Severe Texas Weather...spring time has arrived.

Since moving to Texas, we have loved many things it has to offer our family.  But this weather here is absolutely crazy, someone once told me that you could wake up in the morning and it be cold out with no wind, then mid morning the clouds would come rolling in and it would start raining, then by mid day the clouds cleared up and the sun came out along with the heat.  I have never seen anything like this in my life.  With all the conversations I have had with many new people I have met, I told them that before we relocated to Texas I had asked many questions about housing, neighborhoods, communities, schools, activities for the kids and more but I did not ask about the weather...As you can image that is a huge adjustment for me. 

Our family has always lived in states or areas where we did not encounter or experience any natural disasters until we moved here.  I still remember making my first visit to Trader Joe's in Southlake which is about 25 mins from where we live and as I was walking to my car I heard these sirens go off and looked around to see if anyone else noticed them, everyone heard them but went on their marry way so I didn't think anything of it other then that was strange.  A month later I heard the same thing but this time it was at a local grocery store and I was told that they test out the sirens each month for when the bad weather arrives in the spring time.  At first I didn't believe him but after talking with my husband he filled me in on how they work and where they were located in our town.  As this being our first Spring here I really didn't know when the severe weather would be begin, until I received a Tornado warning on my phone Sunday evening.  The message stated that there was a warning in our area and to take shelter now.  I looked at my husband and said "what does that mean?"  He looked at me said "Exactly what it says", however the storm pasted right over us and we had no rain at all, just lots of thunder and lightening.  I was a little nervous as this was our first warning.

Then last night our phones started to go off around 2:15am that there was another tornado warning in our area until 2:45am, once again I wasn't sure how severe this was until the sirens went off and I completely panic.  I knew by hearing those sirens that something was coming and it was serious at this point.  My husband and I jumped out of bed as this was our first time actually hearing them and not as a test.  Once we heard the wind and heavy rain we immediately grabbed some pillows, blankets, the girls and the dog and went to our "shelter area" in our house.  It was a very scary moment for me as I have never experienced anything like that in my life, I hate not having control of the situation and last night I absolutely had no control.  I just held my family tight and waited for the storm to blow over, which it did.  Thankfully our area did not get hit with a tornado but due to the high winds we did have some fallen trees around town, no damages to homes were reported.  The rain and wind stayed for a while so we had the girls stay in our room for the night as everyone was a little on edge. 

Even waking up this morning I was still uneasy about what happen last night, all I could think about was how does this get any easier.  I know many people who have lived here for years say it's like second nature to them now, but I'm not sure if I will ever get use to this kind of severe spring storms,  I guess I have no choice at this point.  I just need to know what to do and how to stay calm. On top of no sleep our coffee pot decided to not work this morning, it was turned on at 6:20am to brew however nothing happened. Thank goodness we had our Keurig machine as back up. 

I have been doing some research on the Internet and Pinterest for ideas on weather disaster kits that I would be able to make my self, so today I went to the dollar store and picked up a few things like batteries, flash lights, candles and lighters.  That way if we lose power we have stuff in the house that we can access right away.  I also bought a small clear container to store it in and will be placing it in our "shelter area", along with food and drinks for all of us. We are also going to discuss our plans as a family for when we are home and this happens again that way we are all on the same page.

It's a start for our kit

This is only the beginning to what life is like living in Texas....crazy weather or not we still love it here.