We're Not in Kansas...

So, it was about 3:30 today and the girls and I were watching "The Princess Diaries" because it was raining. It really seemed like a typical summer storm, with thunder and lightning that shook the house a bit. Honestly we've had much worse storms. We lost the power for about 30 seconds after a large clap of thunder and I happened to look out the family room slider door to see leaves from trees, when, in fact there are no trees in that particular area of the backyard. Then I heard a very loud voice in my ear yelling to Get Down In the Basement, so I got the girls and the dog and down to the basement we went. The house shook a little more and the wind was kind of loud, but it really only lasted about 90 seconds. So I was pretty surprised when I went upstairs (to check on the hamsters and the bird -- the girls stayed in the basement) and I looked out the windows and saw that the little storm had caused some major damage. We are all fine and there was no structural damage to the house, although the same can't be said for the girls' beloved swingset. Here's some of what our yard looks like.

Here's the driveway. You can see that there is a poplar tree across the driveway, but what you can't see is the live power line that the tree took down with it, which is across my front yard. PECO is supposed to come and fix it, but I haven't seen them yet and it's 12:12 a.m. We have power, but the people who live behind us and next to us do not. Our neighbor came by with his chainsaw and cleared the driveway for us --  nice people!

This is the backyard and that little piece of brown wood that you can sort of see in the middle of the picture, is the girls playset, which was shattered into way more pieces than can be nailed back together again:

A different angle of the tree that came down. The tree is on our neighbor's property, the branches are on ours:

This is the tree. I'm standing in the backyard shooting the picture towards our neighbor's property. The tree limbs that came down are still sort of connected to the tree...

As you can see in this picture... This is the base of the tree in our neighbor's yard. You can see another tree that came down in a similar manner right behind it:

Another picture of the second tree ... this one fell in the woods behind our house ... I haven't been back there to investigate what it looks like:

The remains of the girls' playset. We bought it from my friend Melinda when Hannah and Lizzie were 2 or 3 and they've played with it more than any other toy. They were just playing on it yesterday, in fact. It will be sorely missed.

This is their little playhouse which was unscathed ... probably the tree limbs were afraid of the spiders in there, just like Hannah and Liz! In the lower right corner you can see more swingset rubble:

The wind also blew a chair through the side wall of our deck:
 

And turned Rob's tomato garden into a tomato sauce garden:

Here are the girls standing in the backyard by the tree. There was some other damage in the neighborhood, but most families were okay, except for some people who belong to our pool. They had a tree crash into the  second story of their home, crushing their daughter's bedroom. Although the son was home, he wasn't injured, but the house is in rough shape. So rough, in fact that it (and several of our neighbors) were on the 11 o'clock news -- lead story.

I hope that we'll get to the cleanup pretty soon, but with more storms (and worse storms) predicted for tomorrow, we'll just wait and see when we get around to it. I mean seriously, who wants to clean up TWICE??

Way Back Weekly

(Edited!! I embedded the wrong video --it's the right one, now!)

Since Dad is just beginning his vacation in the Poconos for the seventh time, I thought this way back weekly should be a slideshow that I made of our very first vacation in the Poconos in 2006. Hannah and Lizzie were just about to turn 3 and Tommy had just turned 3. In retrospect--what the heck were Ann and I thinking???
I happened to find this video on  one true media when I was looking or a different video and it got me all sappy about that first vacation. The first year we went to the Poconos, Aunt Ann and  I and the kids spent one week in a townhome, and then Uncle T.A. and Dad (the girls' dad, not my dad!) joined us for the last week. My parents stayed nearby in a different condo (that had a much better pool!). It was during that vacation that I wrote the bulk of "The Verbal Behavior Approach."
The next summer my parents rented a house in Split Rock and we rented a condo in the place with the good pool. Aunt Ann and Uncle T.A. didn't spend the week that year as Brenna  had just been born, but they made the trip for a few days. That vacation was very rainy and cold so my parents were bored and bought a six-week timeshare at Split Rock (doesn't everyone?). So for the past four years (this will be the fifth) we've spent a week all together there, watching the turtle races, hunting for golf balls, eating at Piggys, Terra Cottage and Hog Heaven and sitting in folding camp chairs in the front yards of our condos talking and talking and talking. I am SO looking forward to it again this year!! So here's the slideshow of our first-ever trip:

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