Caught by Surprise!

We had a very eventful evening yesterday (Friday evening).

About 7:00pm while picking in the garden I noticed a dark sky. As the boys continued to pick it started thundering and lightening (No big deal...just a thunderstorm, Right?). As the lightening seemed to move closer my adorable husband had the boys start making their way indoors. While waiting on the boys we noticed some low clouds moving in...I turned inside and as I did my adorable husband called for me to turn on the TV as the wind started to pick up. About that time there was a loud BOOM and the electricity went out and it started hailing!!!...we swoop up the boys and head for the closet. We had my adorable husband's laptop in the closet and as we were reading about the tornado warning for our area the house starts to creek and rattle. I slid my fingers out under the closet door to hold the door from rattling and scaring the boys- As I do I feel a weird sucking like breeze and we hear a grumbling like noise and my adorable husband asks me if that sounds like thunder...NOPE! We remain in the closet for what seems like forever! My adorable husband finally makes his way around the house. He returns with a look on his face and says..."It's gone."

Do you know what is missing?

Yep! The Tree Set .

When K-man was told about their Tree Set he just started sobbing and asking why God makes "Big Storms". We spent some time while we were getting over the initial shock of things talking about our faith and how thankful we were to all be alright (still a bit heart sad).

From start (the hail) to finish I think the storm/tornado lasted a total of 10 minutes, but felt like an hour. A little side note that makes me nervous is how close the Tree Set was to where we were in the closet...still bothers me to think about it.


From what we can gather, the Tree Set was lifted and twisted and then thrown down into our garden in about 100 pieces! After talking to our neighbor, our trampoline had to have been lifted up and flown through the air, hitting his storage building and then landing in the next yard over completely destroyed with springs and poles driven into the ground in several yards.


Our well staked windmill was also damaged.
The "only" damage we had was: the Tree Set, the trampoline, the windmill, our wooden fence is a bit loose, our deck is loose, a little water damage in the hall way, the garden is flat (but we are hopeful)...Oh, I have to add in here that I was in the middle of canning a batch of green beans before the electricity went out- grrr!
Bottom line- we feel very blessed and lucky!

Here are some pictures as we made our way around our loop to check on all the neighbors.
The sky was a bit strange until it grew dark.

Here are some neighbors checking on each other and making phone call to neighbors that were out of town. We had no electricity for about 4 hours (not really too bad considering the storm).

Around our loop the damages included roofs, chimney's blown down, play sets gone, trees down and twisted, barns and shops destroyed, car ports down..BLESSING -no one was hurt!

When the electricity finally came back on we bathed the boys and then they slept in the living room, because understandably they were a bit anxious. When we woke up, the Tree Set was still gone- Bummer! But the day was sunny and we were glad to have slept in a undamaged cozy home. We did venture out into our small community to see what other areas were hit. Here is some of what we saw.

Today, around our community there were neighbors helping neighbors trying to clean up and manage all the damage. There will be long days ahead for some of our neighbors. We are still not sure if there was one tornado or multiple (we were all in closets!) However, I feel blessed we are all safe.

While we were in the closet and K-man was trying to understand why God created storms and why He would let things like this happen...he paused to ask us if God would make a rainbow after the storm was over, "just like for Noah". Oh, my sweet boy! God heard you and knew your tender heart, and He gave you your rainbow! As soon as we stepped out on our front porch this is what we saw. Thank You, Our Father, for Your promises!

Tucking Little Bit in tonight he asked, "thunder tonight?...big storm?...Going in closet?" Yes, I think we all might be a little more nervous the next time a thunderstorm blows through.