You've got to be kidding me.

Last Wednesday the majority of the Chicagoland area was under a tornado watch all afternoon. It looked pretty nice outside, so I wasn't toooooo worried about the possibility of huge storms. Boy was I wrong. Stormy weather started moving in around rush hour (not fun for Abb and Andy) and by 5:30 the power went out, the sky turned green, rain was blowing horizontally, and it started to hail. PANIC. Thank goodness my emergency kit has a little radio! I turned it on an immediately was informed we were under a tornado warning, and a second later, the sirens started sounding. PANIC AGAIN! It was just at this time that Abb got home from work. She ran upstairs to my apartment, grabbed Torii, and we headed downstairs to the lobby where people were congregating. The lobby, however, is anything but safe. Large windows, glass doors, pool area with retractable roof...but no one seemed incredibly worried so we all just hung out. Old people were drinking wine which I found slightly humorous. People were stuck in the elevators, which really sucked. It was SOOOOO HOT and humid in the building already, I can't imagine how these people felt in the elevator. Once the worst of it passed, we headed back upstairs and ate some turkey sandwiches while watching the incredible lightning display light up the sky. I seriously have never seen so much lightning in one evening. It was happening in every direction you looked! This was on the Chicago Tribune the morning afterwards.

After an hour of waiting for the power to come on, we decided to venture over to my dad's house for the evening. Our apartment had turned into a heat chamber and we were miserable. On our way over we were amazed at how many trees had fallen. A huge tree had fallen less than a block before my dad's house, blocking the street entirely. It was like navigating through a maze trying to figure out a clear path to his house! Before the sun set, the sky turned a crazy yellow...something I've never seen before. It was eerily amazing! This photo, again, is from the Chicago Tribune.

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Two big storms in 1 week! We also had several smaller thunderstorms throughout the week as well. The storm last Wednesday was by far the worst I've been in in a while. Oakbrook, our neighboring city, was hardest hit. Lots of damage to buildings and flooding. I'm thankful that we were all safe, and our only loss was our fridge full of groceries that I had just bought on Monday. Grrr!

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My fingers are crossed that the worst of the storms are over for the summer!! I suppose the storm was a great diversion though...I was too busy worrying about tornadoes to even think about my surgery scheduled for the following day. More on that tomorrow.