SandyO's Blog: Birthday week

I find it quite humorous that on Hannah's, Lulu's and Gabe's birthday the weather was awful.  We would have Southern California's temperature right up until their birthdays! On Hannah's day it was not only low temperatures, but really windy.  On Lulu's day it rained and it was just down right cold. Gabe's definitely beat the girls- we had one of the worst thunderstorms in years! Thankfully, the storm didn't start till after midnight, but it was ugly all day- you just knew it was going to throw down any minute though. When the sun broke out of the clouds after the storm it looked like a bomb went off. Tree branches everywhere, floods and the sky was still black with "huge wave" (Hannah's description) like clouds.

I copied & paste what the news was saying about the storm:
January tornadoes in the Austin Metro Area are a rarity. Wednesday morning's tornado was the first in five years. "It just sounds like an explosion," said Lester Jensen, who works in the industrial business Park Drive, where the tornado began it's path just before 3 a.m.
The National Weather Service is still working to determine the strenght of this tornado. It ripped through the area for just seven minutes. The Tornado grew to 50 yards wide and traveled 1.23 miles from the businesses to a small neighborhood. No one was hurt, but alot of homes and business' have damage- Kxan News.

Other headlines regarding the storm:
-State is NO. 2 for wind and hail losses
-San Marcos river gushes with overflowing water to the streets
-Neighbor rescues family in floods
-Tornado devastates family's home


We were not affected by the tornado, but definitely had wind damages to our roof and flooding. It was just an intense night, period! Gabe and I woke up so exhausted because we were awake for about 2 hours during the heart of the storm. The thunder was SO loud- louder than any other time during my life span.  I made Gabe get up a couple of times to check up on the dogs and Lulu. I couldn't believe she didn't wake up! Hannah of course was so scared- poor girl, who will forever be fearful of storms.

None of the less, we will have another memorable birthday to reflect on. It all started out eating dinner at Port A Oyster Bar. We finally, I mean finally found some good seafood in Texas!  Gabe being from Louisiana, the place to be at to eat seafood would rarely experiment with Louisianan type food outside of Louisiana. Sometimes the poor guy would crave gumbo or boudin and pay the price for awful food. Turns out the owner/chef lived in New Orleans for a couple of years and studied the spices and how to cook seafood. He also lived in Jamaica- so his food has really good taste and really cool environment too! Gabe had the gumbo, my mom was in heaven eating raw oysters (eww) and I had catfish and shrimp!  Just as we were ready to leave Hannah says: "wait, what about cake????" Even though Gabe and I already decided to go to the Melting Pot for dessert, we decided to order a piece of cake so we can all sing Happy Birthday. Nice ending to our dinner! After our family dinner, my mom went home with girls and Gabe and I had a romantic evening!