lightning strike, kezia peek-a-boo & big laughs

 5/29- A little evening wrestling...

Then came the rain!!!

 There is typically a little waterway in this field... mostly grass... occasionally a trickle of water if we get a good rain.

Video of the rapids

 This is the tiny creek that is often dry in the summer.  Unreal.

video of the noise

This storm was wild. We got tons of rain in a very short time... maybe 5 inches or so this evening? And there was tons of lightning.  TONS.  And... our house got struck!!  It was the wildest thing ever.

We were all in the living room getting kids changed and ready for bed when a giant BANG sounded, our house shook, the smoke detectors started beeping, lights flashed, and I heard a bzzzzzz of electricity roll through the house.  As Boaz would say, "Our house got shocked by lightning--- and then my mom freaked out."  :)   It's true... I freaked a tiny bit.  Mostly I didn't know what to do!  My natural instinct was to grab all the kids and get to the basement.  That may not have been the best plan not knowing if our house was on fire!!

I sent Luke down to the breaker box right away and nothing was smoldering there.  We quickly discovered that quite a few of our electronics were fried--- TVs, speakers, amps, receivers, DVRs, garage door, etc.   It will cost us a bit to get all of those things replaced, but we sure are fortunate that things weren't worse!!  Praising God for His hand of protection tonight!!!   A neighbor across the street was watching out his front window when it struck.  He thinks he saw it hit a pipe on the side of our house, then it shot over toward the neighbor's house and blew a few of their breakers, too!  Shawn called seconds later to make sure we were all okay.  Our other neighbor saw it and yelled to her husband that he needed to run over and see if we were alright.  We are fine... and I love my neighbors!!

 5/30-  Kezia pulled apart a toy basket today and used the bottom to play peek-a-boo.

Kezia peek-a-boo laugh

Check out those front teeth coming in!!

Cainan being sneaky about something.

Myka in her new Iowa cheerleader gear.

Tonight Cainan was having a tough tough time getting to bed.  He was crying and crying... and I decided that instead of punishing for once, that maybe the kid needed some one-on-one time.  We brought him out to sit with Dad and it was exactly what he needed.  They snuggled and looked at Sports Illustrated for awhile.

They chatted about race cars, baseball, etc.  It was a sweet moment.  Reminded me that sometimes you just have to buck the system.  We could have punished, administered consequences, etc four hours.  Instead- he chatted with his Dad for awhile and walked right back to bed 20 minutes later.

 6/1-Luke sent the kids down to help pick up storm debris this afternoon.  The water washed all kinds of stuff into our yard.

Tonight Kezia was laughing so hard in the car.  These boys are sure entertaining.  So glad I had the camera in my purse to capture this...

 6/2-  Dad had to count at church today and we decided to stay home for the morning.  We had a leisurely morning and made some fruit parfaits for snack.  They had fun layering their berries and yogurt.

"Soooop.  Soooop."  (scoop)

Myka's facial expressions crack me up.

This guy was tired tonight.  I'm not sure how Cainan ended up on the floor, but he was sure sound asleep when I went in to check on the boys before I went to bed.