New Years Eve and Midwest Tornadoes

(FYI...this was supposed to publish Jan 3rd but I set it to post 2010 instead of 2011...still getting used to it actually being 2011.....Apologies on the New Years post being 5 days after the fact)

Hope everyone had a safe and eventful New Years.  My New Years Eve was spent chopping up the Christmas Tree to small bits in the morning and burning it all piece by piece in the grill in the backyard.  While I was burning, I kept hearing sirens going off, but it was just clicking in my head that it was a fire siren.  When the siren got so loud that it seemed like the fire station was next door to our house, it finally dawned on me:  TORNADO SIREN! 
I know all of you on the East Coast (not sure about West Coast) have no idea what I'm talking about, but they have special sirens that are sounded when the weather conditions have potential for tornado activity.  Instead of the up and down like a typical fire siren, it's just a long steady solid siren that becomes horrifically loud as your area is apparently in more and more danger.  I turned on the TV, and this was the first thing that popped up (mind you, our house is in Belleville if you can see that on the map....and the purple is tornado activity).

 

Mind you at this point, it was still completely fine outside.  Then within about 10 minutes, it was a sheet across the sky of gray/black and it went from no rain to torrential downpour.  The house lost power, so I was furiously texting Terry to give me updates because he was at work.  The pictures dont do it nearly any justice, and when it was at it's worst I was not taking pictures because I was away from the windows. 

Where 30 minutes previous I was finishing burning the Christmas Tree....now it was all underwater.

There were 10 recorded Tornadoes in the St. Louis Metro Area, and West St Louis was damaged the worst.  There apparently was one development where 24 homes were completely leveled, and through South County there was excessive damages because of winds....lots of roofs blown off and cars flipped over.

Anywho, so that was in the afternoon, so by the evening, we were still set to have a lovely evening to ring in 2011.  We decided to stay in and make a nice meal rather than go out and deal with the crowds, which turned out to be a perfect night.  The menu was Rack of Lamb with a Mustard Cream Sauce, Scalloped Potatoes, and Green Beans with Bacon and Tomatoes.

Terry frenching the lamb bones

Sarah came and joined us for the evening

Beautiful meal

Sarah brought Grappas, which she said was a celebratory dessert.  Grappa is an italian fruity flavored liquor that you sip with frozen grapes (never knew before that if you froze grapes and ate them, they taste like sorbet...so delicious!) and bits of chocolates.  It was a delicious after-dinner small dessert. 

Happy 2011!!