Tsunami

Let me start with Friday night. The last thing I said to Brian was, "Turn your alarm off, I want to sleep in tomorrow, as long as Galina will let me!" So, I was surprised when my cell phone started ringing at 4:34 a.m. I guess I'm just supposed to be an early, EARLY, riser. Thearsa, Brian's Mom, was calling to let us know that a tsunami was on it's way because of an 8.8 earthquake in Chile. Actually, they had called Brian's cell phone twice and our house phone once, before calling my cell phone - none of which we heard. ButI had my cell phone next to the bed, got up, got Brian up and checked out what was going on on the internet and news. Sent Brian to the gas station (literally, as soon as he got dressed) and pulled out my emergency suitcase. I grabbed another bag and started throwing clothes and medicine and hygiene stuff in (things that I am now working on putting in the emergency prep. suitcase permanently) - notice the oreo's made it into the suitcase, first thing. Gotta have what's important. I then put all of our baby books into our fire proof/water proof safe. Put important papers into the suitcase, well I could go on with this list of what I did FOREVER. Finally, around 6 a.m. we sat down on the couch, saw that the first wave wasn't expected until 11 a.m. and they were telling people not to evacuate unless they were in a flood zone. Well, we are, but the safe line is literally across the street. So, we went back to bed. Got up 30 min. later when Galina did. Walked the dogs and came home, left the news on and just hung out. I worked on that blasted quiet book all morning. Around 11:16 a.m. I heard a loud speaker outside. Opened the garage door and saw that our street was being evacuated. We drove across the base to the "shelter" - didn't see anyone there (because we had been prepared and had had several hours head start we were just first to arrive). Decided to go to the playground across the street from the gym - which was the shelter - and play, let the dogs run, etc. Sat for maybe 30 minutes. Wanted lunch. Drove to McD's - which was packed and only the drive-thru was open. We waited there for about 40 minutes to get some lunch for everyone, B&G included, were three cars up from where the base cut off the drive-thru line. Thank goodness because otherwise I'd have gone back home. Went back to the park, played, ate - about an hour later we had an all-clear (at least we thought so since everyone, including the ambulance, was leaving the shelter) and we went back home. Finished off the day with a walk and an herb-crusted pork loin for dinner. Not too shabby for a Tsunami Saturday...

P.S. We're grateful for the heads up from Thearsa, grateful that we had things together and emergency supplies ready, and EXTREMELY grateful that nothing came of all of it, but sorry for those in Chile that experienced real disaster.

Also, Brian got a new tomahawk. It's damascus steel - yay - and he had to take pictures of it :)