Some of our kids have a problem saying their "m"s and "n"s so TORNADO became TOMATO.... Friday, June 6th marked a scary day in the Ward home and in the town of Clovis, New Mexico. We have had quite a bit of storms lately, so when it started to lightening and thunder....Laura didn't get too worked up about it. CJ was at cub day camp, Clay was at work, and Laura was at home with the other 3 kiddos. Well, Laura gets a phone call saying that she needed to come pick up CJ from camp immediately because of the weather, and the parents awards night was cancelled. As Laura drove to pick up her son, she was a little annoyed that they would cancel the awards ceremony. As she looked at the sky...yes, it was raining, but there was a crisp line of cloud and then blue skies....surely this storm would pass soon and we would be seeing sunny skies in no time. (All this is going through her mind as she drives out of town to get CJ). Then she gets a phone call from Clay..... who is now on his way home. He asks her where she is...and she says, she is on her way to get CJ. They cancelled the night because of weather. Then he asks a weird question, "Laura, do you have your radio on?" Thinking he is insinuating that the radio is turned up too high and can't hear her, she said, yeah, but I can hear you ok.... Then Clay's next words scared the pants off Laura, "No...Laura. There is a tornado. It just touched down a few miles north of base and is heading directly your way. Go get CJ and GET HOME,NOW. Don't delay." Instantly, Laura's attitude changed and she was not on alert and peaked attention to the clouds. She drove quickly but safely. Got CJ in record time, asked the kids to watch the skies for funnel clouds/tornados while she drove home. Laura saw Clay on the side of the road as they got closer to town - he had come looking for them making sure they were safe....what a man. We all got home just in time. As we got out of the car and looked up at the sky...clouds were swirling above our house in a circular motion...freaky! Never seen that before. Our kids broke down, tears, screams, hysterics...all surfaced and made an appearance! So, we gathered our little family into the family room, said a family prayer for safety, and then attempted to calm everyone down. Preston grabbed the scriptures and said that we needed to take them and head into the bathroom, gather in the bathtub, put a matress on our heads and SEEK Shelter! This kid was hysterical, but right. At the time, we focused on calming down the kids....but looking back, we realize we did the wrong thing. We should have listened to Preston and done exactly what he said to do...we should have sought shelter, read scriptures, and stayed safe...to help rectify our wrong decision, we had a special FHE where we read scriptures as a family - all piled in the master bathtub with a crib mattress on top of us! Yes, we were quite the sight. Thanks for teaching us so well Preston. You are one smart boy.
There were tornado warnings all through that evening and all through the weekend. Thankfully we are safe and didn't hear of any more tornados touching down in the area. That is definitely a weekend we will all remember for a long time to come.
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