This only happens in movies

This only happens in movies ... that's what I've been saying the past few days. Sunday morning (June 8, 2008) started as so many other Sunday's do. We'd been at Mittino's the night before BBQ'ing with our friends. I loaded the pictures from the evening into shutterfly and made snarky little comments about some of them. I made cinammon rolls and coffee because that's what we do on Sunday's and sat down with the paper. A couple of hours later I loaded Julie into the car and we headed to the mall for some quality mother daugter time. We checked in with Steve mid afternoon and since he was still grading papers I decided to go to the bookstore for a while. Around 3:00 I packed it in and called Steve to let him know we were on our way home. 20 minutes later I was approaching our exit when I saw a black line dividing the sky ... I don't know how else to describe the wall clouds moving across the highway. Just as I was thinking ... gosh, it looks like we'll get home just in time for another storm Steve called and said to GET AWAY from the house. I said, I'm almost home, I'll be there in a minute. Steve repeated, GET AWAY from the house and went on to say that all the trees on our property had just fallen, the barn was gone and the propane tank was leaking. I heard him try to coax Thumper to come with him as I processed this (yes, he was trying to save my dog!). I turned back onto the highway and started heading east, back into town at about 95 miles an hour. In an effort to not panic I called Jan to let her know I was coming over and there was a bad storm on the way. I then called Mittino's and told them to get the kids downstairs before I called the Rosingana's. As I tried to call Nate the storm caught up with me and I had to focus on driving. I quickly realized there was no way I could drive through the storm and I got off at the next exit and pulled up to a hotel. I left the car in the driveway, grabbed Julie and ran inside. At this point I started to feel a real sense of panic but there was nothing I could do. Over the next 15-20 minutes I called Steve and Jan to figure out what was happening. When it was clear I drove to Jan's and tried to comprehend what was happening. 4 hours later I finally headed back to the house, debating the whole way if the damage was going to be as bad as I expected or worse than I expected. Turning onto Mt Hope from Canal (2 miles away) I was met by a police officer who let me past when I showed him my id; however, a mile later another police office told me I would have to go around the block to get to our place due to a fatality. Keep in mind around the block in our new world is 3 miles! When I finally pulled up to our house (after going through another police checkpoint) I couldn't believe it. The damage was actually worse than I had expected.

*It is now the 13th of June, I started this post on the 11th but the computer went out before I finished. I will try to write more this weekend!