St. George trip that almost didn't happen

Spencer and I had been planning a trip to St. George for about four months now. We planned to meet up with our friends Dustin and Kellie Bennett and spend the long weekend with them, since we don't get to see them that much. Spencer got off work a little bit early on Thursday and was on his way home, when he called to tell me that the canyon was closed and wasn't able to get home, so he was going to stay at his mom's house for a little while until things cleared up and he could get home. Meanwhile I was stuck at home in the middle of a HUGE STORM!!! Two tornadoes (yep tornadoes) touched down in Moreno Valley causing all kinds of roads to shut down. On top of the tornadoes, it was hailing like I had never seen before. Moreno Valley looked like a snow storm hit it! The roads were flooded in a matter of minutes and people's homes were covered in what looked like a foot of snow! It was the craziest thing I had ever seen! I was stranded at home in the middle of the storm (scared to death and worried that I didn't have a lot of food storage) and Spencer was at his parent's 15 minutes away where it wasn't even raining! I was able to get some pictures of the storm from the Internet so you could all see that I am not making this all up.

Here's the two tornadoes that were only a few miles away from our house

This picture is taken on the 60 freeway right where the exit is to get to our house
I told you it was scary!!!
What the roads looked like and why we were unable to leave for St. George when we had planned on leaving. What an unbelievable day!
The storm did eventually calm down and Spencer finally got home around 8:00 that night. It was amazing that Moreno Valley had so much hail and other areas just had a little bit of rain. After debating on whether or not we should still go to St. George, we decided to just pack up and go before another strange storm hit. We packed Owen in the car and took off around 8:15 p.m. This was Owen's first major car ride. We bought this mirror especially for the trip so he could entertain himself by looking at his own cute face. He did really well in the car. We only had to stop once to feed and change him.
After a long trip we arrived in St. George around 3:00 a.m. local time. It was so good to finally get there and be with our friends. The picture above is a bird's eye view of the city. Below is Owen and the Maren. Maren is exactly 1 year older than Owen almost to the day. She is so tiny though, they look about the same age. She was so cute with Owen. She always wanted to play with him and help me change his diaper. Owen had fun with her too.
We had a nice relaxing weekend, but the highlight of the trip for me was going to this great scrapbook store. I got so many cute things, it got me excited about getting home and working on Owen's baby book.

So our trip got off to a rough start, and I didn't even know if we would make it there, but we did and it was nice to get away and spend time with friends. I did learn a valuable lesson though: I need to take our prophet's counsel more seriously and really work on getting my food storage and 72 hour kit ready because you never know when disaster is going to strike!