We weathered the storm

On Friday we had a serious thunderstorm!  All the family was home and enjoying a lazy summer afternoon watching a movie when we heard hail hitting the roof. The power flickered off so we lost our entertainment.  We then proceeded to watch the storm pass through our huge triple window in the living room.  In hind sight, we should not have been by a window, but we were nonetheless! It was by far the worst storm I've lived thorugh in my 17 years living here. It reminded me of a hurricane, though it didn't last nearly as long. We had gusts of wind 60-70mph and dime to quarter-sized hail. About 5-7 minutes after the heavy winds started we watched as a huge top portion of a 150ft tall tree in our front yard fell and hit our roof. Christian ran upstairs to make sure it didn't go through the roof or break any windows.  Karleigh was sleeping in her room upstairs! Thankfully it did not breech the roof! About 3-5 minutes later, Christian saw lightning strike this same tree! We all heard it - it sounded like an explosion! You can see where the lightning blew pieces of the tunk off all the way down in a streak.

All the while we were praying for safety, especially from the tree in the back yard, a pine that had been struck by lightning years before we moved in. 

This pine, about 120 ft tall,  ended up losing its tip also to the gusts of wind!

Here is our front yard in the aftermath ... and to give you perspective on the top of the tree that hit the house, my guys are standing on the fallen portion!

So, I guess you know what we got to do over the long weekend ... clean up our pitiful yard! We were blessed to have some help from a friend, a brother, and a neighbor (who knows how to use a chainsaw!!) We are SO thankful that God protected us and our home during this fluke storm!!