{ pickin' up sticks. again. }

A few weeks ago my brother Josh made the comment that he was really getting tired of coming to my  blog in hopes of a new post and instead seeing the same post about our family picking up sticks. The sticks that we picked up for weeks after a huge tree was taken down in our yard. I promised him once I got home from vacation I would start posting again.

I did manage to get in a short single post while I was in Canada but after coming home I started downloaded and edited pictures of our vacation Sunday night in hopes of posting them Monday morning.

Instead I was awaken at 5:00am Monday morning to a thunder storm. One of my favorite things ever is to sleep in a rain storm however this one was producing quite a bit of thunder and lightening so I got up to unplug my laptop and close the curtains in our bedroom in hopes of getting a few more hours of sleep. Less than 10 minutes passed when I hear and felt something {which I assumed was a branch off one of the big pine trees on the side of our house.} A few minutes later Tim and I sat straight up in bed after we felt something hit the corner of our garage which is attached to our bedroom.

After a quick look out our bedroom window we see the entire top of a pine tree laying across the driveway. We quickly woke up the girls and took them into our basement. On the way, a glance out the sliding glass door that leads out to the deck in the backyard shows us the door is blocked by another big tree. Once we were in the basement we felt a breeze and saw the downstairs door wide open covering the floor with rain and leaves.

After an hour in the  early morning sitting under our stairs waiting for the storm to pass,  we make our way back up and see what looks like a war zone. There were trees down everywhere.

We had healthy tress uprooted, trees cut in half and branches, lots and lots of branches covering the yard.





The big pine tree blocking both our vehicles in the garage.





Unfortunately the rest of the pine tree landed on our garage causing quite a bit of damage.







The girls were a little shocked to see a tree in the garage. {excuse the bed head :) }




The swingset, the pool and the trampoline all took a hit....literally and are beyond repair. Our patio set and BBQ grill will also need replaced as well.







After listening to the weather channel we find out all this damage was caused by straight line winds that were 80-110 miles an hour.  The winds traveled hundreds of miles and flattened thousands of acres of corn.





And while we have lots and lots of clean up ahead of us we are so fortunate. My hometown of Vinton {10 miles away} was the worst damaged area in this storm. 75% off the huge old trees in town are gone. Every road we drove on was covered in trees and down power lines. My sister's roof was literally blown off her house with her family still inside. My parents had two windows blow out of their vehicles. I don't think there is a house in town that doesn't have tree damage of some kind. To make matters worse the town is without power and the temps are in the high 80's low 90's with super high humidity.

We are so thankful we didn't lose power and that the damage we have will be easily repaired.It is going to be hard work but we can clean up trees, fix the broken areas, replace broken toys, and plant new flowers. While it is overwhelming we are just so thankful all the things that need attention can be fixed. Our family is safe. We still have a roof over our heads {literally} and no one was injured.

Even though it looks like I'll be picking up sticks for a while longer.

Sorry Josh.

{I originally started this post earlier this week. For the last 5 days I have done more yard work than I ever dreamed possible. The temps and humidity have been super high. I am so sore I have a hard time sitting down or getting back up. The pictures I posted don't even come close to doing justice to what the yard really looked like. As I continue picking up  I can't help but stand in awe at the power of God. He created all this damage and I imagine it's only 1% of what He could do. God is SO much more powerful than we could ever dream.}