The Blue Whale of Catoosa

Okay, well maybe it's kinda cheesy, but this Blue Whale of Catoosa is talked about anytime anyone says anything about the city of Catoosa. So we checked it out on a beautiful 72-degree Sunday (notice the T-shirts?!). This whale was built by a man as an anniversary gift to his wife who collected whale figurines. Back in the '70's, local kids used to sneak in and make it their local swimming hole. The builder then constructed concrete picnic tables to match, hired a lifeguard, and charged a small fee for the town's first ever waterpark. There are slides off each side and a diving platform off the end. We went out to the end of it and saw lots of big sunfish and some BIG turtles basking in the sun that were not a recognizable breed to us Minnesotans.

We've decided that while this is a really simple sight, it will be a great spot for our spring/summer picnic lunches since it's only a few minutes away and has some nice picnic tables.

Afterwards, we went home and enjoyed the rest of the weather (did I already mention that it was 72 degrees?). Here's Pete with the kids in front of the garage squinting in the sunlight.

Okay, maybe I'm bragging about the warm weather. But as some of you may have noticed, it came with severe storms last night (Monday night). At about 11:30pm last night, we were in a TORNADO WARNING! It was kind of scary, especially since we don't have a basement, but while it was in our county, our county's pretty big. The storm cell was about 30 miles south of us, so we barely missed it. We did get some serious lightning and thunder overnight though. Sort of weird that since Pete came down here for the first time two months ago, there's been an infamous ice storm that's still being cleaned up a month later and now tornadoes in January. There's been weird weather all around the country though. It doesn't matter though, because I don't need to know the future-I just need to know the One who does!