A night to remember ...

Well we feel very blessed today! Last night - at about 10:50 - as Jonathan and I were finishing up a movie - Jonathan had just checked the weather on the radar and got up to look out the back door. As he opened the door - things were quiet. He then went to look out the front windows and as he processed that the TORNADO was HERE ... he started yelling my name ... the Tornado was literally ON us. Jonathan grabbed Benjamin out of his bed and we jumped in Benjamin's toy-filled closet. Within about 20 more seconds - the tornado was gone. The tornado was classified at EF-1 (winds between 86 and 110 mph).

Needless to say - we feel very blessed that it was a "lighter" tornado - and that we were "safe throught the storm". I've been wanting to light this lamp for awhile -so I thought what a perfect opportunity! Benjamin doesn't remember ANYTHING ... which is probably a blessing as well.

This was one of the few pictures I took last night -- this was part of our "for sale sign" that ended up on our BACK deck.

This is one of the 4 trees that went down in our backyard - Kirk Mitchell was quick to offer to come over and help Jonathan get it cut down and out of our yard ... THANK YOU!

This was some of the trash in our yard - if you can see a black "blob" on the fence - that was our 2 doors down neighbor's BRAND new trampoline ... which was 100% mangled.

* The top picture is of the BIG oak tree that thankfully fell into the woods - bringing down several other trees as it fell.

Little or big trials - including this moment have brought us closer together as a family.