A Whirlwind

A week ago from this past Friday Trent and I loaded up the car and drove up to El Reno, Oklahoma for the Oklahoma State Championship and the Olympic Regional Championship. Trent was signed up to race both of the races (one on Saturday and one on Sunday). I was really excited about this race because I was looking forward to stopping in Norman on our way. It would be Jonah's first trip to Norman and his first time to visit The University of  Oklahoma. It also gave Trent and I an excuse to eat at one of our favorite restaurants and walk around campus reminiscing.

As excited as I was about this trip, I was a bit nervous that I wouldn't even get to go because on Thursday Jonah woke up with a high fever. I took him to the doctor and they told me that it was probably just a virus and that they couldn't really find anything wrong with him. I really debated if I should go with him to Oklahoma or just stay home. Friday he woke up with the high fever (104.0) again. After much thought I decided that a long car trip might be good for him to sleep, not to mention he was going to have a fever no matter where he was. A little bit of the decision to go was maybe a tiny bit selfish on my part, since I was really looking forward to this trip.

Around 11:00 we loaded up the car and headed out. We arrived in Norman around 1:30. I talked Trent into eating at one of my favorite restaurants, Plaid Cafe. It was delicious!! Then we decided to take a short walk around campus. Jonah was still feeling feverish and was very sleepy. We snapped a few pictures to document Jonah's first OU visit and then headed back to the car. We drove around the Greek houses and campus. Then we made a quick stop at the bookstore so that I could run in and get each of us a new t-shirt. Around 3:15 we decided that we should start making our way to El Reno.

Trent was a little antsy because on Thursday he realized that he hadn't actually registered for the races. He usually registers way in advance to get the discount price, but somehow he hadn't registered for this race. He had quickly contacted the race director. The race director told him to come with some money, a Diet Dr. Pepper and some Twislers.

The drive through Moore, OK was slow because everyone slowed down to scope out the damage from the tornado that had hit there a week or so earlier. The announcer on the radio was giving a weather report and said that there were going to be big storms that evening with a threat of tornadoes. He even commented that these were the same conditions that had occurred when the tornado hit Moore. I wasn't really afraid because having gone to college at OU we had tornado warnings several times. They were never that big of a deal. Of course I never liked them, but we had yet to really experience a tornado. The sky was blue and the sun was shining so I thought this was not going to be that big of a deal.

We finally arrived in El Reno around 4:30. We made a quick stop to get the Twislers and the Diet Dr. Pepper. We drove out to the race site for Trent to register and pick up his packet. Trent wanted to drive the bike portion of the course, but I talked him into driving back to Yukon where our hotel was located. I wanted to get Jonah our of the car as soon as possible. We drove back East on I-40 for about 10 minutes. The sky was starting to get dark and it looked like a storm was off to the west.

We unloaded the car and headed up to our 3rd floor hotel room. We were going to be meeting the team for dinner around 6:15. This gave me some time to get us settled in. While unpacking Jonah's pack'n play I had the T.V. turned on. The weatherman was showing the intensity of the storm and was warning the people in El Reno that they were going to need to take cover. I started getting nervous because we were on the 3rd floor. I told Trent to grab anything we might need and let's head downstairs. While heading downstairs Trent got a text message that the other teammates were going to go ahead and go to dinner. The restaurant was 2 exits west off of I-40 of where we were. I told Trent that  with the threat of storms and tornadoes I wanted to go where we knew people. So we loaded up the car and started driving West. The sky was super dark and it was beginning to rain pretty hard. The tornado sirens were going off and this added to our anxiety just a little! The restaurant was about 1/4 of a mile to the south of I-40.

We went inside and met up with the team. The weather was on the T.V.s and we heard that a tornado had touched down in El Reno. As crazy as it sounds we went outside and looked West... sure enough there was the tornado way off in the distance. It was huge! At that point we needed to get into the safest room in the restaurant. Wanna guess where? Yep, the bathroom. We huddled in the bathroom with the team. The TV's had gone out so we had no way of knowing what was happening with the storm. The general manager of the team turned his phone onto a news station so that we could at least have audio. We used our phones to look on the map to figure out where the storm/ tornado were. Our parents were also texting us to let us know exactly when the storm would hit us.

Sweet Jonah was not feeling well and just slept in my arms the entire time. This was such a relief and it helped me to stay calm. I will never forget when Trent's mom texted that we had 2 minutes before the tornado would be right on top of us. I sat there watching my phone, wishing that two minutes would pass by quickly and we could get over whatever was about to come. I remember trying to figure out how I would protect Jonah. Would I lay on top of him? Would I huddle together with Trent and put Jonah in the middle? Should I put Jonah under the sink and hope the counter would hold? I remember coming to the conclusion that I would just hold him as he was sleeping on me. The first minute ticked by.... I wasn't afraid that we were going to die, but then again I really had no clue. I resigned to the fact that there was nothing we could do. We couldn't drive away. We were stuck in this restaurant in the safest room that they had. There was nothing I could do to stop the tornado and there was nothing I could do to remove us from the tornado. It was in God's hands, the best place for it to be.  From everything we were hearing the tornado was heading straight for us and it was at least a mile wide if not larger (we learned later that the tornado was an EF 5, 2.6 miles wide and had winds up to 290 mph, the widest tornado ever recorded). Finally the second minute came and went. I felt relieved! We heard that the tornado had dissipated and literally jumped over us. What a relief.

The rain poured, hail fell from the sky and the storm continued on for a long time. The restaurant wanted to close and they sent us out into the storm (I will refrain from telling you how upset this made me). Trent ran out to the car and pulled up as close to the door as he could. I ran out and jumped in the car and just let Jonah ride on my lap. We were wet, cold, hungry and everywhere was closed. The rain was pouring down sideways and we decided we should just go back to the hotel.

Fast forward... 3:30am... Jonah woke up... that meant we woke up. Trent checked his phone to find out that the races had been cancelled. His coach had texted asking him if he would be up for driving back to Texas and entering the PlayTri Festival Race in Las Colinas. The race was on Sunday but we would need to hurry back on Saturday so that he could get registered. Jonah never went back to sleep. His fever was still high and he seemed very irritated. By 5am I suggested that Trent take Jonah down to the lobby so that I could start packing up our things to head out. I don't think anyone on the team slept very well due to the excitement from the tornado and the storm that continued on late into the night. They decided to meet for breakfast at 7 and then we would head out from there.

We raced back to Dallas. Trent signed up for the PlayTri Festival Race. Trent had one of his best races to date. He completed the Olympic distance race in 1 hour 48 minutes! If you know anything about triathlons you know that it's impressive to complete an Olympic in under 2 hours. He ended up 4th place in the Elite division! All in all this was one crazy weekend, but the outcome couldn't have been more impressive and rewarding!

* Jonah ended up having a high fever for 5 days and then the fever disappeared. I realize that fevers are not necessarily bad and that his body was doing exactly what it was supposed to... fighting off a virus. The timing of his fever really was perfect in the fact that he slept during the whole storm. He is totally fine and we are thrilled to have our happy, energetic baby boy back!