Blessed Beyond Measure: Wisconsin Vacation Day 2: A Hair-Raising Experience

On Day 2 of our vacation, we all woke up very tired. Asher had gone to bed very well the night before, but Avery on the other hand seemed to be freaked out by his new surroundings. It took me quite some time to get him to sleep and when I finally did he only slept about an hour and then refused to go back into his pack-n-play, which resulted in him spending the rest of the night in my bed (which thankfully was against the trailer wall so I didn't have to worry about him rolling out). Even with him in my bed, he woke up almost every hour between 10pm and 3am. Then at about 3:30, a huge storm moved in on us with torrential rain, huge gusts of wind and constant flashes of lighting and booming thunder, waking up Avery again enough that he was convinced it was party time and didn't fall back to sleep for almost two hours. While the storm raged on, I had no cell service but got several storm warnings from the emergency cell service and desperately wanted to know how my boys were doing in the pop-up camper. Normally, this is exactly the type of event that Eric and I would use our messaging to update each other on what was going on, but with no service I had to wait until morning to see how they made it through.

When the storm passed and daylight broke, we found that everyone and everything had survived the night, although we did have to spend the rest of the day drying things out. Despite the wet evening though, the day quickly heated up and we decided to head back to the water and spend our day at the beach. So, after a delicious breakfast of Egg McMigrins, we headed to Devil's Lake for some fun in the water and sand...

Asher & Eric testing out the water...considering the beach that we typically go to is on Lake Michigan, the water seemed quite warm!

Playing in the Sand.

Surprisingly, even Avery enjoyed the water. He usually isn't a fan of water that isn't bath temperature, but he had a great time sitting in the shallow area and splashing away.

The boys playing with Grandma & Papa

Grandma and Papa brought a floaty for Avery...he wasn't a fan.

Papa looked for other uses for it?

My happy guy.

When lunch time came, we headed back to the campsite for some food and naps. While the kids slept, Eric and I headed to Walmart for some groceries and then to McDonalds for some free wifi (where I was able to get a free milkshake!). When we returned to the site, the kids were awake and we headed back to the lake for more fun on the beach. The plan was to spend some time playing before another storm rolled in that was scheduled to hit our area around 6pm (per the Weather Channel app, which is horribly in accurate). When we arrived at the beach, a lady looked at us like we were crazy and told us that we shouldn't go to the beach because a storm was coming. At that point though, the storm clouds were still in the distance and from what we'd seen of the forecast, we still had almost two hours until the storm hit. We pressed on toward the lake, as I thought to myself that that women had to be crazy if she thought I was going risk the inevitable tantrum and tell my three year old we couldn't go to the beach after all because a storm was coming. A few minutes later, we arrived on the beach and Asher and Eric headed into the water while Mom, Avery and I sat on the water's edge, relaxing, talking, playing in the mud and splashing. Despite the clouds, it was still quite warm and I was happy to watch my boys having a good time.

About a half hour later, I was looking at my mom while we talked when I noticed her hair was standing up in all directions. It was a comical and strange sight. I asked her what was going on with her hair and told her she was having a crazy hair day, as she literally looked like she was holding on to a science fair static electricity ball. At the time, she was not looking at me but rather watching Asher and Eric play in the water. She laughed and then turned to look at me and at that point she said that my hair was sticking up all over too. Then we both turned to look at Avery (who was splashing on my lap) and realized that his hair was also sticking up in all directions. Then it dawned on me what was going on. I looked behind me at the black clouds rolling in and then shouted to Eric that we needed to get out of the water. He looked at me quizzically and when I told him that our hair was standing up, he still didn't comprehend what I was trying to tell him. As he and Asher continued to make their way to the shore and he saw the phenomenon of our hair, he immediately understood the urgency of the situation and pulled our very distraught little guy from the lake, trying to explain that a storm was coming and we were in danger of lightning. Asher was literally kicking and screaming as we quickly made our way back to the van and then the campsite.

Oddly enough the storm never actually came. The black clouds blew right over us with no actual lightning or rain, but still we knew that it was still a close call and we were thankful for God's protection (even though our son thought we lied to him about the storm for an excuse to leave the beach). When I got home from our vacation, I googled the phenomenon of hair standing up and the first article I found was terrifying. Although thankfully nothing had happened and our family was safe, I didn't fully realize how bad it could have been until I read about these boys who had shared a similar experience with a much different (& worse) outcome. Immediately I thanked God for his protection and the blessing of his warning of danger, and I tried not to think about what could have happened.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2381677/How-know-youre-struck-lightning-Picture-brothers-hair-end-minutes-before.html

The rest of the day was much less eventful. We played at our campsite, enjoyed some delicious fajitas for dinner (Mom: Eric said you need to tell us how to make fajitas like you do) and then roasted some marshmallows for dessert s'mores...a great end to the day.