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Even though we have been here since August of last year, May 10th was our first tornado experience in Oklahoma City.

And they don’t call it Tornado Alley for nothin’. Dorothy wasn’t kidding around.

Brandon has experienced his fair share of tornadoes in Nebraska, but I am fortunate enough to only have a faint second-hand recollection of the twister that swept through Edmonton in 1987. We get some pretty amazing storms and weather up in Saskatchewan, but nothing of the destructive funnel cloud type. Pretty lucky for the prairies, I know.

Yesterday, a few storms started brewing in the northern part of the state over the course of the afternoon. Weather tends to move from the southwest to the northeast around here, so we weren’t in the path of those twisters and baseball-sized hail.

Around 4pm, I turned on the TV. I still have no idea why I did that. I never watch TV during the day… A local station had interrupted their regularly scheduled program for continuous advertisement-free coverage of the storms. I couldn’t help but be sucked in as tornado tips and warnings scrolled along the bottom of the screen, listing counties that were predicted to be in imminent danger.

Pretty quickly, two innocent looking storms to the southwest of the city made their presence known. The 3D radar and fancy weather technology on the screen flashed shades of red and animated swirly clouds. You could tell the news anchors were getting a little anxious. People around here still talk about the May 1999 storm as if it just happened yesterday. This one had 100mph winds and was sweeping across the map at 55mph. It had the potential to quickly develop into something big.

And it was headed straight for metro Oklahoma City.

Brandon called soon after to ask me to pick him up from work. Even if there was no threat of a twister rolling through our neighbourhood, he wanted to protect his car in the hospital parkade from the aforementioned baseball-sized hail. By the time I picked him up, the urgency on the radio had quickened and city-wide sirens were blaring.

We have no basement at our house (I’m surprised at how rare those are here!) and no storm shelter. So we went home, picked up the dogs, and drove the 5-7 minutes back to the hospital underground parking garage. We sat in the 4Runner and listened to the storm trackers on the radio.

The storm crossed highway I-35 and you could tell the announcer was frustrated that so many cars had decided to try and drive through the storm. What a disaster if a twister touched down! The stopped and blocked traffic ended up worse off than sitting ducks.

Instead of heading into OKC, the storm veered more directly to the east and swept through Moore and Norman. The National Weather Service thinks 21 tornadoes touched down throughout the state that day. The damage in the FOX photo above is from an outlying area of Norman. There are reports that two people died (including a mother of three) and 104 were injured.

We headed out of the parkade about 45 minutes later and were met with bright shining sunlight. The one good thing about a fast-moving storm with no other weather systems on its heels is that it passed quickly. We were all safe.

My heart goes out to those families that lost loved ones and their homes. I hope they find comfort and security and the strength to rebuild in the coming weeks and months.

Although maybe not quite as much as Saskatchewan has in January.

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photos: from my mom and dad in the last week.

These days are KO-KO: keep on keepin’ on. Today’s photo is from a couple of days after our big blizzard, when there were still cars randomly abandoned as if the apocalypse had hit. I’m staying on track.

Time is flying and life is great. I don’t want a thing to change.

This photo is from the inside of my very own snowglobe on Christmas Eve. We got 14 inches of snow in less than 12 hours.

My next two wishes are for Brandon to kick butt on his exam on Wednesday and for us to win the $1.22 million Powerball lotto today.

Please, please, please! I hope Santa isn’t off duty yet.

May the weather gods look down on this post with mercy and consider it a befitting rain snow dance.

C’mon, Santa! It’s not like I’m asking for a pony!

i think i’ve come across as whiny or complaining or unhappy in my last few esoteric (i had to look up the word to make sure it means what i want it to mean) and inwardly-reflective posts. i’m not unhappy. far from it. i hate sucking at everything i do (it’s why i don’t play many sports!), but the rest of my life around school and work and studying is really darn awesome.

what’s happening lately?

baby, it’s cold outside! i’m surprised at how fast the weather is changing down here. i thought late summer could hold out through October for sure. the weather widgets on my computer are convincing me it’s still better to be here in 50°F instead of those negative Celcius digits in Moose Jaw.

i write the Ob/Gyn clinical clerkship exam on Saturday. it’s a 2-hour electronic test at my local H&R Block and Brandon thinks i’m studying wayyy too much for it. i think i have the obstetric stuff down, but the list of things that can go wrong with girl parts is just too long.

i’m still working on my Spanish. it’s coming slowly, but surely. i am listening to the Coffee Break Spanish podcasts while driving to/from the clinic (having a little bit of a daily commute is actually kind of nice) and sneaking in time with Rosetta Stone when Brandon is at the gym.

i have a pile of email i’ve been neglecting since September 22nd or so. apologies all around.

Brandon bought me every book you recommended.

pumpkin cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory is AMAZING.

our wedding book album is in the mail! it might arrive this week! i recently had a dozen or so photos printed to litter about our mantle and walls. Brandon says it looks more and more like we live here. i also had a few prints framed for Brandon’s birthday: Memorial Stadium from Aunt Nancy, large map of St. Kitts and Nevis from Brandon’s parents, Nebraska Husker offense 2009 poster from Uncle Lodge and an old Dave Matthews Band poster since we couldn’t afford to go to the show in Tulsa this year.

Maddy and Suh are figuring each other out. Suh is big enough to frustrate Brandon in a good wrestle, but the girls seem to be getting along good. Maddy still wants to be queen of the house and pretend she’s annoyed that she’s not an Only Child anymore. but she doesn’t realize the house has windows to the backyard and we can see them running around cavorting and playing like puppies from the same litter. Maddy, Suh and i are having a girls-only pajama party the next couple of nights while Brandon heads to Missouri for the football game.

Brandon is experimenting in the kitchen pretty much every night and creating some fantastic masterpieces. especially for a guy who’s only been doing this cooking thing less than a year.

we have a giant pumpkin just waiting to be carved. it took a little convincing, but when i suggested that we could get a pumpkin and just colour the front, Brandon relented with the insistence that we do it right. seeds toasted in the oven and all.

October seems to be competing with September in a race for How Fast Can The Months Fly By Without You Realizing Christmas Is Right Around The Corner.

oh yes. life is good.