9 More Days and Tornado

As of this evening I have only 9 days left of school with the children! 1o if you count record day. I am so ready for summer to start. We have a few graduations to attend. My SIL Laura is graduating May 22 from med school and Chris and I along with my parents are driving down to watch her graduate and celebrate her HUGE accomplishment. We are so proud of her!! The other graduation we have is my other SIL, Ev's wife, Holly. She is graduating from KCUMB with her Master's in bio-ethics. We are extremely proud of her and all her hard work! She has been accepted to both OSU-Tulsa and KCUMB's med school. We are not sure yet where they will choose but we are crossing our fingers for Tulsa so they would be closer and we could see them more often. We miss them.

Our other summer plans include going to Lake Tahoe. Chris has to go to Reno for a site visit and so he suggested going up over a weekend, spending it at Lake Tahoe and then go on to Reno for the site visit. I am excited as I haven't been to Lake Tahoe before. I, Melissa, will be going with the high school to Colorado this summer for a hiking, repelling, white-water rafting trip. We were supposed to go on a missions trip to Mexico but because of everything going on down there, they didn't think it would be safe for the students. I really enjoy getting to go and do these things with the youth. It allows for a great bonding time and you get to know your kids so much better.

Changing subjects, we got to see both sets of parents for Mother's Day. Chris's parents drove up Saturday and we met them in Stillwater to see Chris's cousin, Megan, graduate from OSU. I can't believe she is already graduating. It was nice getting to spend time with his family and celebrate Mother's day with them.

Speaking of Mother's Day... It was harder than I imagined this year. I really didn't think that I would be affected by it but several sweet people sent me such precious messages that my heart was filled and being the emotional person I am, it got me weepy. Chris got me a really sweet card and flowers. I love him!

On a healthy note, I have started running again. I have run two 5K's in the past two months and I am running another one this coming Saturday. This is something that I am doing that is helping me feel better and get in shape. Last week I clocked in 13 miles. Yeah!!! Just wanted to share my joy. Celebrate the small stuff!

The big news today was the tornado. I was in Yukon getting some dental work done and when I got to the office at 4:10 the news was saying the bad weather was about an hour away. This would have left us plenty of time to get my stuff done and be gone... about 20 minutes later someone came and told Dr. R. that the storm was 5 to 10 minutes away and that we needed to leave soon. Luckily, my work was pretty much done so I hopped in my car and was driving home. I took N.W. 10th to Mustang road and went north on Mustang to get home. When I pulled into the garage Chris met me at the door and told me to get inside. This is when I heard that the tornado had touched down close to where I had just been minutes before. As they were describing it's location on the news I looked out my window to see the tornado. I am posting a pic of it so you can see it. We went out on the porch and watched it. I looked up to see clouds churning above us so we hastily retreated back inside. Oh the joys of Oklahoma living.

I hope tomorrow is good weather as we are having our career day and last year it rained. It made for a crazy day. Here's to hoping for fantastic weather and for everyone to show. If you think of it, say a little prayer for me.

Hope you all have a safe and pleasant night!