The Calm before the Storm

Last night, after doing an hour and a half of yoga, which helps stretch and calm me, my mind was clear and I was finally read for bed. It was 12 o'clock midnight and I was SO ready to drop into bed. However, as I walked into the bedroom where Matt was sleeping (and the tv was on) I heard the weather man say, "People in the town of _____(our town)____ need to take cover immediately. You are now under a tornado watch."

I casually woke Matt up and mentioned that to him, but we could hear the wind REALLY picking up so we looked outside our window and that's when we knew this was SERIOUS! We obviously couldn't see very well since it was dark out, but the lightning was nearly constant so we good a good enough picture of this to know we needed to go get the kids out of bed and take cover.

This is Matt's metal shop building that houses our 4-wheeler, riding mower, boat and a million other smaller things like his air compressor, tools and so forth. Here is a picture of what his shop looked like "before." (You can see it back there behind the pool)

We cleared out our "safe room" which is actually just a closet in the middle of the house and got the kids out of bed and into that closet. Then we gathered up a radio, cell phone, flash light and pillows and hung out there for a bit. After it seemed like things had setteled down, Matt decided to go outside and look better. That's when he saw our neighbor (who lives directly behind us) out on top of his roof. Apparently the roof of Matt's shop flew up and hit his house, busting a large hole in his roof. He was up there nailing a tarp over the hole. (btw, it was POURING rain during all this) Meanwhile, Brooklyn woke up and started freaking out, as you can imagine. She was VERY concerned what was "going to happen to us and our house." Thankfully by that time we were able to tune into the weather on tv again and see that the worst of the storm had passed us.

We don't know if this was actually a tornado or just high winds...but obviously it was something pretty strong to do this kind of damage. Here's another pic. This is my chaise lounge (that I lay out on). It flew all the way off our back patio across our large yard and into the trampoline where it we found it this morning. As you can imagine, we have stuff strung out ALL OVER the place now. The dog house is also completely across the entire yard.

If you guys have an extra minute, say a little prayer for my hubby, who is feeling extremely discouraged this morning. Not only has he worked 80+ hours in the past 5 days and now because of this storm, will be likely working ALL weekend long but this shop building was something he had worked looooong and hard on. It is completely ruined and will have to be torn down and he'll have to start all over. (which of course costs money...but also time).

Okay, well, I have lots to do today so I better get off here. I will try to post again soon and let you know how we're doing!