close call

This afternoon Jack and I went out with some friends to an outlet mall. We had a great time, and then we went to eat. We got done eating and I noticed that I had 8 missed calls, most of them were from Luke and a few from friends in Lawrence that weren't with us. I called Luke and he told me that Lawrence was under a tornado watch. So he was stuck in the basement of the school for a while. He told me that we should just stay put. I then talked to some friends that told us the same thing, don't come home. We walked around for awhile debating how long we should stay out there. We then decided we should get in our car so we could here the warnings on the radio. We got kind of nervous when they said the tornado warnings were on our side of Lawrence right by our homes. It soon passed but we were about 30 miles from Lawrence so we still didn't know if it was heading our way. We decided to go to the parking lot of a nearby furniture store, it is the largest furniture store you will ever see so we thought it would be the safest place if there was a tornado. Luke sent me a text message saying it was safe to come home right when the tornado sirens started out by us. So it was definetly NOT safe to leave. It was Jack and I, our pregnant friend Natalie, and Laura and her 2 boys, Aaron & David. So we grabbed our babies and ran into the store. We walked around for a minute and then soon they told us it was time to go to the tornado tunnels. You either had to leave the store and they were locking the doors or you had to go in the tunnel. We chose the tunnel. It was amazing how many people left the store! We waited out the storm feeling pretty safe. When they told us it was safe to leave we started to head home. That is when we saw all the damage, right on the road we would have been on if we would have just gone home. There were houses and barns that were destroyed. Pretty crazy. Later as Luke and I watched the news we realized how close of a call it really was. We would have been RIGHT where the tornado was if we would have headed home. On the news they said that the people that were driving had to pull over and go hide in the ditches nearby. Could you imagine Jack and I and our pregnant friend Natalie trying to hide in a ditch! How awful. The news reporters were on the road and the tornado made a turn and they even had to go get in a ditch it got so close. It was a very close call. We are very grateful to all be home with our husbands and we feel blessed that we weren't driving and that everyone was okay! The things we have to do in Kansas!!
(and tornado season is just beginning so we will see what else is in store for us!)