn party: we got armbands for the boys so they could ride as often as they liked; they rode the rides for a while; we took a break for a supper of country ham sandwiches, french fries, and fresh lemonade; we watched the folks playing bingo under a pavilion close to our picnic table; we heard the sounds of the band playing as a backdrop to all the other sounds of the lawn party; occasionally we saw someone we knew and stopped to chat a bit; then we let the boys go back to the rides again to finish out the evening.  The grand finale for us was going to be the purchase of some cotton candy as we left; we've discovered that having that sweet treat to look forward to as we leave makes the departure more tolerable for some of our boys for whom it is torturous to say goodbye to the lawn party.  ;-)

All along, I had fun snapping some pictures, just soaking in the sight of my dearly loved children having fun during our annual trip to the lawn party.  All was normal.  All was well.

Tobin was happy to get a yellow horse (his favorite color)...

...and Shav got to ride on a red one (his favorite color).

Most of the time, Jeff and I would split up, him taking Tobin and Shav, for example, to the less intimidating rides while I took Josiah and David to the more intense ones.  Or him taking Josiah and Tobin to the swings while I stayed with David on a ride of his choosing, etc.  The lawn party is small enough that it wasn't any problem to find each other when we wanted to reconnect.  During one of these separate ventures, I went with Josiah and David to a ride called the Paratroopers.  Later, I would thank God over and over that the boys went on this ride early on, and not later when the storm struck.  I'm jumping ahead of myself, but I CANNOT IMAGINE what it would have felt like to either be on this ride during that terrible wind or be a parent on the ground, watching one's children on that ride and being completely helpless to bring them down to earth more quickly than the slow process by which this ride is emptied.  Anyway...when Josiah and David went on this, all was peaceful and they thoroughly enjoyed it (although David was worried that his shoes would fall off, so he tucked his feet up instead of letting them dangle).  :)

The dragon roller coaster was funny.  Tobin and David sat in the front seat together, and both of them loved it - especially Tobin, who seemed to be getting the biggest thrill from it.

Josiah and Shav were sitting together near the back; and although Shav was so excited to be allowed to go on it, as soon as it started, he got this look of near panic on his face...and it didn't leave until the ride came to a stop and he got off.  :)  Josiah, good big brother that he is, immediately put his arm around the back of Shav to comfort him.  Every time the dragon whizzed by, I noticed the look of boredom on Josiah's face (he's used to much bigger roller coasters)...and terror on Shav's.  :)

Shav was much happier to be "driving" this car.  :)

By this time, it was growing dark (although there was still some light in the sky), and I enjoyed seeing the lights of the lawn party reflected on Moriah's face...

 ...as well as the lights shining from the merry-go-round...

 ...and shining from the swings.

 I even snagged a bokeh shot.  :)

 And then Tobin asked to go on the dragon again, while the other boys wanted to stay on the merry-go-round.  No problem.  I offered to take Tobin and Moriah, and Jeff stayed with the others.

 While Tobin rode, I glanced around at the sights of a typical small-town American lawn party/carnival/whatever-it's-called-in-your-neck-of-the-woods, and I couldn't resist taking a few pictures.

 I had no idea what was soon going to transpire.

 The band was playing...

 ...Moriah was sleeping in the stroller, Tobin was starting to come down the steps of the dragon ride, and then...

...the wind struck.

Unbelievable wind.

Wind like I've never felt before.

It didn't take my mind too long to race through all kinds of thoughts and finally settle on one dreaded word: TORNADO.  We had never had a tornado here, but could it be happening???

It was astonishing how quickly - with no warning - the wind hit; and it was eerie how, in an instant, everything about the lawn party changed.  The band stopped playing in the middle of their song.  Prizes and trinkets from booths blew away.  As a matter of fact, parts of booths started toppling over.  People started rushing here and there, and the fear in the air was thick.

As soon as I could reach Tobin while still holding onto the stroller, I took him by the hand and then returned to the area where I had last seen Jeff.  My first concern was to find him and to be TOGETHER as a family.  As Tobin and I walked along as quickly as we could, pushing the stroller in front of us, I repeated aloud, "God is with us."  I'm not sure if that was more for Tobin's comfort or for my own.  Probably mine.

I spotted Jeff by the merry-go-round and was so glad to see that he had the other three boys with him.  Immediately we started heading for our van.  I remember one of my main emotions being bewilderment.  I still didn't feel like I knew what was going on.  How had such an incredibly strong storm come up so suddenly?  There was so much that I wanted to ask Jeff: where was he when he first felt it? where were the boys? what was their reaction? what did he do? what did he think and how did he feel about all of this?  WERE WE GOING TO BE OK? (which, of course, he couldn't have answered, even if we had been able to pause everything while we tried to figure it out).  It all happened so fast, and my mind was scrambling to try to make sense of it.

Besides that, I was so incredibly grateful that we were all together.  It was so much easier to face whatever was coming, as long as we had each other.  I know all of the boys were shaken by what was going on, but I remember David expressing it the most.  Moriah was blessedly peaceful through it all and didn't even cry when her carseat was hurriedly lifted from the stroller and put into the van.

It didn't take us long to get all the boys, our stuff, and ourselves into the van.  Jeff immediately started the car, and we inched forward across the rough grass of the field where we had parked.  And then the wait began.  Everyone, of course, had headed for their cars when the wind started blowing, creating such a long line of traffic waiting to leave the Ruritan Park.  It was HARD to sit there and wait, not knowing what was going on and if a tornado might be coming up behind us.  I was even worried that the tractor trailer that was parked perpendicular behind us would be pushed over by the wind and would land on us.  It was so tempting to try to rush forward and push into the line of traffic, but Jeff showed great self-control and waited until someone politely let us go ahead of him.  Jeff even paused a few times before we got out of the park and let others get in front of us.  He did, however, confide to me later that he was more than ready to drive off through the cornfield if he spotted a twister!  (And speaking of that cornfield...I can only imagine what that farmer might have found in it the next day.  Lots and lots of debris from the lawn party, I'm sure.)

As we neared the road, we quickly discussed what to do.  Turning left would bring us back to our home, but that was driving right into the fury of the storm.  Turning right would take us into town; but because of the way storms usually move through our area, it would seem like it would just be a matter of time until the storm caught up to us.  Jeff turned left, and I was relieved.  Surely we would be able to make it the very short distance to our home.

While we were in the car, I really wanted to turn on the radio to see if we could hear if there was a tornado watch or warning; but I convinced myself to not do it because I didn't want to alarm the boys.  Ha!  As if they weren't sufficiently alarmed already!  ;-)

Before we pulled into our driveway, we decided to stop at my parents' house instead of going up the hill to our own - the reason being that they have a true basement, and we do not.  The oldest three boys dashed into the house and were met by the comforting presence of Grandma, Jeff brought Shav, and I got Moriah in her carseat and also grabbed the diaper bag.  I didn't know how long we would need to stay in the basement, and I wanted to be prepared.  :)

I headed straight for the basement with the children, while Jeff paused to talk with my dad and try to find out what was going on.  They used the internet to check the weather to determine the risk of a tornado, and I was astonished when they reported that there was neither a tornado watch nor a tornado warning.  Really???

I was still pretty shaken-up by all of this, so I didn't want to leave the shelter of the basement quite yet.  I did, however, go up to the main part of the house so I could get some towels for us to sit on.  Oh, and I did grab one more thing: my mom's copy of The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  That's the book I had been reading aloud to the boys in the days before the storm, and it seemed appropriate that in our hour of distress, we would read about Laura's!

Not surprisingly, the boys were fearful; and every time we heard a noise (such as my parents' air conditioning turning on and off), they would ask, "What is that??"  I was trying to keep their mind off the storm by reading to them; but every so often, one of them would pipe up with some question and we would be back on the topic of the wind.  I remember David continued to be vocal about his fear; and at one point, he even asked if we could pray, so each of the four boys and I took turns praying for protection and peace.  While we were still down there, the electricity flickered off; but my parents have a generator that provides automatic back-up, so it came on right away and they didn't suffer any loss because of the lack of electricity.

After checking the weather report and talking with my dad, Jeff seemed calmer about the whole situation, so he decided that we should go ahead and drive up to our house.  I wasn't really eager to spend the night on the basement floor, so I didn't argue with him.  ;-)  Amazingly, the electricity came back on as we were driving up, so we were able to open our garage door and park the minivan inside - something we would not have been able to do if the electricity had been out at that point in time.

I remember a great feeling of relief when we got safely inside the garage and shut the door against the wind which was blowing from the west so it came streaming directly into the garage.  It seemed to take the garage door a long time to make its descent; but when it was down, I felt like I could relax a little.  From then on, my plan (and Jeff's, too, I'm sure, although we didn't have a chance to discuss it) was to do our best to turn this frightening situation into an adventure for the boys.

Because of the location of the boys' bedrooms, especially Tobin and Shav's, there was NO WAY I wanted them to sleep upstairs in their rooms - not with that huge maple tree right outside their windows.  And of course, none of them wanted to be away from the rest of the family either.  We got out the sleeping bags and turned the living room into our own little campground, complete with flashlights but - thankfully - lacking in mosquitoes and other critters.  ;-)  For a while, the electricity flickered off and on; but we weren't surprised when it went out for good.  I guess that happened around 10:00 PM, although I didn't take notice of the time right away.  We let the boys munch on some snacks (they lamented the lost opportunity to buy cotton candy at the end of our lawn party adventure!), and we sat and laid around and talked, recounting our experience and imagining how much worse it could have been.  I always love my children, and I'm always grateful for them; but without a doubt, scary, dangerous experiences make me so much more AWARE of how treasured my family is...and that night, I couldn't stop looking at each of them with wonder and thankfulness.

I don't think any of the boys fell asleep until about 11:30, although the wind had died down earlier than that, and I had even felt comfortable putting Moriah to bed in her own crib upstairs sometime before that.  She fussed about 11:40, which is unusual for her; but I didn't mind one bit the opportunity to go to her and hold her and comfort her.  I think I even fed her again at that point, and by the time I went back down to the living room after that, the even breathing from all the precious bodies on the floor told me that all of them were asleep.  I couldn't decide where to sleep: on the couch (which I actually enjoy doing) or upstairs in my bed.  I finally decided on the bed.  No one in the living room needed me, and I wanted to be close to Moriah, just in case she cried again.  It didn't take me long to fall asleep...

In the morning, the daylight showed us what the storm had done.  Lots of tree limbs down, a number of shingles blown off the roof, some garden crops damaged, but nothing too serious.  We had been spared, and we gave thanks.

The saddest thing to us was that our grape arbor had been toppled over and our wonderful grapevine was lying on the ground.  Could it be saved?  Jeff's first priority in repairing storm damage was to find some way to get the arbor back up so that the vine could have the support it needed and hopefully not die.  Jeff actually had to work that day (last Saturday); but as soon as he got home that evening, he got right to it, using rope and the minivan to right the arbor and then going to town for some concrete to help secure the posts.  Although the vine was definitely disturbed by the fall, it was not totally uprooted, and I am hopeful that it will recover completely.

 The funniest thing to me was in the garden where I discovered these watermelon plants that, rather than spreading out in a circle around the roots like they normally would, had been blown into a line.  It was obvious exactly which direction the wind had been blowing the night before.  :)

For most of that Saturday, our electricity was out, which was inconvenient but certainly not dangerous.  We were concerned, however, that the food in our refrigerator and freezers would spoil; and the thought of losing all that food was sickening - not only for the financial loss, but also because that food represents the toil of our hands: hours and hours of garden work and food preservation.  What a shame it would be to see all that go to waste!

Of course, we didn't know when the electricity would come back on.  As we learned more about how widespread the storm damage was, we knew we certainly weren't the only ones without power; and it might be quite a while until power was restored.  So Jeff took a quick lunch break that day to come home and stretch extension cords from my parents' house to ours, and we were able to use the power from their generator to run our freezers and refrigerator.  Once we got that set up, I wasn't really worried about anything else.

I did have to laugh a little at myself though.  My parents are the most prepared people I know, and how many times have I teased them through the years about their (to my way of thinking) over-the-top preparations for any kind of disaster?  (For example, they once gave each of us in the family pills/supplements to take in case of nuclear attack.)  ;-)  But when a disaster - even a small one - hit, who was ready for it?   Whose house had lights on when nobody else's in the neighborhood did?  Who could relax in air-conditioned comfort while everyone else was sweltering?  Who didn't have a moment's worry about all their cold food spoiling?  My parents!  And they weren't stingy with their "wealth" either.  Not only us but also our Old Order Mennonite neighbors plugged into my parents' power source, and other neighbors were considering doing that, too, before the electricity came back on.  When trouble came, it didn't take me long at all to stop laughing at them for their preparedness and start appreciating them for it!!!  :)

Our power ended up being out for about 18 hours, and what a sweet sound it was when it came back on, the ceiling fans started turning again, the lights in the house came on (we couldn't remember which ones we had turned on the night before when the power went out, so we couldn't turn them off, and they automatically came on when the power returned), we could turn the air conditioning on again, etc.  Ah, luxury!

Our internet was out for a few more days, but again - inconvenient but not dangerous.  It did make me aware, however, of how heavily we rely on the internet for so much of life nowadays!

In the days since the storm, it's been interesting to drive around and spot damage from the storm.  It never fails to increase my gratitude when I see how severely the damage was in other areas, and I realize anew how much we were spared.  Some of the damage seems so random however.  For example, I saw a dead-as-a-doornail tree standing in the middle of a field with hardly a limb broken off, it appeared.  Not far from it was a live, full-of-green-leaves, apparently healthy tree that had been completely blown over.  Why?  A friend who lives in this area had a large tree fall over in her yard, right next to a tent that didn't blow away.  Why?

Only God knows those answers.  Only He controls the wind.  What sweet comfort to rest in Him and realize that before it even started, He knew how strong the wind would be, how long it would last, and where it would strike.  He knew what we needed, and He cared for us.

Even in the middle of the wildest lawn party we've ever experienced.  ;-)