Oh HAIL! Oh HAIL! Oh HAIL!

This post could have many titles:
"The day we outran a tornado in each city we passed through."
"The day we took refuge in a Hobby Lobby."
"Why we love Reese even more than we already did."

So, where to start? I'll try to condense this as much as possible! We took Mom and Aunt Peg over to Berry College in Rome, Georgia to check out the campus for the wedding we're shooting there in November.

There's a Cartersville RaceTrack gas station that has the best frozen drinks ever...Julie had the Mountain Dew, I had the Sunkist orange---sooooo tasty!

Toured the campus, most scenic, beautiful campus I've ever visited. Seriously looks like something you'd see in a fairytale type movie.


Saw at least 30 wild deer grazing/playing in the grassy fields on our way out--apparently they KNOW they are safe there in the wildlife refuge.


While finishing up some tasty fresh-baked cookies in the car, in downtown Rome--Reese calls to check on us. Everything is fine there--just a little rain, so she apparently knows something we don't. Yikes. As she's telling me that there's a tornado in Summerville and not so great things are headed towards Rome--GET OUT OF THERE--gumball size hail starts pounding my car. Everyone starts freaking about whether or not to run out of the car into the nearest shop or to stay in the car. There was no way I was leaving the safety of the car to get pelted in the head with hail...we opted to take our chances staying.

Do our best to hurry out of Rome after hailing stops, get stopped by train. Woohoo. On our way back through Cartersville on the way home Reese calls again---storm is behind us, then another phone call, storm is in front of us...then tornado sirens are going off in Cartersville---the very place we are headed AGAIN! Leave one tornado, headed towards another.

Before we can seek refuge in the Hobby Lobby---hail comes again--even bigger this time, we were fortunate enough to find a shelter to pull underneath---no glass broken, thank goodness.

Make it inside Hobby Lobby and stay an hour or so until we had to leave because of them closing--it was pretty bad while we were in there---lights stayed on, but outside was crazy. Left there and things were looking up.

Reese calls with another update---where are the storms and tornadoes now? Atlanta--the next city we had to go through to get home. Fun. Kerry calls us after making it through Atlanta alive, where's the next tornadoes? Henry County, Spalding County, and HOME. So we literally dodged tornadoes or the makings of--in every single town/county we had to drive through to get home. Craziness. There were times when we were the most scared we've ever been. It was so great to make it home, the electricity was out--but the house was still here! :)

I can't tell you how much it meant to us that Reese read that we were going to be in Rome and then called to check up on us and called back a bunch to give us updates on what was happening. Doesn't get any nicer than that! Thank you Reese Cup, we love you lots of bunches! And thanks for your call too Lennye--you are too crazy!

ps...I got some hella cool stuff at Hobby Lobby for photo shoots!! :) :)