Rain Rain go away.......

and please bring back our power!! Yes, that's right - we have no power. It went out yesterday (Wednesday) at 3 pm. Here is the sequence from yesterdays events:
1. I was at work and Ryan was at home with the kiddos
2. At 2pm it was warm, sunny with a nice breeze
3. By 3pm it was pitch black, very humid, and the nice breeze had picked up a notch
4. By 3:15pm the rain was coming down sideways and the wind was blowing at about 50mph
5. We lost power at home
6. Just before 4:30pm my friend/co-worker, Tami and I were leaving work...just chit chatting while walking out to our cars, and we look up and see 2 funnel clouds directly to the south of us, maybe 3-4 miles away.
7. At 4:31pm I almost peed my pants
8. I called home to make sure everyone was in the house - and to tell them to get into the basement (I was not calm at this point - actually I was pretty darn hysterical!!)

All of us girls at work got into the storage closet - and about 15 minutes later we went out and the sky was back to looking normal. It was still raining but the sky was no longer the weird green, pea soup looking color that it was. Most of the guys at work thought we were crazy and when I called Ryan, I think he thought I was loosing my mind. I am glad to report that this morning on the news, they reported a funnel cloud sighting in Allendale - so I am officially sane!! However, it was very scary - and I think all those people that like to tornado chase are truly nuts!!

9. We are still without power this morning
(we spent the night at my parents house)
10. I called Consumers power to get an estimated time for power restoration and they told me
Saturday July 5 at 11pm
11. What?????
12. That's 3 days away.................not only did we just loose everything in our freezer, we are now
going to loose everything in the fridge/freezer in the house. FANTASTIC.

Poor Ryan is at home with the kids again today while I go into work for a few hours. Being without power just plain sucks!! We heard this morning that about 157,000 homes in the area are without power, so little Allendale is probably last on the list. Anyway, there is our sad story- maybe tonight we will stay at a hotel - with tomorrow being July 4th - and the kids bored out of their minds....we'll see!! As they say "roll with the punches"!!