Oh What a Storm

Last night a terrible storm came through Monticello. It started as rain, then the power went out. The kids thought it was funny during dinner that mommy could make everything go off and then come back on again just seconds later. After a few flickers, it was out for good. We gathered the candles and flashlights ( thanks to Alaric's fully equipt toolbox). Then the tornado sirens went off and we headed for the basement. There went Mara's bedtime.

The rains got harder and then all of a sudden, it sounded like baseballs were hitting the house. I went running upstairs and sure enough, hail was coming down by the buckets! Our hail was only quarter size. I ran back down to the basement and we took cover.

We were without power for about two hours. After the major storm hit, we put Amara to sleep.

The rest of us decided to make the most of our time in the dark and we had oreo dunking contests by candlelight~

Daddy finished his milk first but Alaric had the best technique...go slow and be very deliberate about each dunk- enjoy every morsale- even those on your face.

We weathered the storm just fine and as we were saying our prayers and reading books before going to bedm the lights came back on- about two hours without power.

Our basement stayed dry too...we had some nervous moments but our new waterproofing system was tested and passed!

Many others did not fare as well as we....Allerton had billard to baseball size hail. They lost their beautiful greenhouse with it's hundreds of panes of glass. Homes out near Allerton suffered the most- shattered windshields and sunroofs, damaged roofs, siding pulled off, and thousands of dents in cars.

The kids and I went to my Moms Group lunch today and one of the members lives out by Allerton. She drove her car and showed us....it looked like it had been through a war- hundreds of dents everywhere-it's totalled. She feels lucky however as she told the story of a neighbor who was trying to get her kids home in the storm. She was on her own street when the hail started. The sunroof shattered first with the two kids in the back and then the windshield went moments later. They were only a block away from home. There was no place else to go. Luckily everyone was OK, just scared.

So- the sun is shining today and people are out accessing their damage. We are thankful to not have too much damage and hope others will recover from this storm.