Ruby Slippers

This past weekend was also wonderful because I was well enough to go to the Lake with my high school girlfriends after all.
After work on Friday, I got some supplies (primarily wine, Zapp's, and the ingredients for my favorite tomato and avocado dip), then drove to Natchez, Ms. The mother of one of our friends who sadly passed away a few years ago held a dinner in honor of my friends who are pregnant (I have a lot of friends who are pregnant this year, including three of the 6 girls this weekend. They are expecting babies this summer). It was really sweet, and a great way to start off our weekend. We had lots of tasty appetizers and I had a delicious portobello mushroom sandwhich for my main course. After dinner, we drove to my friend Ginny's family's lakehouse on Black River Lake.
The lake house was really nice! I especially loved that it had a great multi-level deck that we took full advantage of on Saturday. We spent the day sunbathing, eating crawfish, drinking beer/Odoul's, and taking a boat ride. That evening we relaxed, chatted, and ate lots of food. We even made s'mores!
Catching up with my high school girlfriends was wonderful. Even though its been years since we've all been together, we've really made an effort to keep in touch. It has paid off because we all picked up where we left off and really enjoyed each other's company.
On Sunday, I woke up, looked out the window and basically saw the beginning scenes from the Wizard of Oz. A huge storm blew through and causes all sorts of damage to the area! Basically, I could hear a loud roaring noise and saw cows in a pasture across the road running in panic away from a wall of dust. We all ran into the hallway to get away from windows, and peaked out the door so we could see what was going on through the living room windows. It was incredibly windy and loud, but passed really quickly. We though we heard a crack of lightning but it was actually a tree falling on the neighbor's house.
I didn't realize it had been a tornado until we left to go back to Natchez. There were tons of fallen trees and it struck me that they had not all fallen in the same direction. There was also a metal roof lying in someone's yard, and lots of snapped power line poles along the levy. Scary stuff!
When we got back to Natchez and checked the weather, it became obvious that several of us wouldn't be able to drive home without hitting some seriously bad weather. I opted to stay in town until this morning.
That was also nice because I was able to stay with my friend Amanda and her parents. Our friend Meg decided to stay with her baby, Madyson, as well. I enjoyed having an extra day to spend with at least some of my friends, and really appreciated that Amanda's parents let us stay there for the night. A lot of places were closed because Natchez had been hit by tornados as well, but I did manage to get some local food to bring home for my dear boyfriend- Fat Mama's Tamales! I think I'm going to jury rig some sort of healthy version of taco salad (maybe spinach, tomatoes, olives, salsa, and shredded cheese) to go with them for dinner tonight.