Butterfly Garden

Although we headed west to see a new baby, we couldn't be just a couple hours away from JD's family and not see them. We made plans to meet up in Ft Worth at the Butterfly Garden exhibit at the Botanical Gardens. 

There was a small chance of rain that day, but it didn't look like too much. Ruth decided she was fine driving in the rain and I was fine with it too. We once again packed up the baby gear and headed to the big city. Along the way it was cloudy, but no rain.

We arrived and were so excited to see Ruth's family. There was no time to waste--there were butterflies to see!

So many species.

If you click on this picture you can see there are at least 6 types of butterflies. 

There was one that was ginormous. Of course I didn't get a picture of that one.  But aren't these kids cute?

 Me and the kiddos...one's sleeping.

Doug was working in town and able to join us for a bit.

Waterfalls are just the most fun.

After we got our fill of butterflies, we headed outside for a picnic lunch. The temperature was perfect. Still overcast, but rain free. We were very thankful.

Now that we had full bellies, we took advantage of the flowers. 

The kids were able to run around the garden for a bit. There was a sculpture they kept running to. Glad they were able to burn some energy off because our picture perfect picnic was about to change. 

Out of the blue and still not raining, the tornado sirens start going off. And that folks means a twister has been spotted. We quickly packed it all up and headed to the cars. Thankfully, Doug was staying at his new hotel about 10 miles away. As we were driving it started to rain. And once we got all the kids inside it started to hail. I pulled up the radar and saw this:

Do you remember seeing all the stories about the tornados in the Dallas area on the national news? Yep, we were right in the middle of it all! Fortunately, even though the sirens were going off, we were not near the damaged area. We waited in the safe zone for an hour or so and then when the storms had passed we headed our separate ways. I was heading to my brother's for dinner. About a mile from their house, I passed a spot on the interstate where a tornado had crossed over. The large exit sign had been turned over and all the houses in the neighborhood looked like this:

Later on the news they showed the aerial view of this spot and one of the houses was completely missing the second story. Just the floor was left. Amazing what they can do!

We are so thankful our families didn't have any damage at all to their homes. And we are thankful for a safe place to hide out during the worst of the storm.

But I choose to remember this part of the day:

We had a great day with our family. Loved being on an adventure with the Denman's!