A non-favorite: E is for.....earthquakes!

Well, I and lots of other people in Virginia and the D.C. area are very thankful to have made it safely through a 5.8 earthquake today! 

Believe it or not, this was not my first encounter with an earthquake..for someone who has lived on the East Coast most of her life, this is not what you might expect! 

My first experience with an earthquake was in college at JMU and I just felt a little shaking in my dorm room for about 30 seconds. I actually thought I was having a migraine until a friend who went to Virginia Tech told me over AIM (how old do I sound? Haha!) that it had been an earthquake in Charlottesville, about 45 minutes from my college. 

I miss JMU so much! I had the BEST time there! Oh and these photos have nothing to do with previously mentioned earthquake, I just thought I'd throw in some random ones from my JMU days!

Some of my adorable friends, at a "Rockstar" Party! Did anyone else go to a college that was big on theme parties? I feel like I went to one about every other week. Anyway, I digress!

Today was a little different! My mom and I were at the mall, in the bottom level of Macy's, looking for dresses to our friend's upcoming wedding in September. We had been there for awhile and I had just put back on the dress that I was 95%  sure I was going to buy when we heard this rumbling and felt the entire room start to shake. The rumbling got louder and louder, as we were both like "What is going on??" 

We stood in the doorway to the fitting room area for a few seconds until the shaking stopped (it felt SO long, but was probably only about a minute) and I told my mom, "I think that might have been an earthquake!" About 30 seconds later, a panicked voice came on the PA and told us all to evacuate immediately and not to use the elevators but to take the stairs..(even though there aren't stairs in Macy's!) So we had to evacuate using the escalators (still in my black dress!), since the bottom level is actually below ground with no exits on that level....with some people evacuating VERY slowly...

I was getting pretty nervous, since we really had no idea what was going on! Once we got outside, I was ready to go home, because I thought it might have been a bomb or some kind of explosion, but my mom said "Let's wait around for a bit and see what happens."

No one could get cell phone service at all, even to text, and no one from the mall really had any information either. After about 15 minutes, a woman with a Blackberry said she saw a report that it was an earthquake. So they did eventually let us back in the store, I paid for my super-cute dress (while still wearing it, hah!), and we made it home where thankfully the only "damage" I found was two picture frames that fell off my desk and onto a pile of purses, one of them has a crack on it, but otherwise they were okay! I'm glad I hadn't put those purses away, haha! All in all, it was quite an adventure, but I'm glad everyone is okay and the damage in most areas seems to be not too extensive.

Super cute dress from Macy's that I now know is earthquake-proof!

Thank you purses for saving my picture frames! :)