Eat My Cake and Have It Too!

You may have noticed that in my last post about our 1 year anniversary I didn't mention eating our cake topper. We did have a cake topper and we did eat it.....however we had to eat in April. 

As you all probably know April 27, 2011 was a day full of devastating tornadoes in the state of Alabama. We were lucky and did not take a direct hit. However just five minutes north of us and other very close surrounding cities were not as lucky. It was breath-taking to see some of the damage that happened in a matter of moments. While we were lucky enough not to have any damage to our apartment complex did lose our power. That day was quite crazy actually....There were so many storms that came through that afternoon and me, the usually prepared for any storm and ready to take cover, had just kind of blown them off. For the most part the sun was out and there was hardly any wind, etc, etc. So when our power went off at 11:30am I just figured that it would be back on soon and settled in to read a book I had just borrowed. Around 1pm the sky got really dark really quick and when the rain fell it was horizontal.

The rain coming in....

 Well that freaked me out pretty good and since I didn't have any power I couldn't turn on the news or check the radar/weather on my computer. I was surprised at how calm I stayed at that point, but inside I was kicking myself for not having our "safe place" ready to go. So I ran around the apartment getting some extra clothes, putting on my tennis shoes, grabbing Christopher's tennis shoes, getting our "important" documents, blankets, first aid kit, flash lights (which I had no idea where they were), candles, lighter, cell phone chargers, etc etc, and got them in our "safe place". About the time I got everything in the sky turned super dark and the tornado sirens began. So Opus and I took cover.

Opus with Christopher's Tennis Shoes and our  Crank Radio.

 Lucky for me I have some amazing friends in the Huntsville area. They began texting and making sure I was okay, etc. They all still had power. We found out later that some tree branch had fallen on a power line outside of the apartment and that is why the power went out so early. So Opus and I hung out in the laundry room and used our crank radio to get updates and news. Well the sirens stopped and the sun kinda came back out and I ventured out of hiding. I am so thankful for this slack in weather, because it gave Chris time to get home from work and not be out in bad weather. I would have been a nervous wreck if he was driving home from work or was at work......just trust me I would have been out wondering the streets looking for him. So anyway Chris got home and laughed at me a little for my OCD with our safe place. But he didn't laugh for too long. We went outside to just watch the storm blow in. The sun was still out, but we had heard reports of tornadoes in Decatur trying to cross the water and the cloud formations were amazing. We were looking at the sky behind the apartment and it had become this really creepy "jade" color. I have never seen anything like it. We also noticed that they clouds were "colliding" with each other. Well that was all it took for me I was ready to go into hiding. Chris decided we needed to go ahead and get back in the house, but wasn't too concerned. The sirens weren't going off and the storm seemed to be north of us, but we went inside. Shortly after I was standing in the kitchen and I noticed the ceiling fans were spinning like they were on.....which was impossible since we had not power. It was from the wind blowing through the windows. That really creeped me out. Christopher decided that we needed to close all the windows and it continued to get darker and darker outside. By this point the sirens are blaring. Chris is taking video on his phone from our guest bedroom window and the trees outside are practically blowing over. I was standing in the doorway of our laundry room (the "safe place") and I will never forget the look on Christopher's face when he turned from the window and said "we need to take cover now". It was probably one of the scariest moments in my life. We hunkered down and waited it out with our crank radio broadcasting news that just seem to create more panic. Lucky for us we didn't have any damage and after the sirens stopped we headed out of the laundry room. There were trees uprooted and AC units moved off of their foundations, but there didn't seem to be any structural damage! Thank you Lord. We later found out that was the time that the EF-5 plowed through the Harvest/Monrovia area just five miles North of where we live. Below are some photos that we took after April 27th. We had rode with some friends to TN to get gas, and these are some photos we took.

A gas station and piggly wiggly stood here.

The Gas Station and Piggly Wiggly again.

The subdivision across from Piggly Wiggly.

Well we soon learned that the entire county was out of power and would be for 5-7 days. That number continue to grow until they admitted they had no idea when it would be back on. I have never seen so many people going crazy trying to find generators, food, water, it was unreal. Chris and I still had ice in our ice maker and we decided to try to save what we could in our cooler. We also had bread, peanut butter, crackers, etc. And plenty of water! :) On April 28th we hung out at the apartment complex and met a lot more neighbors. When Kroger opened on generators it was NUTS! There were cars down the street and everything! We talked to people that had been in line for the gas station waiting on the street for over 4 hours without moving! Crazy!!

Cars down the street from Kroger.

So with no power, our wedding cake topper began to defrost! We had it in the cooler but a cooler can only do so much. We decided to proceed with our trip to Starkville that weekend for graduation. We figured they had power and hot water too! So off we went with our cake topper and chicken breast that were in the process of defrosting. It was a great weekend (extended because we still didn't have power and Chris didn't have to go to work)! We decided to eat our cake topper that weekend while at Dante and Eileen's. Me, Chris, Amelia, Dante, Eileen, and my brother Ted all went over to Dante and Eileen's and sat outside just hanging out. Here are some pictures from that night thanks to Amelia!

Cam swimming! Love him!

Opus on his way to Starkville!

Eileen, Amelia and I goofing around!

All smiles. LOVE THEM!

The boys! Ted, Dante, and Christopher!

High Fives!

The Love of My Life!

And we are weird at times too!

So now for photos of us eating our cake topper! Surprisingly it was quite tasty! We had a double layered cake with the top layer being white cake and bottom layer being chocolate. The chocolate layer was so moist and delicious! The white layer was a little dry but okay. It was fun to share our topper with everyone too! Jen Kay and Allie stopped by and had some. The icing was not very tasty, but it all fell off anyway, so we just stuck with the chocolate cake!

He was really excited!

So after we got back to Huntsville, we volunteered with the Mississippi State Huntsville Alumni Chapter in the clean up efforts. We went to Boaz, AL (about 30-35 minutes from us) and helped a family there that had a lot of trees down. They had a hole in their roof, but compared to their neighbors they were very lucky. The house next door, was practically gone, and the house across the street was a slab. Literally just a slab of concrete. The family had tents out in their front yard that they were sleeping in. It was heart-breaking. It was really nice to meet some MSU Alumni that live around us, as well as giving back to our community, especially since they were hurting so badly. Here are some pictures from that trip.

This is the house next door. No roof.

The backyard of the house we helped at.

We actually cleared a pathway here so they could go from their carport to their backyard.

More of the backyard.

Well that's all I got for now. So thankful that we were safe during that storm!