Payne's Prairie

  I kept telling Sharanya that I needed to see her when I came up last weekend. I had 't seen her since we got together to take dress up pictures after Christmas. #SkinnySlytherinDiaries  But Sharanya was only able to be there for about 30 minutes before she had to leave for work. Thanks, Mommy for taking these pictures (and all of the other "premiere" pictures over the years)!! 

  After Luke's party, I went back to my house where my mom made me 2 pieces of raisin toast with peanut. She's so thoughtful and said I need to eat healthy since I'm still trying to get pregnant again. When Sharanya picked me up, we took a few silly jumping pictures, then headed to Payne's Prairie. She goes there often, but I don't ever remember going. The weather was perfect when we got there. Cool and overcast, not hot and super sunny like I thought it would be in the open field areas. I should mention the PokemonGo craze happening over the past few weeks. Here Sharanya is catching an Eevee on the pavilion bridge area. 

  The very last two of these pictures are from Sharanya's Samsung Galaxy since my camera batteries died after getting pictures of that deer in the distance (below). I love the weather before it rains. Cool and windy, the clouds look awesome and you don't have to squint bc the sun is hiding. We enjoyed seeing the lightning in the distance and hearing the thunder clap. 

  Sharanya loved seeing the birds fly around us, but we barely saw any alligators, which was fine with me. Finally we realized the storm was coming towards us, not moving away like it looked and we took off running back to the car. It became more windy and I remember yelling, "It's times like these when I wish I was wearing my Dorothy dress!" (I said the same thing at the end of April 2014 as Michael and I sat in the living room of our condo in Birmingham, listening to the Tornado Watch weather reports before Sasha and I followed Michael into the smaller bathroom and sat together in the tub.)

  Soon the rain caught up to me and Sharanya, so we had to run faster. But we weren't fast enough. The rain fell harder and twice I stopped. There was no point in running since the dark clouds were above us. It seemed a lot further running back than walking that way the first time. I was drenched and I didn't have anything to cover the camera. I may not have any more Canon pictures to post for quite some time now.... 

  Sharanya called for me to keep running. "We're almost there!" I kept panting that I couldn't breathe, but it was only an exaggeration. Although I do feel like I have a low lung capacity. When we got to the small square "shelter" without walls above 4 feet she asked how I felt. Pretty awesome, actually. I loved feeling my heart pound like that. After waiting with 7 other people, we could tell it wasn't going to just be a "Florida rain" that would blow away after five minutes. So we kept going as the rain hit us like tiny hail bits. And Sharanya was so relaxed as she carefully pulled a banana spider off the front of her shirt before getting in the car. (!!!!!!)