Gone With The Wind! (title courtesy of JW)

5:30 a.m. this morning JW is tapping me on the shoulder... I hear the sump pump alarm beeping to indicate a power outage... he says, Maybe we should get up"... I said "just turn the alarm off"....then loud BANG!... he says, "Get up!" I grabbed Charlotte out of the bassinet (she was swaddled and sleeping soundly in her MiracleBlanket) and ran to Luke's room where I heard him crying as I approached the door. Poor little guy was REALLY scared and stuck in his big boy bed (he still doesn't attempt to go down the little ladder by himself which is nice for Mommy and Daddy!). So I grab him on my other hip- carried both kids back through our bedroom and to the farthest section of the basement. JW was upstairs looking for flashlights and then soon followed us. The wind was howling and rain was pouring. We had no weather radio and I didn't think we could hear the tornado sirens with all the storm noise- it was loud enough that I thought it could have been a tornado. Luke sat on a carpet remnant with his blankie around his shoulders with a very serious expression. I found a chair to sit on and nursed Charlotte while we waited for the storms to pass. It was still dark out, but JW could see that there was a big section of the old willow tree down in our backyard.

The old willow is a ginormous tree that sits on the "empty lot" next door, but it hangs over our yard. Several car sized pieces have fallen off in the past but luckily landed in or close to the water. We were always worried about it falling on us... we had tried to contact the owners of the lot to split the cost of removal or get permission but never received a reply. Plus it's darn expensive to cut down a tree!! Well good news is that the section closest to our bedrooms fell down and did not squish us! woohoo!

Once it started to get light out and the storms passed, we were able to see 3 huge sections of tree that are the length of a pick up truck and several people sized branches piled up all over. JW opened the front door and said something about a tree falling on our cars and I'm like "What?" of course he just continues to walk out the door with his mouth open and doesn't let me know what he saw. A large hickory tree at the top of the hill was uprooted in the wind and fell towards our cars... but by some sort of grace it landed on a sassafrass and a maple tree which braced it's fall. The top of the hickory was touching some power lines and also hanging in mid-air above the neighbors garage (who informed us he has a special mustang in there that doesn't run and has 2 flat tires so he couldn't move it out of harms way...). We heard from the neighbors that the roads were blocked in both directions by trees and power lines. Nipsco eventually trimmed the sections of the tree that were close to the power lines. We had a friend come over and help JW cut the hickory off the roots, yank the suspended part down with a truck, and chainsaw up the pieces. Then Uncle Chad was available and came with his chain saw as well. It took all day to clear that one tree- and it approached 90 degrees today so those boys were sweatin! We still have the mess in the backyard but that will take several days and several large chainsaws to remove. Just what we needed- more yard clean up! The leaves never get raked in the fall and there are so many wild weeds, so this just adds to our wonderful landscaping! There are a couple neighbors who now have nice new skylights in their roofs, thanks to all the wonderful trees around here- so we feel very thankful that no damage was done to our house and no one was hurt.

** Funny sidenote- JW said when the storm was hitting, his first thought was, "I don't want to die in my Budlight pajama pants!" He thought that would be pretty embarrassing to be found in those. Hey- I was at Walmart and he wanted PJ pants and that was the best choice over The Simpsons, Family Guy, or SpongeBob themes... He was on a Budlight kick when I bought them. :)