Snow Ball Fight!!!

Melodee holds a hail stone.

Well... actually they were balls of ice not snow! Monday night the skies unleashed balls of ice as big as base balls with reports of a few soft ball size stones. It was one of those days that had been hot and muggy all day long. The weather forecast called for some severe thunder storms so we were kind of watching - but it was nice enough that we even had a picnic in the evening.

Not long after bedtime was when hail storm  started alias the snowball fight. I'll let the pictures tell the bulk of the story..

Top half of a broken window shows an approximate size of the hail stone that broke it. The bottom glass was broken out as well but the photo didn't show it as well.

Living Room window - This picture also shows the damage to the window frame as well.

Kids bedroom window - they were not in there at the time as we had them all hiding out in the center of the basement away from any west windows!

Another broken window

Holiday trailer...

The suburban. We counted about 20 places that looked like a place of impact.

Chunks taken out of the shingles on the roof!

Shredded poly-carbonate roof

Of course the only side of the tree-house that was damaged was the side with siding.

Car windshield.

The Rhubarb took a beating

The morning after the storm - the yard is strewn with leaves, fruit etc.

You can see the dings on the chimney even though  I couldn't get the camera to focus properly.

The greenhouse is pocked. From the inside it looks a lot like bubble wrap that has been popped!

The garden actually fared pretty good, the onions took the worst of it is seems. Potatoes are still happily blooming!

Well, that was a little too much excitement for bedtime, it took everyone a while to settle down and for security, NOBODY felt like sleeping in the attic! It really had sounded terrible. You can hear it pretty good in the video Naomi took:

It is funny how calm one can feel even when nature unleashes some of its most destructive forces against you. The kids were in a panic (which you can surmise from the video). We sent them downstairs immediately, mostly to keep them safe but partly to give them a place where they could calm down. I was so proud of them... as Chad and I scurried about getting boards that could be put up against the breaking windows and trying to keep the damage to as much of a minimum as possible given the furry of the storm, the kids followed our instructions to go downstairs and at the base of the stairs they all dropped to their knees and petitioned the only One who could calm the storm. And the storm was calmed, oh, the stuff outside was still happening, but the panic and worry that they had all been feeling departed almost immediately. The inner storm was over and the one outside was winding down. What a joy and a blessing it is to have children so full of faith. They are truly a delight to us. Despite the extensive damage that we sustained at our house, I know we are no better off than most of the people in town. Very few houses didn't have damage. Most all of them lost at least one window and of course any with vinyl siding on them have extensive damage. I'm pretty sure everybody have shingles that look like ours. School was closed for the remainder of the year with exception to an awards ceremony and year end barbecue. They lost probably close to half of their west windows which was the reason for the closure.

I am so grateful for the knowledge of a power even greater than that of mother nature. Truly with God, nothing is too big to overcome or endure and always there are blessings flowing almost constantly into our lives.