WW: Hail Damage {Linky}

I just got done getting an upcycled nose: Deviated Septum fixed and Polyps removed. Then it happened! Lots of baseball sized hail! The biggest I've ever seen!

Boy were we hit! Our newish Subaru Outback has about $6,500 worth of damage. Our old Honda Civic has about $3,500 worth of damage. 

Rings of broken glass on the windshield:

The inspector finally gave up on counting the dings on our vehicles. :( I know it's a little hard to see with all the reflections.

My husband checked out the roof, and said it looked fine. I said, "We need to have an inspector out anyhow." We need a new roof, and all new gutters.

Thank goodness for insurance, but it still is expensive with all my medical stuff on top of it. 

What's the worst damage you've ever experienced?

What to Do on Snow Days

I took Tuesday off of work. I woke up to a white out, pink lightening, thunder, and high winds. The power kept flickering on and off. It was on just long enough to make breakfast. It went out for good around 8:30. Then it came back on in time to make lunch.

The boys kept going around turning lights on, and wondered each time why they wouldn't come on. I think we told them, "The power is off!" 10 times or more.

All morning we worked on getting the boy's Valentines together: 1 Mad Lib Valentine, 1 Mad Lib sheet, 1 heart candy, and a pencil. I'm so glad we did it with them. They really didn't know what they were doing. The Mad Lib sheets weren't easy to rip out of the pad like I was thinking they would be. Adult supervision was a good thing.

We helped them decorate their Valentine boxes as well. I've never put too much effort into Valentine boxes. For Halloween they can wear a costume two or three times, but for Valentines day it's just a 1 time thing. Mica made his box look like a typewriter, and Isaak just wrapped his in pink paper (his choice) and put hearts all over it.

Travis insisted on shoveling the driveway, but asked if the boys could shovel the walk. Isaak was so excited. He put on 3 hats, 2 pairs of socks, 2 pairs of pants, 1 sweatshirt, snow pants, a coat, and a scarf. Was it all necessary? Heck no, but it's what he wanted to do.

Isaak lasted 10 minutes. I don't know how much he really did. My guess is, not a lot. He said, "My hats kept falling off!" Mica took over.

It started to get really cold in our house around 11 AM.

Thankfully around lunch time everything came back on. 

We played games the rest of the day. Monopoly isn't my favorite game. It takes so long to play. Everyone else likes it. I happened to win. Isaak wasn't happy about that. I ended up owning most of the green and blue sections. :)

I played Rummikub with Isaak, and helped him to win. That's one of my favorite games! I also love Scrabble, but I'm horrible at it. What board games do you like?

BTW we didn't even end up getting that much snow. A lot of hype for not much snow. Two hours away they got pounded though. 

With the ice, snow, white out, thunder, lightening, and wind the boys ended up getting 2 days off of school. I really felt like the 2nd day was a waist, but it is what it is. 

What do you like to do on snow days? Remember we didn't have any power. Movies were pretty much out. 

Last Night This Happened...

I was at work and I could hear the weather radio beeping in my boss' office. Sure enough we were going to get hammered with a storm.

I think everyone in the word has experienced some crazy weather in the last 3 years. The last 2 years we've been in a drought, and the year before that we had major flooding going on. I'm not sure what this year will be like.

Not very many people around here take storms too seriously. Many go buy beer, and sit outside to watch.

Daddy called me at work 10 minutes before I was to leave, "Do you realize employers are letting their workers off early to escape the storm?" I said, "Well 10 minutes isn't going to change too much. I don't want to leave right now. It's raining hard anyhow."

I left at 5. I was driving into the storm, but there wasn't much I could do about it. If I were to have left early I would have gotten pounded by rain, and if I were to have waited I would have gotten pounded by rain. It was a windy drive home! Traffic was light. My husband must of been right about employers letting their employees off early.

I came home to this:

At least they were practicing being safe. If we were to have needed to go somewhere I think they would have needed life jackets over helmets.

This is what some of Omaha, Council Bluffs, and Blair looked like:

 That's our airport. They had to cancel all flights last night.

 That's hail folks!

A car lot has an estimate of $15 million worth of damages!

All photos gotten from the KETV news website.

We didn't get hail by our house, but many others did. 

• Hail smashed my co-workers window in his jeep. 


• Our home didn't have any water problems, but many did. 


• The town over from us is declared an emergency zone by their governor. 


• A car lot had damage on every single car on their lot. I was surprised when the news interviewed him, and he was so calm. Then I chuckled this morning when the same car lot had a commercial on TV this morning. No one is going to be buying cars from them for a little while. 


• Firefighters had to rescue people out of their homes by boat. The water was too shallow for the boats motors to turn on, but too deep to walk in safely. A 18 month old was shown crying in one of the boats. How scary!


• Power was and is still out in many homes. 


• Trees are down in many areas. 


• Creeks looked like thin rivers.

While I'm glad nothing happened to me, or my family (which most of them even aunts and uncles live here), I'm sad for others that have water damage, and can't get in their homes safely.

4 things are for sure:

• Roof and siding companies will be busy.
• Tree removal services will be called.
• Insurance companies will be swamped. 
• Car places that were out of the storms way will be getting a lot of business.

Where's Ally?

At the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago we saw Tornado Alley in their Omnimax theater. We couldn't take any photos. I did however take a photo of a faux tornado they have in the museum.

Mica (age 6) was in awww over the movie! He plays being a tornado with his friends. Whomever is the tornado is the, "Bad Guy". The "Bad Guy" spins around in circles and moves towards the other children. The others have to run into their shelter, which is under their wooden play area.

In the movie they kept talking about trying to find tornado alley. Isaak (age 4) kept leaning into me and asking, "Where's Ally Mommy?" I had to laugh. Trying to explain that one to a 4 year old isn't so easy. Especially considering that we had to be quiet!

Then in the movie they talked about the "Eye of the storm." Isaak again leaned into me with his little voice and said, "Mommy where's the storm's nose and mouth?"

I'm going to be so sad when my boys stop saying funny things to amuse me. It's really funny when they are so serious and don't realize they are being so funny!

Here's a video of the boys playing in the eye of the faux storm. *Please note: Don't try this at home. Playing in the eye of a storm is deadly.

Raindrops on Roses

A lot of people are freaking out in Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri because of the nasty storms.

Right now it's raining, thundering a hailing outside my window.

Mica's been asking about tornado's off and on all day. He and Isaak play tornado's. They swirl around, chase each other and scream, "You're the tornado!" The tornado is always the "BAD" guy.

Since the weather is supposed to get bad, we went out and about this morning. I had Gymbucks at Gymboree, so I got a few shirts on sale there.

Then we went to Hobby Lobby. I love that they have coupons just about every week for 40% off one single item. I got some Velcro to make some of these:

 

Source

If I can get it to work, I'll blog my steps.

Right now we're watching the original Karate Kid. Do you like the older Karate Kid or the newer one better? I like both.

Oh I'm going to start doing what I call Sing, Sing a Song Saturday.  I'm going to post one song on Saturdays that I or the boys like. I'll see how long I can keep it up.

Today

Today is my birthday = I made Lemon Cakesters for work. Too bad Cars 2 isn't out yet. I think I'd want to go to that. Fact, I don't feel any older or younger!
Today is the first day of summer = Happy First Day of Summer to you! Fact, this day sometimes falls on Father's Day.
Today is Aunt Terra's due date = Waiting!!!!!!! I want to know what we're up against with this sweet baby that has Trisomy 18. I wanted Emerson to be born on my birthday. Every life is precious! I was hoping last night's thunderstorms would have made her contractions stronger. Fact, I came up with his sweet name!
Today I listened to the boy's laugh again over the word "Honolulu" = laughter from me too. Aunt Terra gave us nephew Evan's defective Melissa and Doug USA puzzle. It has two Wyoming's and no Colorado. They sent Evan a new puzzle. Melissa and Doug is such a great company! Since we gave him the defective puzzle, Terra gave it to us. ;) It still works. It says the state and capitol when you put the piece in. The boy's continually put in the Hawaii piece to hear the word, "Honolulu." They laugh every time! Then they say, "Honolulu!" Even I have started to laugh inside about this word that they think is so funny! Fact, Mica knows more geography then I do!
This morning is grey = allergies that are sucky! last night it stormed. The sirens went off; we went downstairs. Fact, Mica freaked out! I've never seen the boy so nervous! He was all concerned about his stuffed animals. He clutched onto to his stuffed rabbit he got from preschool at Easter time. Poor rabbit, Mommy put him in the washer; his long fur changed into short wool. His fur is more like a lamb then a rabbit. Mica has hardly ever shown much love for his furry stuffed creatures. He was worried he'd come upstairs and his room would be gone. I kept reassuring him that the storm was no big deal. Another Fact, this made our flooding problem worse in Nebraska! I'm sure in other states too.