what a weekend.

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Well my parents are officially no longer living in Ohio. Now they are residents of the state of Kentucky.

And my sister and I decided to take my two pups on a little road trip from Akron to Kentucky to help them get settled.

We left early-ish Friday. And I really didn’t think I was going to survive the day.

About 25 minutes into Kentucky, it went from sunny to huge hail. And high winds. And a call from my parents telling us there were tornado warnings. And I lost it.

I called Chad and was hysterical. He directed us to get off the road and take shelter. Luckily there was an exit coming up with two gas stations. We pulled in and stayed in the car, but the hail was dangerously large.

I was worried if we stayed in the car, we weren’t going to be safe for long. But I couldn’t even begin to think of leaving the pups in the car. So in the midst of a full-on panic attack, I hang up on Chad, run into the gas station and, hysterically beg them to allow us and my two small dogs to take shelter inside their station {along with the 35+ people who have already taken shelter inside}. They said no. We had to stay outside.

I sprint back to my car, tell my sister we have to get out of the car — now! We stand directly next to the door of the gas station. I told my sister that if we saw anything headed our way, we were taking the dogs inside the station. Regardless of what they said.

We called Chad; we called our parents {who hung up on us because they had to run to take shelter themselves}; and every phone call dropped because of the storms. The skies were black, red, and yellow all at the same time. And the hail and wind would not stop. The power went out. The dogs were screaming {have you ever heard a dog scream? Much like a childs’ scream; but not at all like a dogs’ bark}. I was trembling. And Chad is stalking the weather online from Akron and reporting the play by play to me. And then the wind picked up and the electricity went out.

A local happened to be standing outside the gas station with us {and I swear he stayed only because he saw two girls having anxiety & panic attacks. While we were standing there, crying and trying to calm the pups down, he said he got a text that a tornado touched down just down the street.

We weathered the storm for 30 minutes before we were given the go-ahead from Chad to start driving again. We drove the hour or so further to Louisville and pretty much collapsed.

We later found out that pretty tornadoes were pretty much surrounding us & our travel path of going south down interstate 71. We were lucky to have stopped when we did.

And I’m pretty sure I’m still not recovered from being so shaken up.