Ka-BOOM!!!

Last night we got quite a storm. It wasn't horrible in terms of wind or rain - we've gotten much worse recently - but it had some wicked lightning.

I thought the worst of the storm had pretty much passed, and I was up in Nathan's room with the boys, putting new sheets on Nathan's bed when we heard a huge Ka-BOOM! right on top of us. It was so loud that it set off Nathan's piggy bank that lights up and snorts when you put money in the slot. The boys both jumped and looked at me with big eyes, but I just laughed and said something about "That's a loud one!" They were both fine.

It wasn't until this morning that I saw exactly where the "Ka-Boom" had hit. There is a large elm about 30 feet southwest of our house, and apparently it took a direct hit. When I went outside and saw the branch on the ground, at first I thought it blew down (elms are stupid and lose branches easily), but I didnt' remember any wind. That's when I noticed how the other branches were scattered.....in a circle around the tree. Pretty much the crown of the tree had exploded.

I was standing right next to the house when I took the picture (to show how close it is) - see all the wood and small branches scattered to the right?

There are chunks of wood all over the yard - some on the opposite side of the house (they flew up and over), and even some out almost to our shed. (And if you've ever been to our house, you know how far that is.)

Nathan's holding a big piece that landed there - about 60 feet from the tree. There were some smaller pieces that flew twice as far.

The odd thing is, we never lost power - it didn't even blink. The only thing it did was mess up the color on the computer monitor (the blue looked red and greens looked yellow) - which I thought was odd. When Paul inspected it after he got home this morning (he worked last night), he thought maybe something in the static charge would have done it. But after tinkering with it this evening, he fixed it by degaussing it.

I know you may not find this that exciting, but seriously. My life is not that exciting. It's summer and hotter than Hades outside, so we've been hibernating in the air conditioning. And in case you think I'm a weenie about the heat: this is why we run the air conditioners.

This is how hot it gets upstairs in the boys' rooms. It's actually gotten up to 93 before. That's with the windows shut, and the ceiling fans running all day, and foil over the windows. When it's this hot, luxury becomes a necessity.