Busy Month

June has been so busy for us! Our month started with our 10th anniversary. We had already celebrated back in April with our long weekend in Door County, so the actual anniversary was pretty low key. Just dinner out with the girls. That same weekend we had 2 friends from college visit with their families. It rained that entire weekend, and with a house full of kids that can be tough. But we made the most of it and had an awesome visit.

The next weekend my parents came down for a college graduation, and were able to spend a few nights with us. The following week Brian's mom flew out to see the girls (and us too I guess:)). Payton and Addison love all the attention from their Grammys.

This weekend my sister Valerie and her husband visited. Valerie is pregnant with her first baby and made a haul at our house! We were able to give them quite a few things to use for their baby. We also made a trip up to IKEA and the Mall of America.

Things will slow down a bit for us in July until our trip to the lake in MI. We are looking forward to that trip too. This summer is a lot different than last due mostly to the fact that Payton and Addie really play well together and love to be outside playing in the yard. It makes life a lot easier now that they like to play with the same things. And the newest thing is Payton can finally pump her swing all by herself. She is very proud of that (as are Brian and I). We put a new glider on our swing set that they can swing on together too. We usually have a yard full of kids, and their parents. Always an impromtu get together at the Stewards!

Wednesday Night Storms

So we were outside playing with our neighbors on Wednesday night when the tornado sirens sounded. It was overcast, and dark clouds were rolling in, but that happens so often that we were surprised to get inside to hear that we had a tornado warning for the next 45 minutes. I did convince Brian the first year we moved to MN that we needed an emergency weather radio. Boy has that thing come in handy.

Brian had to go to Minneapolis to pick up his mom from the airport so he left shortly after the warning expired hoping to miss the next batch of storms. And of course while he was gone the satellite went out... I turned on the computer to check the radar again as the sirens started again. Our weather radio was alarming saying that there was a tornado on the ground 6 miles west of Owatonna moving east. Yeah, we live in Owatonna! Off to our "hideout" under the stairs. I have a big beanbag chair and "tornado kit" back under the stairs in our basement storage room. So there we sat, the girls and I... I had the computer on live radar, the weather radio right next to me, and the girls looked totally freaked out! We got ping pong ball size hail, that I swore was going to break a window, and 1 1/2 inches of rain in about 2 hours. The tornado missed us and all ended up well. My girls did awesome listening to me and staying put when I asked (for once!). While we were in the thick of that storm Payton looked at me and said "Is it almost over Mumma?" I said it was almost past us and we just needed to sit tight for a little bit longer. She than said "This storm has really ruined my night!" How cute is that!? I really needed that at that moment!

Here they are hunkered down in our "shelter" after the storm had passed.