Well, it has been an interesting week here with the weather. Tuesday night I took Eliška to gymnastics (in Draper), while Dan stayed home with Emma. It had been stormy earlier that day, but had cleared up. I decided to stop by Ikea before we went home because it's right next to gymnastics & I had been wanting to get a few things. Eliška had so much fun playing house with everything, sitting on the couches, etc. I had never been through the whole store & did not realize how deep it went, we ended up getting lost & going around in circles. Finally I saw the signs that led to check out.
At this point I started getting very nervous because I could hear the rain pounding outside, it sounded really bad. Dan then called me to tell me to go home right away because the weather was getting bad. I had finally gotten to the toys, which was where I wanted to shop in the first place, so I got what I wanted and finally pulled Eliška away from coloring. By the time we made it downstairs & checked out, the weather had turned downright scary (thunder, lightning, torrential rain, & wind). I was like, "Great, what am I going to do?" So we waited a little bit & I saw other people going out & it really didn't seem like it was going to let up. So I thought, "Okay, we'll just get a little wet, but it'll be alright" I just wanted to get home & our car was not far away.
As soon as we got out we were completely dumped on, it was as if we had jumped into a swimming pool with all of our clothes on. The wind was so strong, it almost knocked us over as we went down the sidewalk. As we headed down the outlet to the parking lot, a flash flood poured down and it was all I could do just to keep contact with the cart and the pavement. I was inches from losing control & Eliška being thrown with the cart across the parking lot. My adrenaline kicked in & my only focus was to get to the car as fast as I could. We crashed into the door and I kept pressing 'unlock' over & over, but it had gotten so wet that it wouldn't work. Plus the car alarm had somehow been set off, finally I realized I could just use the actual key. I got the doors open, meanwhile Eliška was completely terrified & screaming at the top of her lungs the entire time. I finally was able to shove her in & then went to throw everything in the trunk and ran to get myself into the driver's seat.
I just broke down at that point, realizing how lucky we were to have made it without getting severely injured. I felt so bad that I put Eliška through that. I tried to calm her down, gave her a blanket, a candy, read a story. I was too scared to turn the car on because of the alarm & the security light flashing at me. I thought it might freeze up or something. So we just waited & prayed that the storm would let up a little, and that we would be safe in the car. Eventually I went back out to the trunk to get my cell phone to call Dan. He was so worried about us, he could tell I was really shaken up & told me he was on his way to get me with his sister. It was a while until he was able to get to us. Eliška was really sweet, telling me not to be scared & that we'd be okay. The storm had let up a little bit when Dan came and we finally made it home and tried to warm up and calm down.
I just thank Heavenly Father that we made it home safely. When I think of how close Eliška was to flying out of the cart, it just terrifies me. Now I know to never ever go out in weather like that. Always stay inside and wait it out. It was so dangerous, I can't believe I thought it would be okay to do that. When I came home and saw the news, I realized just how bad it was. There was actually a funnel cloud that made its way around Salt Lake City. I'm still pretty shaken up from the whole night, but it's definitely made me so thankful for my life and my family. It wouldn't have been so bad if I was by myself, but It was so dangerous with Eliška. I've never been so scared before in my entire life. I'm just thankful for Dan and so thankful that we're all safe now.
here are some pictures of the damage (not our house) & an article you can read about the storm that night
3 comments:
Wow, the storm was bad here too, but luckily we were all home at the time. Lots of damage around SLC too. Sounds scary, glad you are safe.
the blog looks great! I can't believe that crazy weather you guys are having, I know that those ikea carts are especially easy to push, or get blown away.
I was at IKEA Tuesday night, too! We could hear that it sounded really bad outside, but we didn't leave until it closed, and it seemed to have let up a bit by then. Your story is even scarier to me, because I HATE IKEA shopping carts and how swervy they are. I can hardly control them inside the store, so I can only imagine what it was like trying to push a child across a parking lot in an awful storm. Sounds really scary! I'm glad you made it home safely. Cute blog, by the way!
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