Thankful for about 15 feet!!

To make a LONG story short, our next door neighbor's house (just 15 feet from ours) was struck with lightning yesterday. It sounded like the loudest gunshot I have ever heard, and knocked poor little Gaven straight down to the ground. At first I didn't see or discover any damage, but slowly and surely we are discovering some strange things around here. Okay, there's really only one "strange" thing, the others are just results of a massive bolt of lightning hitting a house and working it's way into the ground, busting a hole in the concrete of a garage and busting the main water line. The first thing we noticed was that the TV was no longer receiving it's satellite signal. The computer was not responding to the Internet and a few clocks were flashing.

Later that night, Jason and I were headed to bed and set our clocks (I remember it was 10:43pm). It must have been a few hours later when I heard this awful beeping sound followed by what to me sounded like someone outside our front door on a megaphone. In my tired stupor, as I was waking, my mind let me believe that the fire department was outside my front door hollering something at us into a megaphone and we needed to EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY!! Jason hopped up and said, "Oops, I forgot to leave the 'code pager' at work." Now if any of you have husbands in the same sort of field, ask them about the code pager and have them tell you what it would do to YOU going off at 1:00 in the morning. It turns out, the thing doesn't turn off, so I made him put it in the car in the garage!! The reason I mention this is really not just because it's funny, but because it was then that I rolled over and noticed that my clock still said 10:43pm. Hmmmmmm... must need to be unplugged and set again or something, the lightning must have affected it. Turns out, you can unplug it, reset it to any time you want, and it will stay that time FOREVER!! Cool, huh! I've always wanted to hop in the shower at 7:30am, stay for about 15 minutes, hop out and still have it be 7:30am!!

In working with my Dad, we finally figured out the problem with the Internet. The current must have come in through the phone line, fried our modem AND the Ethernet card. We're obviously up and running in that department, THANKS DAD!

My Mom asked me tonight if we've checked all the important things to see if they're still working... as if there's anything more important than the TV and computer, right? Oh ya, the sprinkler system. Jason went out to check it, and NOTHIN'! It fried that, too.

Now that I've made my initial short story long... I'll tell you a little more. I've never been one to be scared by the elements. But I'll tell ya, the lightning and thunder storm that was going on around us yesterday morning had me a little worried! It was constant lightning and constant thunder with only little tiny breaks of silence. It really all started with the loudest boom I have ever heard. I picked up Gaven since he was crying, comforted Carsen since he was also a little scared and wondered if I go outside to see the damage it had caused our roof. I was afraid of a fire breaking out, so I left the boys inside for a minute while I stepped outside. My neighbors had all come out, too, with the same concerns. It was then that I looked over next door and told my sweet neighbor, pointing to her roof, "I think it hit your HOUSE!!" I would have snuck a few pictures today, but they have some tarps covering it now. I came back inside and without Internet, I couldn't look up any safety precautions, so of course, I called my Mom. She gave us some tips and we were fine.

All being said and done, I feel bad for our neighbors, but I'm grateful that we were spared! Now what do I do with all this time on my hands... it's currently still 7:26pm... if only!!