July the 4th is a favored holiday in my family. When I was a kid, we would always visit Logan Utah and my uncle would by hundreds of dollars worth of fireworks and shoot them off. I loved it. My new family doesn't have any set traditions to speak of but it is still by far, one of my fav things to celebrate.
This year we decided to head up to Soda Springs Idaho. This would be the second trip we've done there for the 4th since the boys were born. We stayed in town for the parade so the kids could get a truck load of candy and have their teeth rot out.
Right after the parade, we headed south with Joaquin's cousin, Stacey, her family and Joaquin's Mom and Jerry to spend the day at Bear Lake. It was a hot summer day with beautiful, huge gray and white clouds in the sky far in the distance. We stayed for about 4 hours. We played in the sand, made sand castles, ate a ton of greasy food. It was a blast. Well as the day went on, those pretty clouds got real close, started sprinkling and we decided it would be a good time to start slowly packing up and heading back to our car. No big rush, we kind of chatted a bit, taking it slow.
All of the sudden a HUGE gust of wind hits the beach. And by huge I mean, umbrellas and shade tents went flying. Then those little sprinkles start turning into big rain drops. I start getting nervous at this point, hurry and check for twin A and B. Joaquin and I both spot Brock but can't seem to find Everett. I look up to the see if I can see him with my mother in law and Jerry but all I see is them, no Everett. My stomach starts to turn, my heart starts to race. Those rain drops start turning into hail. I look to Joaquin with my eye's full of tears and he's asking around but no one has seen Everett. He turns to me and yells, "Stay here with Brock! Don't leave!" I do as I'm told and just start praying. Praying that nothing had happened, praying he hadn't flown away or that if by chance some random family had found him, that he wouldn't be scared and that they would be taking care of him. So many things start rushing through my head and all the while hail starts coming down harder and harder. I have Brock wrapped up in my arms with a towel over his head. He's crying, asking where Everett is, I'm crying, telling him I don't know but Daddy will find him. He's scared, I'm scared and I know Joaquin is scared.
I can't really remember the timeline of things after that, I know Joaquin ran back and forth a few times, one time telling me that he had talked to Jerry and he said he thought his Mom had Evie. Well that put me at ease but then Joaquin hadn't actually seen him so I asked him, "What do you mean he THINKS?" My heart starts to palpitate and I start crying.....again. So Joaquin runs back over to the parking lot, and runs back again to report that he had found his Mom and Everett hiding in the bathroom. He then carries Brock to our truck and I slowly follow after him. It had been so stressful and scary in those 10-15 minutes that I couldn't walk real fast and had started having some pains in my stomach. I eventually got there and saw Everett, gave him a hug and cried a little more. Sheesh, am I hormonal or what?
So what really happened to Everett? Well that little boy hates the wind and hates rain. So I think what happened was he felt the light rain start to fall and he took off as fast as he could with Toni and Jerry. Once that big gust of wind had hit the beach, he was scared. Toni said sand got in his eye and he started to cry so she dropped everything she was holding to pick him up to make him feel safe. Well a woman in the bathroom heard his cry and told them to come inside the bathroom for shelter and to wait out the hail.
I was so thankful that nothing more had happened and that it only lasted a few minutes. I really did think while all this was going on, this must be a tiny sliver of how people in the south must have felt when Katrina (or any other hurricane) hit.
I'm afraid to say, I think Everett is scared of any storm clouds. Anytime he see's big gray clouds, he asks us if there's going to be a storm. We constantly have been telling him he's safe and he doesn't need to worry.
