Hurricanes, Tornadoes and Friends

So lately- basically the month of March (and into today) Libby has been devoted to the subject, stories and personal tales of hurricanes and tornadoes, thanks to an episode of "Dinosaur Train" where the dinosaurs had to take shelter from a hurricane!

Libby knows all about the eye, what they look like (she finds any spiral shape or even the drain emptying in the bathtub) and points out how it looks like one of these two natural phenomenon. There are three "hurricane stories" from Mimi- one from Hurricane David (which was a Category 1 storm that hit Savannah in 1978), one from Hurricane Hugo (Charleston, 1989, Cat. 4) and one from Hurricane Floyd (1999, Cat. 2, which didn't hit Florida at all, but did cause the closure of Disney World, hit Cape Fear, N.C.) and then a hurricane story from Gigi, where they had to leave a vacation/trip to Hilton Head early due to an evacuation. We also get to repeat the story of a tornado near Rome in 1997 and one that was either a tornado or straight line winds that broke Mimi's glass table on her deck. You have no idea how often we have had to tell each of these stories - and how we are corrected if we miss a detail or tell it incorrectly. But Libby will only give a few details to us- won't "tell the story" when we ask her. However, I did find out that she has shared several of these stories with her teachers, who love them and told me that she's a natural-born story-teller.

These stories have been an important part of our lives lately, so I wanted to make sure I recorded a bit of the detail here.

This past week we had the highlight of getting to see the Conrads, Beavers and Oma on Wednesday in Rome! The Beavers were visiting for Spring Break (ours is this week ahead) and we got to see them for some play time and pizza (Libby's favorite) lunch! I think her favorite part was seeing Henry Beagle, the Conrads' dog but she had a lot to say about Charlotte and Yorke both before and after our visit.

They enjoyed puzzles, Easter egg playing, dog playing and this fun "skip it" game outside.

Libby preferred for me to jump the stick as it spun around or to lift her over it each time it came around, but didn't really enjoy the challenge of jumping it herself. Go figure.

We had a fun time seeing them and yesterday was the first gorgeous day that we all got to just enjoy together! We took the dog and Libby for a long walk, played outside, had a picnic at the playground, did a few necessities while Libby napped and then enjoyed dinner out at one of our favorite spots: Paradise Grill! It was really a perfect day.

Today it's been church at a new church we're visiting and lunch at home and then we're headed back outside to plant herbs and flowers for spring and summer. And tonight we'll be grilling burgers. My mouth is already watering!